Abergavenny's War: Voices of the Second World War by Tim Butters

Author:Tim Butters [Butters, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Amberley Publishing
Published: 2017-10-18T04:00:00+00:00

The Arctic Star – ‘Righting a Wrong’

Winston Churchill called the Allied Arctic convoys to Russia between 1941 and 1945 ‘the worst journey in the world,’ but it wasn’t until 2013 that the surviving band of heroes who risked their lives to take ‘that’ journey received proper recognition for their invaluable part in the war effort.

Dressed for Arctic conditions: Donald Merriman as a young man.

Abergavenny man Donald Merriman was one of the 200 surviving veterans who was finally awarded with an Arctic Star medal alongside an admission from Prime Minister David Cameron that he was ‘righting a wrong.’

Without Russia, the Allies in all probability would have not won the Second World War, but without the Arctic convoys, which carried over 4 million tonnes of vital cargo to the Soviet Union during a four-year period, Russia would not have been able to withstand the continued attack from Nazi Germany, who concentrated 80 per cent of their fighting power on the Eastern Front.

Over 66,000 Royal Navy sailors and merchant seaman took part in the convoys, which on waves full of storm and fury ploughed a treacherous path through the sub-zero Arctic waters infested with U-boats, and an air thick with snow and sleet squalls.

Beneath foreboding skies littered with a plague of Heinkels, Messerschmitts and Stukas forever crossing, recrossing and hammering down, the Allied ships charted an unwavering course to the Soviet ports of Murmansk and Archangel, where tanks, aircraft, trucks, tractors, telephone wires, railway engines, clothing and food would all be delivered to the Russian people.

The convoys, however, did a lot more than provide the essential supplies for a nation at war and under siege. It gave a vital assurance to Russia that she wasn’t alone and the Allies hadn’t forgotten her. The convoys were symbolic of the Allies’ commitment to face a common enemy with a united front.

The cost to human life was high. By May 1945 the convoys had claimed eighty-seven merchant ships and eighteen military vessels. More than 3,000 Royal Navy and merchant seaman were killed. Yet the end of the Second World War and the advent of the Cold War ensured it was politically difficult to award any Arctic convoy veterans a medal for what was perceived as assisting the Soviet Union.

Fortunately, that injustice has been addressed and veterans such as eighty-nine-year-old Donald Merriman have been awarded with the Arctic Star medal for their war efforts.

Mr Merriman joined the Navy in 1942, aged eighteen, and served for over twenty years. For four years he served on the battleship HMS Howe, which during that time received battle honours for the Arctic convoys, the Sicily assault landings in 1943 and the Allied landings at Okinawa on 1945, where the ship was subjected to continual Kamikaze attacks by Japanese aircraft.

Following the war, Mr Merriman married his wife Gertrude in 1950, and after leaving the Navy in the 1960s, took a job as a catering specialist at Abergavenny’s Nevill Hall Hospital where he worked for a further twenty years. Mr Merriman’s son Wilfred also joined the Navy and served in both the Falklands and Iraq.

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