Maritime History

Convoy PQ 6

Convoy PQ 6 (8−20/23 December 1941) was the seventh of the Arctic convoys of World War II by which the Western Allies supplied military equipment, weapons and raw materials to the Soviet Union after the German invasion on 22 June 1941. The convoy sailed from Hvalfjörður on the western coast of Iceland, on 8 December 1941. After a storm early in the voyage there were several calm days but the temperature plunged and the crews of all ships had to work hard removing ice from their ships' superstructures. As the convoy approached the entrance to the White Sea, the Eastern local escort, of two British minesweepers, encountered four German destroyers out minelaying. One of the minesweepers was damaged; a cruiser with two Soviet destroyers put to sea from Murmansk but the German destroyers escaped. Most of the convoy arrived at Molotovsk on 23 December but two ships made port at Murmansk on 20 December after the ships and Soviet Hurricanes chased off two Luftwaffe bombers that had attacked the freighter Dekabrist. The ships at Molotovsk were iced in for the winter in very difficult circumstances.

Also on this shelf

See also

• ▸HMS Resolute (1850)
• ▸Leopoldo Presas
• ▸Crowther Masonic Hall

Uncatalogued shelf

Text from Wikipedia; plate via Wikimedia Commons. Text CC BY-SA 4.0; plate freely licensed (see Commons). Source record. Images and catalogue data are reproduced from open-access collections.