Arctic Convoys, the cost to the German Navy

[redcoat]

The members of the Royal Navy and the Allied Merchant navies who took part in the Arctic Convoys during WW2 are rightly held in high regard for their bravery and the price they paid to supply vital war materials to our Soviet Allies, in total 18 warships and 85 merchant ships were lost with 1,944 naval personnel and 829 merchant seamen killed.
However what is often not realised is that in personnel terms the Germany navy lost a significantly higher number of men in this campaign, losing a battleship, 3 destroyers, a minelayer and 31 submarines (mainly with all hands) with a minimum of 4,213 men killed.

This figure doesn't include the Luftwaffe losses on the convoys and the sinking of the Tirpitz in Norway.

German Naval Losses in more detail.

Losses in brackets;
Scharnhorst (1,932}
Freidrich Eckholdt (315)
Z26 (240)
Bremse (160)
Ulm (114)

U-88 (46) U-277 (50) U-286 (51) U-307 (37) U-314 (49)U-344 (50)U-347 (49)U-354 (51) U-355 (52) U-360 (51) U-361 (52) U-365 (50) U-366 (50) U-387 (51) U-394 (50) U-425 (52) U-457 (45) U-472 (23) U-585 (44) U-589 (44) U-601 (51) U-644 (45) U-655 (45) U-674 (49) U-713 (50) U-742 (52) U-921 (51) U-959 (53) U-961 (49) U-973 (51)

[Pips]

Good post. The Artic Convoys are often protrayed as 'one-sided' battles with the Allies suffering heavy losses. Your post corrects that perception with clarity.

[Felix C]

Bremse sunk defending a German convoy not attacking an Allied one. If that one is mentioned then the other German nval losses on their own Norwegian convoys would also be?

I recall Hal Lawrence in A Bloody War mentions later serving in the larger DDs(Tribals?) where his ship in the company of others destroyed a German convoy in a night action later in the war. Then there are the airstrikes from Banff + Allied submarines.

[Polar bear]

hi,

Felix is right, "Bremse" doesn´t belong in this list.

Missing in the list: Z 7 "Hermann Schoemann" (8 dead), lost in action against PQ.15 on May 2, 1942.

greetings, the pb