THANKS FOR THE MEMORY
Some of you will have seen this before but there’s no harm in seeing it again; this is the “souvenir book†we made for the visit of Princess Anne and Admiral Lawrence to Archangelsk to mark the anniversary of the safe arrival of the very first convoy (August 31st. 1941) bringing support to Russia in WWII, something they might benefit from a reminder of right now.
That first convoy of 12 ships was called operation Dervish but it was accompanied by an equally important parallel operation called Benedict; Dervish brought 500 RAF people, Wing 151, to Archangelsk with crated Hurricanes and all their crews to reassemble and train the Russians to maintain and operated them. Benedict was the old and redoubtable carrier Argus with another squadron of Hurricanes that flew directly into front line service at Vaenga, Murmansk. The book, illustrated by the wonderful former RN aircraft handler turned artist Jim Rae, begins with a song by Anne Shelton dedicated to those who flew from the carrier and into battle from Vaenga airfield, basically packed snow rolled flat. One of those pilots who lifted off from the Argus was Tim Elkington, he also went to Archangelsk with a large group of British veterans for the anniversary to cheer the memory of their great adventure. Tim had been a Battle of Britain pilot before going to Russia, on returning to Britain he volunteered to be a convoy Camship pilot. These were very brave men who were blasted off merchant ships on a one-way mission in adapted Hurricanes to shoot down enemy bombers before ditching in the sea hoping to be picked up by an escort.? He told me he didn’t read the fine print!
In the book are quotations from veterans who served in the Arctic campaign, every word is verbatim, reproduced in English and Russian.
All the events depicted are real, all the words are real, as we only made 200 copies of the print book we have preserved Jim’s work, and the sentiments of the campaign in this short tribute. Almost all those who went to Russia for that reunion are gone now, very soon all this will pass over the horizon of living memory so in its own way, this is a salute to what they did.
领英推è
Towards the end of the book are the words to the 23rd Flotilla song, this was very kindly restored to human voice by the students of Trinity College of Music for Christmas 2023 as a gift to one of the very last survivors of that destroyer flotilla. Here it is…..
?This is best seen on a big screen, easier to read the text, I recommend a full glass to toast these heroes and remember them as the young men they were 80 years ago
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