Tornados from RAF Lossiemouth in a magnificent flypast to honour the veterans of the Arctic, or Russian, Convoys of World War II at a unique tribute held at Pool House, Loch Ewe. This remarkable photograph was captured by the studio commissioned for the occasion by Pool House, John Paul Photography (see information and gallery link at foot of this article).

The tribute event at Pool House

Pool House was the original command centre, coordinating the Russian convoys sailing from Loch Ewe. Over the years the Harrison family, who have been running it latterly as Pool House Hotel, have met many of the veterans revisiting the area or returning for the annual memorial service for those that did not return.

When the Russian Convoy Club disbanded, Capt. Neil Hulse MBE (Merchant Navy) asked one of the veterans (Jack Harrison) if he could find a suitable maritime home for it. Early this year Jack phoned Pool House to ask if the Russian Convoy bell could be permanently housed there at their former HQ.

At the same time asked whether it would be possible to have a ‘small’ presentation ceremony, suggesting the Harrison family ask the US and Norwegian military attaches to attend. Elizabeth Miles, who with her sister Mhairi Harrison-Moir, Harrison daughters, manages the hotel says: ‘In all honesty, due to our remote location we did not expect anyone to accept the invitation. Iin the event – everybody accepted as you will see from the attached list of attendees’. 2008-pool-house-russian-convoy-tribute-attendees

As well as the Tornados flying from RAF Lossiemouth, the British, French, Canadian and Norwegian navies sent ships to Loch Ewe for the tribute. These included HMS Bulwark – in the background of the photographs on the right above; and the Norwegian navy sent the submarine, pictured left above. Bulwark was fresh from the farewell ceremony to the QE2 on the Clyde. as soon as that was over she sailed immediately to join the international Exercise Joint Warrior taking place just now in Scottish waters. She was detached from the exercise to the Loch Ewe tribute, along with some other British ships, by Lieutenant Commander Will Peters RN who is in charge of the exercise.

In the group photograph, left, taken at Pool House on the day, on the front row from the left are: Reay Clarke, Jim Osler (both convoy veterans), then Russian Consul General, Vladimir Malygin, then Jock Dempster and Jimmy McHugh (both veterans) and then American veteran, Spud Campbell.

In the middle row, from left, Mhairi Harrison-Moir and Elizabeth Miles (both Pool House), then, in white, Mrs Dempster, Mrs McHugh, Chris Sparks (Spud Campbell’s grandson) and Squadron Leader Stuart Roxburgh.

In the back row, Peter Harrison, owner of Pool House, is in a dark jacket standing by the compass, just behind Mrs McHugh, wearing a grey suit. (We can not yet identify precisely others in the photograph but will update this paragraph when we can.)

A particularly inaginative feature of the event was the gathering of young people from the area, interested to meet and talk to the men whose experiences of the area were s very different from their own. Here. with the billiard table at Pool House serving as a temporary display for information on the convoys, Jock Dempster finds a respectful new audience. They too will now remember.

On the day, the weather was bright and as windy as the veterans will remember at Loch Ewe – as the photograph on the left shows, with Jock Dempster making his way to the Loch Ewe memorial, accompanied by visiting military dignitaries.

Addressing the audience at the memorial below was the Rev Derek Morrison who led the service for the veterans. We attach here the Order of Service for the event – 2008-pool-house-russian-convoy-tribute-order-of-service – again courtesy of Pool House.

On the left is Jock Dempster, Chairman of the Scottish branch of the Russian Convoy Club. He is now hatless – for obvious reasons.

On the right is the Rev Derek Morrison, mentioned above, who took the service at the memorial.

The words on the memorial are:

‘In memory of our shipmates who sailed from Loch Ewe during World War II. They lost their lives in the bitter Arctic sea battles to North Russia and never returned to this tranquil anchorage. We will always remember them.’

We will indeed.

The Veterans

Pictured together at Loch Ewe are, from left, Reay Clarke, Jimmy McHugh, Jock Dempster and Jim Osler. Thanks to Elizabeth Miles from Pool House who knows them well – except for Reay Clark who was new to her on the day but who is in her sights to get to know better, we can publish below, in her words, a little information about each of them, and about American veteran Spud Campbell. Travelling from the States with his grandson, Chris Sparks, Flybe lost Spud’s luggage which left him without his uniform.However, photographer John Paul will have been delighted to have had the splash of red in Spud’s jumper.

