Customer Reviews

Destruction of Convoy Pq-17

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David Irving's "Trail of the Fox" is the best action biography I've ever read, so when I wanted to learn more about the infamous Lend-Lease convoy PQ 17, Irving was my author of choice for source material, despite the controversy that now hangs about him as a result of his being tagged a 'holocaust denier' (a punishably crime in many European 'democracies'). I was especially intrigued that this book was banned by the British Admiralty for twenty years. Did they have a book bonfire, I wonder, or do only NSDAP students have those?

This book is a sample of Irving's early work, and is much drier and more methodical than I was hoping for. Unlike a biography, where the writer can focus on a single individual or cast of characters, a book like "Destruction" is forced to split its attention over numerous historical figures -- pilots, U-boat commanders, staff officers, ship captains -- with the result that we never really get a clear picture of any of them. Then again, the story is about the convoy, not just the people in it.

Convoy PQ 17 was a 34 ship train, with heavy naval protection, dispatched from Iceland in July of 1942 carrying hundreds of thousands of tons of American-manufactured war materials for the faltering Soviet Union. The Germans were determined to prevent it from arriving, and prepared their battleships and battle-cruisers in Norway to intercept it. The British Adminralty got wind of this, panicked, and withdrew the convoy's naval escort, ordering the convoy to scatter and make Soviet ports alone. When the Germans realized this, they threw in every aircraft and U-boat available on the now-defenceless mass of ships tacking over the Arctic Circle. What followed was the biggest single massacre
of merchant ships at sea in World War II -- twenty-two of the thirty four transports were sunk by aircraft or U-boats, hundreds of men drowned in icy waters or were captured, and more than 100,000 tons of spare parts, explosives, tanks, aircraft, fuel oil, and God alone knows what else sank to the bottom of the ocean, where it all remains to this day (and for all time). The slaughter was so severe the PQ convoy route (Iceland to Murmansk and Archangel) was suspended afterwards, the Soviets screamed bad faith, and the British Admiralty began a systematic attempt to muzzle the truth of what had happened (hence the banning of this book).

Irving recounts all the strategy, planning, accident, confusion, cowardice, and heroism in a dry, by the numbers fashion, as if reciting a list of figures. Sometimes the human moments break through, and they are moving and horrifying: men are left adrift on icy seas with only the cigarettes, congac and advice their German attackers threw them to sustain them ("Russia is 400 miles that way, start paddling"); a German pilot lands his seaplane in the path of an onrushing British destroyer under heavy fire to rescue a shot-down comrade; teenage British gunners volunteer to man their AA weapons to the last round even as their ship sinks. Unfortunately, Irving tends to go too deep into all the fruitless planning of the various Naval Staffs and leaves these human moments fewer and farther between than I wanted.

In light of the present war in Iraq, the most interesting point made by the book is how truly difficult the so-called "intelligence game" really is. British Intelligence is portrayed in books and novels as being almost Omnipotent in its genius, besting the Germans over and over again in World War II, and indeed the Brits won numerous intelligence triumphs, some of them staggering in their brilliance. But in the case of Convoy PQ 17, the Admiralty misread the facts, saw an enemy fleet where there was none (the Germans actually never committed their heavy battleships, fearing Allied aircraft carrier attack) and left a helpless convoy at the mercy of the Luftwaffe and wolf packs.

Intelligence is a brutally difficult affair, with horrendous consequences for even small mistakes, and a constant orgy of Monday-morning quaterbacking by men of self-righteous personality and cowardly character. Hack novelists often refer to it as "the great game." I doubt very much if the men who drowned in freezing water looked at it that way, and I prefer Dirty Harry Callahan's view: "Funny....I never thought of it as a game."

David Irving's The Destruction of Convoy PQ-17 is a well-researched and well-written story of one of the northern Lend-Lease convoys to Soviet Russia during World War II. Due to a series of maneuvers by the Germans, messages by the British, and mistakes, the convoy scattered and suffered very high losses to German U-boat and air attack before the survivors finally reached Soviet Russia. Irving's account of this action is one of the most readable narratives of any sea action that I have ever read.

(The author is a controversial "historian" and a Holocaust-denier. This book pre-dates his public refutation of the Holocaust. However, Irving was sued for libel and lost because of some passages in the book about Captain Broome, the commander of the destroyer escort for Convoy PQ-17. Anyone reading this book should be aware of the libel action and should also realize that the action was based on a handful of passages that were taken out of later versions of the book. There are accounts of the libel trial on the internet. I did not even find the "libelous" actions offensive.)

Irving's account of the battle is extremely well-researched. He recounts how confused and in the dark both the British and German commands were during the battle. Much of his story is based on archival research into both the British and German commands' actions and decisions, but he fleshes out the story with great narratives based on ship logs, the memoirs of many participants, and interviews with many of the survivors. The personal stories help add a human dimension to the story, as he recounts the difficulty of trying to survive at sea in the northern latitudes with German aircraft and U-Boats stalking the ships.

Irving wrote a wonderful book that tells a fascinating and harrowing story of a WWII naval action. Even if this book is read with skepticism toward Irving's handful of criticisms of Broome, his numerous criticisms of the RN, and his later controversial history (at the time of this writing, he is in prison in Austria for Holocaust denial), it is a great work. It is a shame that someone of Irving's considerable research and writing skills has wasted them for much of his career.

Other commentators have explained the basis of the book, and I agree with them. I first read this in 1968 at the age of 12, one of the first "serious" history books I have read. There are a number of photographs, and the book is heavily footnoted. I recall that I enjoyed the book and also was incredulous at the stupidity of the officers back in England over the use of the convoy as bait to try and trap the Tirpitz and the failure to protect the convoy from the U-Boats and Luftwaffe. Later on in life it was hard to compare this book with the fact that Irving seemed to deny that the holocaust took place. At the time he made these allegations there were certainly plenty of folks alive who had entered the camps as liberators. But putting that aside I thought it was a very well done book, it certainly pricked my interest into a serious study of military history. For that reason alone I like this book. 4 stars out of 5.

The book looked great. I bought it for a 94 year old man that had one, but the binding had fallen apart. He was so happy to have the book in good condition.