The Arctic Convoys: 1941

Yesterday evening Radio 4's news programme ran an interview with 'Edward' who took part 70 years ago in the Hell of The Arctic Convoys to Murmansk and Spitzbergen.


This is Alex McKay, who also lived through the experience of mountainous seas and of chipping ice off the superstructure of the ship (either the Berwick or the Sheffield I think) to stop the destroyer becoming top heavy! In 1941 he was 18 years old.

In the early 50s he told me stories of his trips to beautiful Norway and to Russia, showed me his gloomy but haunting black and white photographs of the convoys, explained what ffjords are and made it all sound like an adventure.

He died in 1999. He was a wonderful human being but this horrific experience was part of his adult self, as was the case for so many of his generation.