Dog Watches, Destruction, and an Enamel Cup

By VALENTIN VALENTINOVICH DREMLIUG

Editor’s note: The following is an eyewitness account written by a crewman of the Russian hydrographic ship Murmanez that rescued survivors of the ill-fated WWII Convoy PQ-17, which was attacked in force by German submarines and aircraft in the summer of 1942.

Among the various naval relics on my shelf is a small enamel cup—a gift from a boatswain on the American vessel Olopana—that brings back memories of those difficult days of 1942. It was a very hard time.

Through the North Atlantic and the Norwegian and Barents Seas, Allied convoys (labeled PQ on their eastbound voyages) delivered weapons and strategic materials to the Russian ports of Arkhangelsk and Murmansk. In the summer of 1942, German U-boats were active, not only along the usual North Atlantic convoy routes, but also in the southeastern part of the Barents Sea near the island group known as Novaya Zemlya—a two-island sausage-shaped group that separates the Barents Sea from the Kara Sea.

On 2 July 1942 the Soviet Union’s hydrographic vessel Murmanez set out to sea from Arkhangelsk on Ice Patrol 18. The small wooden motor vessel—slightly more than 30 meters long and displacing only 200 tons (GRT)—was propelled by a 160-horsepower engine and operated by a normal complement of 24 officers and men, plus four scientists. She mounted two large-caliber machine guns on deck. Her crew was armed with carbines.

The Ice Patrol vessels were charged with responsibility for both combat and transport operations in the Barents and Kara Seas. The Murmanez crew included a five-man research and operations group, including myself, a 24-year-old hydrographer-navigator who only a few months before had graduated from the Hydrographic Institute.

I was assigned to the Murmanez as chief engineer lieutenant; Ice Patrol 18 was to be my first Arctic cruise, but the most memorable of many.

Our master was a well-known polar sea captain, Capt. Peter Kotzov. Before we set out to sea, Kotzov had familiarized himself with the operational situation in the area. The rest of us, however, in accordance with wartime security regulations, learned about the complicated and dangerous tactical situation only during the course of the voyage.

Pursuant to Fleet Staff instructions, the Murmanez was heading for the west side of the Novaya Zemlya Islands. Life on board was fairly normal, and somewhat monotonous, as the crew rotated watches. My usual watches were the four-hour watches that ran from 0001 to 0400 and from 1200 to 1600.

The DonBas and Daniel Morgan

As she was heading out of the White Sea, Murmanez received a radiogram from the tanker DonBas informing us about the destruction of the ships of convoy PQ-17 by German submarines and torpedo-bombers. As it turned out, Murmanez proved to be the Russian vessel able to give the first and most important help to the survivors of PQ-17.

In a few days we hailed the nearly swamped DonBas. We were told that the tanker had been part of convoy PQ-17, which had been fiercely attacked by the U-boats and torpedo-bombers. Despite the tanker’s very seriously damaged condition, the crew of the DonBas rejected our offers of help and continued on her way to Arkhangelsk; we later learned that the DonBas had been the target of 13 attacks by U-boats and aircraft, during which she succeeded in shooting down two enemy aircraft. The DonBas also had rescued 51 survivors of the American transport ship Daniel Morgan.

As the DonBas departed, the Murmanez continued on her assigned mission. On 13 July, while off Gusinaya Island (south of the Novaya Zemlya Islands), we noticed a number of people on shore who were trying to get our attention with smoke and flag signals. Capt. Kotzov ordered a small boat put over. As the boat approached the shore, its crew—well armed with carbines—was prepared for anything. The two machine guns on the Murmanez also were aimed at the people on shore.

Our hails to them in Russian brought no response, but when we tried English we were told that they were the surviving crew members of the SS Olopana (one of the PQ-17 ships), which had been torpedoed and sunk by a U-boat about 15 miles from Novaya Zemlya. After almost two weeks adrift in a lifeboat, the survivors—12 in all—had finally come ashore at Gusinaya Island. The Americans told us a harrowing tale of relentless and sometimes simultaneous attacks by both U-boats and aircraft.

On 16 July we transferred the Olopana survivors to the settlement at Belushaya Bay. An interesting footnote to the Olopana rescue is the gift to me, mentioned earlier, by the boatswain of the Olopana. As he was taken aboard the Murmanez, the boatswain still had with him the small tin cup with which each lifeboat was equipped for measuring out the daily rations of fresh water. He had carried it with him throughout his ordeal. He gave it to me as a token of gratitude—and at the same time suggested that we ought to start a game of "craps." It would have been interesting to learn this favorite game of American seamen, but we were then too occupied, unfortunately, with the rescue work. The cup, however, has been a treasured part of my household ever since.

Flotsam and Frozen Bodies

By 17 July we had seven lifeboats in tow, on which were about 100 American and British survivors from various ships. We towed the boats to the Gulf of Molier, where we transferred all of the survivors to the British transport Empire Tide.

When we informed the Northern Fleet Staff and the administration headquarters of the Northern Sea Route about the incidents, we were instructed to continue searching for PQ-17 survivors in the region of Maliye Karmakuly.

