Today In History

Allied convoy PQ-1, consisted of 11 merchant ships escorted by 7 British warships, arrived in Arkhangelsk, Russia. Convoy PQ 1 was the second of the Arctic Convoys of World War II by which the Western Allies supplied material aid to the Soviet Union in its fight with Nazi Germany. The convoy sailed from Hvalfiord in Iceland on 29 September 1941 and arrived at Archangelsk on 11 October 1941. The ships were loaded with raw materials, 20 tanks and 193 crated Hawker Hurricane fighter aircraft. The code prefix PQ was chosen from the initials of Commander Phillip Quellyn Roberts an operations officer in the Admiralty.



Total escort ships:

Cruiser HMS Suffolk
Destroyers Antelope and Anthony
Minesweepers HMS Britomart, Gossamer, Leda and Hussar
Support tanker Black Ranger
Destroyer HMS Escapade
Minesweeper HMS Harrier
Destroyers Uritski, Valerian Kuybyshev

German troops defeated the Soviet forces within the Vyazma pocket in Russia and captured 670,000 men, 1,000 tanks, and 4,000 artillery pieces. At Volokolamsk, the northwest end of the Mozhaysk defensive line, newly arrived Soviet 316th Rifle Division halted the attack by German 4th Panzer Army. In Moscow, Lavrentiy Beria advised the Soviet GKO to evacuate the capital "or they will strangle us like chickens", but it was rejected by Joseph Stalin; however, Stalin did order the Politburo (less Stalin, Beria, and Georgy Malenkov) to evacuate.

Charles de Gaulle met with leaders of resistance movements, asking them to bide their time and protect the lives of innocents. By 1942 one resistance leader called him "the only possible leader for the France that fights". The resistance fighters who could not join Britain, remained in the territories ruled by Vichy. The Allies helped build networks of propagandists, spies and saboteurs to harass and discomfit the occupiers. Eventually, leaders of all of these separate and fragmented Resistance organizations were gathered and coordinated by Jean Moulin under the auspices of the National Council of Resistance (CNR), de Gaulle's formal link to the irregulars throughout occupied France.