Reay Clarke, left, was on convoy PQ 18. This sailed from Loch Ewe on 2nd September 1942 and arrived at Archangel on 21st September.After the disaster to the previous convoy, PQ17, this one was the first convoy with aircraft carrier escort – from HMS Avenger.

Jim Osler, right, is a real life James Bond character. He was sunk on the infamous PQ17 convoy. He was held for about 3 months in Russia before being sent to England to GCHQ where his skills as a radio operator were noticed and he was recruited to MI6. He was subsequently sent to Norway where he worked with the Norwegian resistance. It was Mr. Osler who sent the distress signal from Norway to Scotland regarding 250 Norwegian civilians who were stranded in freezing conditions, cut off by the Germans. 19 of the 250 were rescued by USS Henry Bacon, Spud Campbell’s ship

Jock Dempster, left, is the chairman of the Scottish branch of the Russian Convoy Club. Jock was merchant navy and aboard a fuel tanker. They were not issued with either lifeboats or life jackets because in the event of an attack, the ship would become a fireball from which nobody could survive.

Jimmy McHugh, right, was regularly sunk and constantly in the thick of battle. His first ship HMS Achates was sunk by the Hipper. He was transferred to HMS Nairana and fought the Scharnhorst in the battle of the Barents Sea, which is north of Norway’s North Cape. Despite the German attack on the convoy JW 51B, all fourteen of its merchant ships reached their destinations in the USSR. Even more significant for the outcome of the war, Hitler was furious at what he saw as the failure of his surface raider warships, with two heavy cruisers driven off by mere destroyers. He actually came close to enforcing a decision to scrap the surface fleet and for concentrate of naval warfare to be on the U-boatfleet. While he did not quite do this, he swiftly replaced Admiral Raeder, supreme commander of the German Navy with Admiral Donitz, commander of the U-boat fleet.

‘Spud’ Campbell, left, is an American veteran who was aboard the SS Henry Bacon – last ship of the war to be sunk by the Luftwaffe. A Liberty ship, she was one of the thirty-eight merchant ships in Convoy RA-64, which sailed from the Kola inlet at Murmansk in North Russia, bound for Loch Ewe. Damaged by severe storms the Henry Bacon could not keep up with the convoy. She was carrying 19 civilian Norwegian passengers (including women and children – youngest 2 years old) to Scotland and safety. She was spotted by 23 German aircraft and managed to shoot down 5 before being sunk. In the battle most of the lifeboats were destroyed. In the event 26 crew, including the Captain gave up their lifeboats to save the passengers. Saluting the survivors, they sank into water that was -50 degrees. Only a handful of the youngest crew were selected and put into the different lifeboats to help get the civilians back to safety. Spud was one such crew member. He managed to erect an aerial and transmit an SOS. This was picked up and they were rescued by HMS Opportune, Zealous and Zambezi. It is because of this story that the Norwegian military attache, submarine and US Naval representatives were present at the Pool House tribute. The hotel’s private dining room is now named after the ship and the Russian Convoy bell has an additional inscription added – ‘In memory of the SS Henry Bacon’.

Two other veterans, Jack Harrison – who had inspired the event and Len Philips were not well enough to make the journey and were bitterly disappointed not to be there. Jack Harrison was aboard HMS Diadem, an escort ship on many of the convoys. Len Philips was aboard HMS Opportune, the first rescue ship to reach Spud Campbell’s life boat after the sinking of the SS Henry Bacon. Len was the first sailor to reach over and catch a bundle of clothing – which then turned out to be a two year old girl.

About the Arctic Convoys

The Arctic Convoys sailed from the UK and the USA to the ports of Archangel and Murmansk in northern Russia. Initially the convoys ran from Iceland to Archangel, in the summer months when the ice allowed it, then, as the pack ice increased, heading further south to Murmansk. After September 1942 they assembled and sailed from Loch Ewe in the north of Scotland – hence the memorial and last week’s tribute at Pool House at Loch Ewe

In total, seventy eight convoys sailed between August 1941 and May 1945 (although there were two gaps with no sailings between July and September 1942, and March and November 1943). Approximately 1400 merchant ships managed to deliver vital supplies to the Soviet Union through these convoys.

