Battle of the Arctic: The Maritime Epic of World War Two

WINSTON CHURCHILL called it ‘the worst journey in the world’. But was even this telling quote describing the nightmarish torment experienced while transporting military aid to northern Russia during World War Two an understatement?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.Battle of the Arctic by Hugh Sebag-Montefiore the Sunday Times bestselling author is a riveting account of the expeditions and discoveries made in the Arctic during the war. This latest non-fiction work is a must-read for anyone interested in military and nautical history.For fans of Antony Beevor (Arnhem) Nick Lloyd (The Eastern Front) Julian Thompson (Imperial War Museums' Book of War Behind Enemy Lines) Peter Hart (Footsloggers) and Peter Caddick-Adams (Monte Cassino).HarperCollins 2025