Forgotten Sacrifice THE ARCTIC CONVOYS OF WORLD WAR II (General Military) Hardcover

ABOUT THIS PRODUCT

In 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in the largest offensive operation ever undertaken. Operation Barbarossa saw defeat after defeat heaped on the Soviet army. With Russia's forces left staggering under the strain and in desperate need of supplies, Britain and the United States launched an ambitious operation to resupply the Soviet Union using convoys sent through the Arctic. Their journey was punctuated by torpedo attacks in freezing conditions, Stuka dive bombers, naval gun fire, and weeks of total darkness in the Arctic winter, with ships disappearing below the waves weighed down by the ice and snow on their decks.
Drawing on hundreds of oral histories from eyewitnesses and veterans of the convoys, plus original research into the Russian Navy archives at Murmansk, historian Michael G. Walling offers a fresh retelling of one of World War II's pivotal yet largely overlooked campaigns.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

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.

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