Conditions in the arctic seas were atrocious and the attrition rate for these convoys was high. 85 merchant navy ships and 16 Royal Navy warships (2 cruisers, 6 destroyers, 8 other escort ships) were lost. The Germans also lost a number of ships including 1 battlecruiser, 3 destroyers and at least 30 U-boats as well as a large number of aircraft.

• Convoy PQ-17, sailing in July 1942, suffered the worst losses of any of these convoys. Already under attack from aircraft and submarines, it was ordered to scatter, with reports that a battle group, including the battleship Tirpitz, sister ship of Bismarck, had sailed to intercept it. This was inaccurate but the continuing attack from German aircraft and U-boats now allowed single ships to be picked off more easily. Only 11 of the 35 merchant ships in the convoy made it through the blockade. (Note: In the first series of convoys, outgoing Convoys were coded ‘PQ’, with returning convoys coded ‘QP’.)
• Convoy PQ 18, sailing from Loch Ewe for Archangel in September 1942, was the first to have aircraft carrier escort. This was the result of lessons learned from the destruction of PQ17.
• Convoys PQ 14 and PQ15 sailed from Oban in Argyll, returning to Loch Ewe, QP15 losing 28 ships to U-boats on the return.

In December 1942, German surface forces, including the heavy cruiser, Admiral Hipper, and the pocket battleship, Lutzow – already in Norwegian waters because Hilter feared invasion – sailed to intercept convoy JW51B. In the resulting Battle of the Barents Sea the German force was driven off by a combined force of destroyers and cruisers.

The Arctic Star

For the veterans, this emblem, the Arctic Star, sums it all up. They had campaigned for a long time for recognition of their part in getting crucial supplies through the German blockade to what was then the Soviet Union. On 11th October 2006 this was given. Veterans of the convoys were presented with the Arctic Emblem in ceremonies on HMS Belfast in London and on HMS Ark Royal at Rosyth in Fife. The words on the Arctic Star emblem are simple: ‘The Arctic’. Everybody knows just what that means.

However, it would be wrong to leave this matter without a little more information. What the Arctic Convoy veterans have always campaigned for has been a medal to commemorate participation in their particular theatre of service. Indefensibly, they have never been given this and the Arctic Star is in many ways a shabby compromise. It is, in Elizabeth Miles’s words: ‘a tiny badge, the size of a 5 pence piece’ and she, as anyone, remains angry that veterans are actually instructed not to wear it near any medals.

At least the veterans themselves and the straightforward public, recognise it for what it symbolises – great courage in the most extreme circumstances in the interests of an ally in times of national danger.

Pool House

Mr and Mrs Harrison are starting to find the long hours of running a hotel a little hard and it is likely that Pool House will not therefore remain a hotel for too much longer. Its website will give you an insight into what a special place it is so if you’d like to go there, sooner rather than later is probably advisable. The family are committed to preserving the actions and the stories of the convoys and the men who sailed from and to Loch Ewe in World War II. They hope to go on to make Pool House into a museum to keep the memory of the Russian Convoys alive. This will recreate the atmosphere of the convoy command centre Pool House used to be. If anyone can give them information on what a command centre at the tine woud have looked like, the Harrison family would be very appreciative. They have already amassed a considerable collection of photographs, stories, news clippings etc and are keen to collect more. If you can help with information on command centres or with memorabilia, email Elizabeth Miles at: enquiries@poolhousehotel.co

Related articles at For Argyll:

• Arctic Convoy veterans to gather for tribute at Loch Ewe
• On eve of tribute at Loch Ewe, Arctic Convoy veteran predicts this Cenotaph march will be their last
• Roy Elwood and HMS Zambezi a War: Scapa Flow, the Arctic Convoys, SS Henry Bacon, Sørøy, King Haakon…

Photography and online Photo Gallery

We are privileged to have been given access to the photographs of the day, taken by John Paul photography. This studio has also given us permission to offer site visitors access to the full online gallery of photographs its photographer took at the tribute ceremony.

All photographs in this article have been given to us to use on a non-commercial basis by the copyright holder, John Paul Photography. Copyright on all photographs in this article and in the online gallery belongs to John Paul Photography. Please contact the John Paul Photography studio if you would like a print of any of the photographs.