I understand an American film distributor has picked it up. I took my children over here - son 15 daughter 13 - to see it yesterday, and we all liked it. Afterwards, over pizza, I filled them in on the background of Convoy PQ 17 and - not in the film - how the massacre led to bitter recriminations between our American and the British naval high commands.
I believe Admiral Pound was just mentally exhausted - I understand he died of brain cancer a year or so later - and fearful of exactly that kind of inter-Allied blowup ... and so, ironically, caused it.
For those who don't know, as the film described the convoy was ordered to scatter ... to fall easy victims to u-boats and bombers ... because the heavy German ships superbattleship Tirpitz, pocket battleships Luetzow (which ran onto a Norwegian rock and had to return - those sneaky Norwegian trolls! -) and Scheer, heavy cruiser Hipper, and some fleet destroyers were putting to sea, and they would have been more than a match (as we have verified in more than one naval miniatures wargame) for our heavy cruiser covering force: USSs Tuscaloosa and Wichita and HMSs London and Norfolk and a few destroyers.
However, there was also our battleship force with Duke of York and our own Washington with its crushing 16"/400mm guns firing 1-ton shells which would have sunk Tirpitz forthwith.
The Admiralty suddenly decided the battleships were too far back and recalled all the warships, leaving the merchant ships to their fate, well-described in the film.
Our - anti-British anyway, thanks to unpleasant relations during World War 1 - Chief of Naval Operations Adm King just BLEW UP and pulled Washington out and into the Pacific, where it then saved our Marines on Guadalcanal, easily pounding Japanese battle cruiser Kirishima under the waves in Nov42.
There was a lot of crew melodrama in the film, but merchant vessels were not under military discipline, and crew members could be very diverse. The film does get across that it was a very human, personal struggle/war.
And the film did bring out well the captain's dedication to getting the war supplies through to the "Soviets," because they were fighting for Norway's liberation as well as their own survival.
In contrast, the first mate - traumatized by the loss of his own ship and friends previously with many dying before rescue - is looking for reasons to cancel out.
Someone else has talked about the floating mines scene, and my son and I both wondered who had tied Isaksen's knot? This does get across how much ship crew members depend on each other for their lives.
I would have had 1 of the 2 German JU88 bombers leaving damaged. As someone else described, an apparently undamaged u-boat surfacing in the middle of the convoy before it was scattered made no sense. Our Liberty ships had 4"/105mm surface guns on their fantails which could have made short work of it.
And the ship's escape&evasion stratagem was in fact innovatively used by Royal Navy Lieutenant Leo Gradwell for his anti-sub trawler Ayrshire and the 3 freighters they took under their care ... and worked too.
Finally, if you look on Wiki's Convoy PQ 17 Order of Battle, you'll see there was no Norwegian warship *or freighter* involved in it.
But the film's artistic license is OK, helping Norwegian viewers identify with the struggle, and other convoys out on the Atlantic ordered to scatter would have inevitably had Norwegian ships.
(In my game design research, I've found Norwegian Noreg and Mirio *were* on Arctic convoys.)
And the statement that of 30,000 Norwegian merchant sailors in the war 4,000 died was important to get across.
This is a kind of "Das Boot" for the other side, and it should be seen.
Lou Coatney, and I have many free/educational print-and-play boardgames on my webpage, including Murmansk Run, and I'm working up a simpler little Postcard Murmansk.
I believe Admiral Pound was just mentally exhausted - I understand he died of brain cancer a year or so later - and fearful of exactly that kind of inter-Allied blowup ... and so, ironically, caused it.
For those who don't know, as the film described the convoy was ordered to scatter ... to fall easy victims to u-boats and bombers ... because the heavy German ships superbattleship Tirpitz, pocket battleships Luetzow (which ran onto a Norwegian rock and had to return - those sneaky Norwegian trolls! -) and Scheer, heavy cruiser Hipper, and some fleet destroyers were putting to sea, and they would have been more than a match (as we have verified in more than one naval miniatures wargame) for our heavy cruiser covering force: USSs Tuscaloosa and Wichita and HMSs London and Norfolk and a few destroyers.
However, there was also our battleship force with Duke of York and our own Washington with its crushing 16"/400mm guns firing 1-ton shells which would have sunk Tirpitz forthwith.
The Admiralty suddenly decided the battleships were too far back and recalled all the warships, leaving the merchant ships to their fate, well-described in the film.
Our - anti-British anyway, thanks to unpleasant relations during World War 1 - Chief of Naval Operations Adm King just BLEW UP and pulled Washington out and into the Pacific, where it then saved our Marines on Guadalcanal, easily pounding Japanese battle cruiser Kirishima under the waves in Nov42.
There was a lot of crew melodrama in the film, but merchant vessels were not under military discipline, and crew members could be very diverse. The film does get across that it was a very human, personal struggle/war.
And the film did bring out well the captain's dedication to getting the war supplies through to the "Soviets," because they were fighting for Norway's liberation as well as their own survival.
In contrast, the first mate - traumatized by the loss of his own ship and friends previously with many dying before rescue - is looking for reasons to cancel out.
Someone else has talked about the floating mines scene, and my son and I both wondered who had tied Isaksen's knot? This does get across how much ship crew members depend on each other for their lives.
I would have had 1 of the 2 German JU88 bombers leaving damaged. As someone else described, an apparently undamaged u-boat surfacing in the middle of the convoy before it was scattered made no sense. Our Liberty ships had 4"/105mm surface guns on their fantails which could have made short work of it.
And the ship's escape&evasion stratagem was in fact innovatively used by Royal Navy Lieutenant Leo Gradwell for his anti-sub trawler Ayrshire and the 3 freighters they took under their care ... and worked too.
Finally, if you look on Wiki's Convoy PQ 17 Order of Battle, you'll see there was no Norwegian warship *or freighter* involved in it.
But the film's artistic license is OK, helping Norwegian viewers identify with the struggle, and other convoys out on the Atlantic ordered to scatter would have inevitably had Norwegian ships.
(In my game design research, I've found Norwegian Noreg and Mirio *were* on Arctic convoys.)
And the statement that of 30,000 Norwegian merchant sailors in the war 4,000 died was important to get across.
This is a kind of "Das Boot" for the other side, and it should be seen.
Lou Coatney, and I have many free/educational print-and-play boardgames on my webpage, including Murmansk Run, and I'm working up a simpler little Postcard Murmansk.
