Table of Contents

Acknowledgements Chapter 1: Briefing Chapter 2: Skirmishing, August 1941–March 1942 Chapter 3: Arctic Shooting Gallery, March 1942 Chapter 4: Fateful Voyages, April–June 1942 Chapter 5: White Nights, May 1942 Chapter 6: Apocalypse, June–July 1942 Chapter 7: Task Forces, July–September 1942 Chapter 8: An Autumn in Hell, September–December 1942 Chapter 9: German Götterdämmerung, December 1942–May 1945 Chapter 10: A Few Final Words Resources About the Author Index

Promotional Information

Award-winning historian Mike Walling captures the essence of the Arctic Convoys of World War II—an essence distilled from men's fear, anger, killing lust, courage, self-sacrifice, and agonizing death, mixed with bloodstained, oil-tainted water from the Arctic Sea.

About the Author

Michael G. Walling is author of several books, including Bloodstained Sea, winner of the 2005 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature. An internationally recognized World War II expert, Walling is a contributing author to the US Naval Institute's Naval History magazine and has appeared on The History Channel and PBS as an aviation and naval expert. After graduating from Montclair State College with a BA in Biology, Walling served in the US Coast Guard for six years as a commissioned officer and a senior petty officer. He has spent more than 45 years collecting stories from veterans from World War II, Korea, Viet Nam, and Iraq as well as those of pilots, merchant seamen, and civilian personnel with NATO and EUFOR in the Balkans. His research has included visits to Afghanistan; Russia; London; Sarajevo; Baska Voda, Croatia; Halifax, Nova Scotia; St John's, Newfoundland; and New Orleans.

Reviews

"This volume fills in a part of history little known to the average student of the Second World War and is important in the wider knowledge of that time." --Richard Mataka, www.mataka.org "Relying on anecdores from the written accounts of crewmen who served on board the merchantmen and their naval escorts, Walling provides readers with unforgettable snapshots of the horrendous experiences they faced during cobat in ... frigid waters." --Naval History magazine (June 2013) "If the Nazis didn't get you, the weather would in this truly hellish front: the icy U-boat and Luftwaffe-patrolled lend-lease lifeline to Russia." --Gene Santoro, World War II (November/December 2012) "...through this book I definitely had gained a renewed sense of appreciation for the thousands upon thousands of civilian seamen who had contributed to the war effort, many of whom passed into history without ever receiving their due recognition." --Peter C. Chen, World War II Database (October 2012) "...tells the complete story of the Allied forces' Arctic Convoys and the role they played in helping Russia repel the Germans. It uses literally hundreds of oral histories from eyewitnesses and veterans of the convoys plus original research in the Russian Naval archives at Murmansk to retell a campaign that has received relatively little in-depth focus in the chronicles of World War II, and is a top pick for any military history holding." --James A. Cox, The Midwest Book Review (January 2013) . . . effectively tells the story of the sailors or dared fight both man and nature. --WWII History