Convoy PQ17 Tonight on BBC2

[daveindales]

Jeremy Clarkson presents this program about the devastating attack on convoy PQ17, as it sailed from Iceland to Murmansk (Russia)

 

Will definitely be watching.

[dan494]

Just saw this and set it to record. His historical stuff is always interesting

[wrsni]

Excellent show, like Clarkson or loathe him he's a bloody good TV presenter.

 

Clarkson could probably do more to educate people about WW2 in a few documentaries than Dan Snow or Andrew Marr would achieve in a decade!

[IanW]

was really interesting, I like clarkson and read his books, he's a really clever man, has some very valid opinions and isn't afraid to speak his mind!

[Pinkfoot]

"The Kola Run" is an old book all about these convoys and the terrible time these very brave people went through.

[Stephen Blair]

I watched that last night, those poor guys!

[dexta]

Very good program, and the poor devils when there ship went down they stopped getting paid, not that they got a lot £10.00 a month

[daveindales]

A terrible misjudgment by the admiralty. Left to their fate with no one to protect them.

[daveindales]

PQ17 was probably the most infamous RN cockup of the war. However, there were others. For example, the sinking in the English Channel of HMS Charybdis and HMS Limbourne in 1943. The loss of these ships was, I believe the largest British loss of life in The English Channel during the war. The sinkings were apparently used by the RN for years after as an example of how not to do things. Around 500 men were killed.

[Treewolf]

An excellent and deeply moving program! Clarkson really does these well.

 

There was quite a lot of background that wasn't in the program, though. One point that wasn't made (or if it was I missed it) is that in July at those latitudes there is no darkness to aid concealment.

 

Also not mentioned was the fact that right from the start PQ17 was planned as bait to lure the Tirpitz out of hiding, and details of the convoy were intentionally leaked via a double agent to the Germans. The convoy was initially protected not only by a cruiser force but at a greater range by Admiral Tovey's Home Fleet , complete with some very capable capital ships.

 

In the event as the program showed the Admiralty managed to turn the convoy into one of our most shameful naval disasters of all time, at great expense in terms of men and tonnage.

 

I think that most of us today can have no clue of just how awful it must have been to man the arctic convoys, and it is shameful that it took so long to recognise the supreme bravery and sacrifice that these men - ordinary men of extraordinary courage - made for our freedom. We need people like Clarkson to remind us just how much we owe them.