Valentin Pikul - The Requiem For Convoy PQ-17

The Requiem For Convoy PQ-17

This work by Pikul, published in 1970s, describes the history of the Arctic convoys from the official Soviet point of view.

The book starts from the brief description of the hunt for the Bismarck, which more or less corresponds to current English-language sources available.

Then, according to the book, the British Sea Lords were deadly afraid of the remaining battleship Tirpitz, which was, according to Pikul, unmatched by any British battleship.

So, when there was a threat of a Tirpitz sortie against Convoy PQ 17, the British Sea Lords ordered the naval escort of the convoy to scatter, abandoning the slower cargo ships and thus condemning many sailors from the convoy's cargo ships to death (the ships were mostly sunk by German submarines and air force).

Nevertheless, according to the book, Captain Lunin on his K-21 submarine actually scored a torpedo hit on Tirpitz, which caused the Germans to interrupt the sortie.

The book gave strong emphasis on the distinction of brave Capt. Lunin, as compared to cowardly (according to the book) First Sea Lord Dudley Pound. According to the book, the low-rank sailors on British and U.S. ships were much surprised with Pound's order, since they expected USS Washington and HMS Duke of York to be capable of quickly destroying Tirpitz.

This perfectly aligns with the following theses of the Soviet propaganda:

• Soviet warriors are the bravest
• in other nations, the low-rank people are good while the upper-rank ones are evil
• the foreign policy of the U.K. and U.S. during the war was to interrupt the convoys in order to prolong the Soviet-Nazi war so that both the USSR and the Third Reich would be weakened to the maximum degree possible.

Nevertheless, there are major doubts in the fact that K-21 actually hit Tirpitz. Most English-language sources say "K-21 missed", and the log of the battleship has no mention of such a hit.

According to Pikul, Lunin fired 4 torpedoes from the rear tubes, and then heard explosions, at least 2 of them were actually hits on Tirpitz. Nevertheless, the German commanders, Admiral Schniewind and Captain Topp, just plain concealed the hits from SS, Gestapo and the Nazi leadership, in order to avoid the possible unjust punishment for not keeping the battleship safe. According to the book, there was some tension between the German professional sailors (of which Topp was one) and the Nazi party, SS and leadership, which was also enforced by the personal hostility between the two German admirals Erich Raeder, Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy, and Karl Dönitz, commander of the German submarine fleet.

Around 2003–2004, a movie was released in Russia based on the book, which also included the Soviet idea of K-21 actually hitting Tirpitz.