Battle of the Arctic

The Maritime Epic of World War Two

De: Hugh Sebag-Montefiore

Narrado por: Alfred McNish

Winston Churchill called it ‘the worst journey in the world’. But was even this telling quote, describing the transportation of military aid to northern Russia during World War II, an understatement?

As this book’s title – Battle of the Arctic – implies, it tells a unique story. For much of the conflict was complicated by terrific storms, snow, ice, fog, whales, and Arctic mirages, creating an atmosphere similar to Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance, David Crane’s Scott of the Antarctic, and an Arctic version of Robinson Crusoe.

The action unfolded as Allied naval and merchant seamen, airmen, submariners, and intelligence officers delivered on their countries’ promise to take arms to Russia as the Germans hunted them in 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, they died on deserted Arctic islands where they were stalked by polar bears. Frostbitten and wounded survivors ended up in Russian hospitals so primitive that amputations were carried out without anesthetics. Other survivors, 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, Dutch, Norwegian, and French sources and a remarkable collection of vivid witness accounts brought together at the passing of the last survivors, Hugh Sebag-Montefiore can at last tell this extraordinary story that oscillates between the sailors’ point of view on the front lines and the controversies that infuriated world leaders.

©2024 Hugh Sebag-Montefiore (P)2024 HarperCollins Publishers

Reseñas de la Crítica

'Having read almost everything that is written on this battle, I can vouch that this is the best account yet. Sebag-Montefiore deserves congratulation for restoring humanity to this battle'
Gerard DeGroot, The Times

'Magisterial, exemplary, heartbreaking. So original is the material, and so inventive is Sebag-Montefiore's approach – telling each stage of the fight from the perspective of both the combatants and their families back home – that this well-known tale is rendered strange again. Written with great style and sensitivity, superbly illustrated with many original plates and beautifully drawn maps, Sebag-Montefiore's brilliant new study will set the benchmark for a generation'
Saul David, Daily Telegraph

'Sebag-Montefiore's combination of thoughtful analysis with first-hand testimony from army soldiers, cameramen and diarists lends a gritty immediacy'
Ian Thomson, Observer

'The best historians of the war have always made good use of the words written by the participants themselves, but few have done so as effectively as here. A moving record'
Daily Mail