Battle of the Arctic

No campaign during World War Two contained more spinetingling drama, outstanding courage and heartbreaking tragedy than the Arctic convoys. Yet they – and the multifaceted Battle of the Arctic that had to be fought to get them through to Russia – remain one of the war’s most undercelebrated feats.

As this book’s title implies, Battle of the Arctic tells a unique story. For much of the conflict was complicated by terrific storms, snow, ice, fog, whales and Arctic mirages, so that what is chronicled at times sounds like a cross between the nightmarish torment experienced by both Shackleton in his ship Endurance and Scott of the Antarctic, and an Arctic version of Robinson Crusoe.

The action unfolded as Allied naval and merchant seamen, airmen, submariners, soldiers and intelligence officers delivered on their countries’ promise to take arms to Russia notwithstanding the German attempts to hunt them in their aircraft, U-boats and surface fleet spearheaded by Tirpitz and Scharnhorst. When ships were attacked, and went down in seas so cold that a man could die after five minutes of immersion, it triggered events reminiscent of the do-or-die moments during the sinking of the Titanic. Men perished one by one in lifeboats, and as castaways on deserted Arctic islands where they were stalked by polar bears. Frostbitten and wounded survivors ended up in primitive Russian hospitals where amputations were carried out without anesthetics. Others, while stranded for months in the communist state they were aiding, experienced the murky worlds of the NKVD, and the gulag, as well as famine and prostitution.

Using new material unearthed in American, British, Russian and German archives, as well as Polish, Norwegian, French and Dutch sources, and a remarkable collection of vivid witness accounts brought together at the passing of the last survivors, Hugh Sebag-Montefiore can at last shine a revealing light on this extraordinary tale that oscillates between the sailors’ eye view on the front line, and the controversies that infuriated world leaders.

Reviews

A Waterstones Best Military History Book of 2025

'Excellent. …While the horrors of war at sea are well-known, the Allies’ ill-fated supply convoys from Iceland to Russia are an often-overlooked theater of the war. …Sebag-Montefiore …uses wartime diaries, interviews and newly available archives from Russia to focus on the officers, armed guards and the ordinary civilian seamen'

Wall Street Journal

'Sebag-Montefiore’s brilliantly researched book uncovers unheard testimonies that tell a harrowing tale of incredible endurance and heroism'

Daily Mail

'The stories of the sailors who were jammed into lifeboats, or clung to rafts, …meticulously drawn from a range of sources, …are among the most heart- rending in Sebag-Montefiore’s book'

Daily Telegraph

'Hugh Sebag-Montefiore reveals the extraordinary bravery of the seamen who risked their lives on the convoys to feed Russia…An impressive accomplishment'

The Times

'Sebag-Montefiore…has fixed his gimlet eye on…the Arctic Convoys that helped keep Russia supplied and onside…As thrillingly told as any movie'

Daily Express