For the veterans of the notorious Arctic convoys during the second World War, recognition is a long time coming, writes Jamie Smyth
Thomas Jess still remembers the screams of his comrades as they jumped from the deck of their burning ship into the icy seas of the Arctic. A gunner on the HMS Lapwing, he was blown 10 yards across the deck when a torpedo struck the Royal Navy destroyer on a bitterly cold morning 60 years ago in the final few months of the second World War.
"The explosion just lifted me off my feet, skinning all my knuckles," says Jess, one of several sailors from Northern Ireland on board the Lapwing. "But I was lucky as I always wore my lifebelt, which was my best friend at sea. Other fellows were more careless. There was one poor man who tried to make his way below for his lifebelt but he never got back up on deck."
Official records show 158 sailors died on March 20th, 1945, on board the HMS Lapwing, which was just a day's sail from the Russian port of Murmansk when it was torpedoed without warning by the German submarine U-968.
Jess, who now lives in Lisburn, was 22 years old at the time and already a veteran of the D-Day landings. He was one of only 61 survivors. After the torpedo ripped through the ship's hull, he stayed at his post until the abandon ship order was given. Then he jumped into the freezing sea and was lucky enough to be pulled onto a raft that had been thrown overboard by the crew.
"There were about 16 of us on the raft when we set off and then one by one they fell off in the cold. I fell unconscious while we drifted for at least two hours.
"There were just six of us pulled onboard HMS Savage when we were rescued . . . And one of them died on the deck of HMS Savage. I'll always remember that man," says Jess, who still finds it upsetting to talk about the attack in which he lost so many of his comrades.
Two merchant ships were also sunk that day on convoy JW65, which sailed out of Greenock in Scotland bound for Archangel almost 2,000 miles away above the Arctic circle. But these losses were light when compared with the fate of some other Arctic convoys. On one early voyage only 11 of the 36 ships that set off returned, and in total more than 100 ships were lost during the full Arctic campaign, which began when Hitler's Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, a surprise attack against the Soviet Union in 1941. For almost four years sailors from Britain, Ireland and other Allied nations ran a gauntlet of enemy aircraft, destroyers and U-boat attacks designed to choke off a supply line that enabled the Red Army to continue its fight against the Nazis. Almost 3,000 men were lost in the Arctic convoys, which were described as "the worst journey in the world" by British prime minister Winston Churchill.
"To put it bluntly the Artic convoys were hell on water," says Donald MacKinnon, a fellow HMS Lapwing survivor from Lewis, Scotland, who shared the same life raft as Jess. "The bitterly cold weather alone was enough to make ships capsize because ice froze the rigging on the ships. This ice had to be constantly chipped off by the men in horrendous conditions. The severe cold caused many of us problems with our eyes and our only solace was a tot of rum to keep us warm," says MacKinnon, who phones Jess on the anniversary of the sinking of HMS Lapwing every year.
The 60th anniversary tomorrow will have extra resonance for both men given the British Government's refusal last week to award a medal to the men who sailed in the Arctic convoys. Following an eight-year campaign by Arctic convoy veterans, the British Ministry of Defence (MOD) last week said it planned to honour the men who took part in the Arctic convoys with an emblem (a type of badge) rather than a full medal. By convention no new medals can be issued five years after a military campaign, according to the MOD.
However, veteran campaigners believe the high casualty rate - about 7 per cent of ships in the Arctic convoys were lost compared to less than 1 per cent on the Atlantic convoys - and the atrocious weather conditions should merit proper recognition.
"It is unfortunate and shameful that the Ministry of Defence does not want to recognise us at all," says MacKinnon. "It is a scandal." MacKinnon and many other veteran campaigners believe the beginning of the Cold War meant the Arctic convoys were quickly forgotten in the aftermath of the second World War. It was simply not politic to commemorate help given to the Soviet Union during the war, the campaigners argue.
Ironically, though, allied veterans of the Arctic campaigns were awarded a medal by the Soviet Union in the late 1980s. Jess and MacKinnon were both awarded the Russian Convoy Medal, but only after 1994 were they allowed to wear the medal at official MOD commemorations, when the queen sanctioned this in light of better relations between Russia and Britain after the Cold War.
Lord Gerry Fitt, a prominent veteran of the Arctic convoys from Northern Ireland, is a firm supporter of the veterans' campaign, which last year submitted a petition of 44,000 names to Downing Street and has garnered the support of 428 members of parliament.
"I was a stoker in the engine rooms of an oil tanker on the Arctic convoys. We used to pray for bad weather to keep the German aircraft and submarines away from us," says Fitt, who saw several ships sunk during his time as a merchant sailor on the Arctic run. "I myself am not bothered about medals but for those men that do want official acknowledgment of their time on the convoys it should be provided."
Historians estimate that up to 95,000 people took part in the Arctic convoys transporting millions of tonnes of military equipment and raw materials to the Soviet Union. Many of these men came from Northern Ireland, which had well-established links with the Scottish shipping industry, but there were also men from the Republic on the convoys.
Edward Sheridan, a radio operator on board HMS Lapwing from Castlepollard in Co Westmeath, was one of just two crew members on the ship who was posthumously honoured with a mention in dispatches. "He stayed at the radio all the time as the ship sank, trying to raise the alarm," says his nephew, John Kirke, a lieutenant-colonel in the Irish Air Corps who is researching his uncle's wartime record. "The Arctic convoys were one of the most dangerous from a military perspective given that the Germans knew exactly where the ships would be," says Kirke, who believes the MOD should issue a medal to the veterans in the lead-up to the 60th anniversary of the end of the second World War next July.
Until then, the few remaining survivors of the Arctic convoys will have to make do with an emblem and their medal from the Soviet Union.
In the lead-up to the official 60th Anniversary of the second World War in the summer The Irish Times will be collecting and publishing similar stories on Irish involvement. If you or a relative has a second World War story to tell, e-mail it to jsmyth@irish-times.ie, with a contact telephone number