With regard to leaving the convoy, I simply said that I thought the Admiralty had made a complete balzup. They knew the Tirpitz, Hipper and heavy destroyers were at sea, had lost them by reconnaissance, assumed they were about to fall upon the convoy and had ordered 'Scatter'.
The effect of this signal had been universal. There was no doubt in anyone's mind, from Admiral Hamilton downward, but that Tirpitz was just below the horizon. I finished by saying that in future we would do what we, on the spot, considered correct and now we were off to Rosyth to boiler clean and give five days' leave.
This is a personal story of what happened to me, and I have said nothing as to what happened to the convoy after the disastrous signal to scatter. In brief 23 of the 34 merchantmen were sunk by U-boats and aircraft.
There has been much criticism of this operation, particularly from America. It is to be hoped therefore that my description of what it was like to be one of the six destroyers will at least help to clarify the facts.
It is an extraordinary thing that this catastrophic error of judgement was made personally by the First Sea Lord, the Head of the Navy, Admiral Sir Dudley Pound. My personal opinion is that, if someone like Admiral Cunningham had been at the Admiralty, he would have left the people on the spot to run the operation. If not, he would have waited until the Tirpitz was reported and if she was obviously heading for and near the convoy, he would have signalled something like, 'It is at your discretion to scatter should you be attacked by enemy surface ships.'
In the event an Allied submarine trap East of Bear Island was effective only in that two of the submarines reported the German squadron. The German Admiralty however, thought Tirpitz would be attacked by our aircraft carrier and ordered her to return to Norway. But, by this time, they knew the convoy had scattered, so whether Tirpitz would have attacked if the convoy had not scattered remains the big question of the tragic story of PQ 17. I also felt that as the merchant ships were going to almost certain destruction then we should have gone back and taken the same chance and we would have got some more merchant ships to Archangel, although we would probably merely have lost the destroyers as well once the oiler was sunk. Still we would have tried.
I can never forget how they cheered us as we moved out at full speed to the attack and it has haunted me ever since that we left them to be destroyed.
I had little faith ever after in the shore staff who directed operations at sea.
- Roger Hill, Destroyer Captain, London, 1975, p.50-51.
The above narrative is from the commander of HMS Ledbury, which was part of the ill-fated Arctic convoy PQ 17 in 1942, in which 24 merchant ships were sunk and 153 merchant mariners lost their lives. In the book's foreword, Lt Cdr Roger Hill writes that he had meant to write up his commands of HMS Ledbury, Grenville and Jervis after the war but lacked the spare time, but 'In 1965 my health cracked up, and deciding the children would have a happier life in New Zealand, we emigrated. I got a job as a "seagull" which is casual labour on the wharf, loading and discharging the rather few ships which call here at Nelson'. Later after this book was published he taught navigation at Nelson Technical College, farmed outside Nelson, and served on the Nelson Harbour Board. He died in Arrowtown in 2001.
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