Arctic Convoys: Bletchley Park and the War for the Seas

Written by David Kenyon

Narrated by Mike Cooper

An incisive account of the Arctic convoys, and the essential role Bletchley Park and Special Intelligence played in Allied success

Between 1941 and 1945, more than eight hundred shiploads of supplies were delivered to the Soviet Union protected by allied naval forces. Each journey was a battle against the elements, with turbulent seas, extreme cold, and the constant dread of torpedoes. These Arctic convoys have been mythologized as defenseless vessels at the mercy of deadly U-boats-but was this really the case?

David Kenyon explores the story of the war in the Arctic, revealing that the contest was more evenly balanced that previously thought. Battles included major ship engagements, aircraft carriers, and combat between surface ships. Amid this wide range of forces, Bletchley Park's Naval Section played a decisive role in Arctic operations, with both sides relying heavily on Signals Intelligence to intercept and break each other's codes. Kenyon presents a vivid picture of the Arctic theater of war, unearthing the full-scale campaign for naval supremacy in northern waters.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Nov 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9798350896527

Reviews for Arctic Convoys

[kamakirinoko · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I had been waiting for precisely such a book to come out for so long, I was delighted to finally find this one. Great! thought I—this is gonna be good. Finally, a complete treatment of the disaster of PQ-17.

However, despite breathlessly waiting for *the* chapter to appear—the one where he tells the horror of the survivors as they floated in oil-soaked, near-zero waters, was not to be.

Instead, this book is only marginally more interesting than the railway timetable I looked at recently, that details the line from Horsham to Bognor Regis.

Yes, every single stop, with the times the train arrives at each station and the conductor's name and the make and model of the carriages. Except most of "Convoys" is riddled with acronyms, with passages like "Unfortunately, OIC had not received the German WT or RT until 12:16 pm on the 29th of December, which meant that GC&CS was unable to decode the Dockyard cipher until the next day, December 30th, resulting in the HF-DF failure of Hut 8 and the cipher room."

Except the fictional passage I just wrote makes the heart *pound* in comparison with 95% of the sentences in this book.

Only for the most *extremely* devoted "code-geek" tin-soldier tabletop gaming crowd—as for me, I gladly consign this lumbering tub to the Deep.