Battle in the Arctic Seas

It is June 27, 1942, nearly three years after the German army invaded Poland and began a war that is now being fought all over the globe. On board a battered, rusty freighter in the bleak port of Hvalfjordur, Iceland, Ensign Howard E. Carraway surveys the dozens of cargo ships anchored nearby; their decks crammed with tanks, crated aircraft, barrels of gasoline, and other implements of war. Despite the near certainty of enemy attack and the hazards of a voyage through the brutally cold waters above the Arctic Circle, these ships will sail tomorrow in an Allied convoy bound for Russia (Convoy PQ 17). For without the supplies she so desperately needs, the Soviet Union may well collapse; German soldiers are even now camped outside Moscow. Drawing on Ensign Carraway's personal diary and on documents long buried in military files, the author recreates the story of one of the most significant episodes in World War II naval history, an event that was to have far-reaching consequences, not only for the Soviet Union but for every future convoy that would sail near enemy territory. Above all, Theodore Taylor, the author, has written a vivid and compelling account of a military disaster, and of the simple courage, intelligence, and even humor with which ordinary human beings cope with the terrible perils of war. Unique B & W watercolor prints also add another dimension to this book.