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North Atlantic Front
 | Price: £9.99 Supplier: Birlinn Ltd |
This book tells the fascinating and largely unknown story of the two World Wars in the North Atlantic and how it affected the Faroes, Iceland and Norway as well as the Northern Isles. The text combines a great deal of information with individual stories and quotes to give a vivid picture of what the war in the North Atlantic was like for serviceman and civilian. You can find out more about the Shetland Bus and the Arctic convoys and less well-known war-stories like the arrest of the staff of the Lerwick Post Office.
Deeply interesting though the text is, it would almost be worth buying this book for the pictures alone. Over one hundred archive photos, many of them full or double page spreads, show convoys, wrecks and flying boats and scenes of war-time life in Orkney, Shetland, the Faroes and Iceland.
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In all, in the last sixteen months of the war, aircraft from Sullom [in Shetland] accounted for at least eight U-boats. Since not every attack resulted in a confirmed kill, the number could be higher. One of the first, U-601, was detected and depth-charged by a Catalina from 210 Squadron on 25 February 1944, and became the first U-boat to be sunk inside the Arctic Circle. On 24 May a Sunderland from 422 Squadron of the Royal Canadian Air Force was brought down by U-921. Later that same day another Sunderland, this time from 423 Squadron, found U-921 on the surface but again the submarine escaped; her skipper, Oberleutnant Wolfgang Leu, enabled an unusually rapid crash dive by staying on deck himself so he could close the hatch from the outside, saving his ship and his crew but ensuring his own death.
On 17 July Flying Officer John Cruikshanks of 210 Squadron won the Victoria Cross for his bravery after an attack on U-361. Cruikshanks was piloting his Catalina on a fourteen-hour patrol from Sullom when, west of Lofoten, the radar picked up the U-boat on the surface. In the first attack the depth charges failed to release. On the second they fell away to straddle the U-boat but in the meantime U-361’s gunfire had raked the Catalina, killing the navigator and wounding four other men, including the co-pilot and Cruikshanks. Cruickshanks collapsed but recovered and took over the controls again until the aircraft was on course for home. Refusing morphine in case it impaired his ability to carry on, Cruikshanks and the less experienced co-pilot flew the aircraft for five hours to get back to Sullom and circled for another hour until the light improved enough for the crippled Catalina to touch down and beach safely. Cruikshanks turned out to have been struck in seventy-two places and had lost so much blood he had to have a transfusion before leaving the aircraft. U-361 was later confirmed to have been sunk.
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