ABSTRACT
The regular convoy system started again in mid-December 1~2. Very different were the conditions from those under which Convoy PQ 18 had made its cosUy passage, both as regards the world-wide outlook and the particular problems of the convoys. For the three months which had elapsed had witnessed a dramatic change in the fortunes of the war. The Battle of EI Alamcin had written fmis to Axis hopes in the Middle East, and their desert forces had been driven nearly 1,000 miles from the Egyptian frontier. To tbe west, General Eisenhower's Anglo-American forces controlled Morocco and Algeria. and were moving on eastern Tunisia. the last enemy foothold in Africa. The Russian winter offcnsive--sbortly to cubnmate in the elimination of some 330.000 men under Field·Ma.rshal von Paulus at Stalingrad-was wcll under way. In the distant Pacific. the Japanese had been decisively defeated at GuadaJcanal. and the Americans had their feet firmly on the first rung of the ladder that led to Tokyo. Though a long road yet remained to be trodden. the prospects of the Axis in December 1942 seemed as gloomy as had those of the Allies the previous April. Only in the Atlantic was the issue still in doubt. There the U-boats and Luftwaffe continued to take a terrible toll of merchant shipping-though even tbere the peak had been reached, and the Allied losses were very slowly but steadily diminishing, while those. of the U-boats were markedly increasing.