Conditions in this area were very serious. Wreckage and flotsam were everywhere, and oil slicks were extremely heavy. All of this interfered with our rescue attempts. Nevertheless, we were able to take aboard men from lifeboats, life rafts, and even many who were just floating in the water. Most of the seamen we rescued were suffering from frostbite. The prevailing temperature, both in the air and in the water, was between 3 and 5 degrees Centigrade. Unfortunately, most of those who had been in the water, and not in a lifeboat or life raft, were already dead.

Between 13 and 17 July we were able to take aboard more than 100 seamen—survivors of the Alcoa Ranger, Washington, Hartlebury, and Paulus Potter—in addition to the 12 crewmen from the Olopana. Our poor vessel was filled to overflowing. All of the cabins, the orlop deck, the wardroom, the dining room, and even the radio room and the wheelhouse, were crowded to the bursting point. The huge soup kettles in the galley were kept busy turning out hot tea and coffee around the clock. We had no doctor on board, but our crew did what it could to provide some medical help.

I especially remember my night watch in the wheelhouse on 16 July. The Murmanez was lying at anchor in Maliye Karmakuly Bay on the west side of the southernmost of the Novaya Zemlya islands. Two hydroplanes of the Russian Ice Patrol were in the roadstead. At about 0200 the second mate and I heard the sounds of heavy gunfire. We ran to the bridge and saw, through the fog, a German submarine attacking—with its deck gun—the hydroplanes and the polar station building ashore.

Capt. Kotzov immediately sized up the situation and ordered our gunners to sweep the deck of the submarine with our machine guns. Our fire was effective and in a few minutes the submarine submerged and quit the bay. We later learned from German documents that the submarine was the U-601.

A Marriage at Sea

Later, we came upon the American transport Winston Salem, which had been deliberately grounded in order to prevent her from sinking from the damage already inflicted by the U-boats. To prevent the Winston Salem from breaking up and going under, we took soundings to determine the depth of water in her vicinity, and prepared to tow her off at the next high tide.

To tow the Winston Salem we "married" our bow and stern anchors to her anchors to give us the leverage we needed to be able to tow her off at the next tide. We were assisted in this task by a Russian trawler and together were able not only to get her underway again but also, some time later, to witness the delivery of her full load of precious tanks and ammunition to the port of Arkhangelsk.

The Murmanez left Maliye Karmakuly for Matochkin Shar Strait—where, on 18 July, together with seven other ships from the PQ-17 convoy, we fought off an attack by a German torpedo boat. Upon completing our rescue mission, we sailed to the Zhelaniya Cape region where, from 22 July until 5 August, we provided oceanographic, meteorological, and ice-cover observation reports to military and convoy ships.

While on patrol again, on the morning of 19 August, we were attacked by a U-boat but escaped into the ice pack, where the U-boat dared not follow us. Later, however, we found that a few days after the attack the same U-boat had shelled the polar station on Zhelaniya Cape.

On 23 August the Naval Operations Staff warned us about the presence of a German surface raider, the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer, in the Kara Sea. It was presumed at the time that she was heading for Zhelaniya Cape, but we later learned that the Admiral Scheer had been en route to rendezvous with two submarines, U-601 and U-251. We were in the same area of water at the same time, but had the good fortune not to have encountered the battleship. Not so fortunate was the icebreaker Alexander Sibiryakov, which was sunk after a very unequal battle with the German raider.

On 27 August the Admiral Scheer approached Dickson Island and shelled both the port and the ships in port at the time. She was, however, successfully resisted by the armed icebreaker Dezhnev, which was helped by two guns on shore protecting the port. The raider was damaged in this action and retired behind a smokescreen. The port itself and the vessels in the port were undamaged. The Dezhnev, however, was sunk by counterfire from the raider.

A Costly Transmission

Meanwhile, the Murmanez continued her ice patrol mission in the central Kara Sea. On 6 September we called at the polar station at Uyedineniya Island. The station radio informed us about an unknown ship near the coast. Recognizing that this breach of radio silence might bring out a hostile ship, our captain decided not to remain at the island, so we disappeared again into the ice pack. The station itself was seriously punished for the breach of radio silence; immediately after our departure, the submarine U-251 surfaced and shelled the station.

In September the Murmanez was ordered on a reconnaissance mission to study the area where the vessel A. Sibigiakoff had been sunk. Unfortunately, we found only a few pieces of debris floating on the surface. In October the Murmanez was ordered to search another area—the one in which our transport Kuysbuishev had been torpedoed, and then to assist the stricken vessel Shoes, which had hit a German mine. It was not until very late in the autumn that the Murmanez was able to return to base at Arkhangelsk, where the crew was permitted to enjoy some respite from the incessant storms, cold, and threats of German attack.

My first Arctic cruise was over.

Epilogue: Valentin Valentinovich Dremliug spent most of the war years on similar, though not quite so dramatic, polar cruises. He was for many years thereafter a professor of hydrography and oceanography at the Makarov Institute, where he trained Russia’s merchant officers; until recently he maintained his sea time at about four months of every year. He is still an active professor and has written several monographs and books in his areas of expertise. He is also an active member of the St. Petersburg Arctic Convoy Association (eric@portpc.spb.ru)—which on Victory Day (9 May) commemorates the unsung heroes of the vital convoys to the USSR that contributed so much to the Allied victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.