ABSTRACT
Nearly a month elapsed between the arrivals of convoys PQ 16 and QP 12 at the end of May and the sajling of the next pair of convoys. This was owing to the necessity of calling on the Home Fleet to contribute forces to an operation for the supply of Malta,· which left insufficient destroyef'3 for running the convoys to North Russia. When these were resumed. the story of Convoys PQ 17 and QP 13 was one of unrelieved gloom. PQ 17's losses amounted to a major disaster. Out of the 33 merchant ships that cleared Iceland only J I completed their voyage; 66 per cent succumbed to the German Air Force and submarines. QP 13 was not molested by the enemy. but, as thougb some malign fatc was brooding over these operations, lost five ships in an Allied minefield oft Iceland.
