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Ursprungligen postat av
Ankdammsman
Leo Gradwell? Kapten på HMS Ayrshire som blev hjälte när han räddade flera skepp från PQ17 genom rådigt och fiffigt agerande.
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"On receiving the third order to scatter on 4 July 1942, RNVR T/Lt Leo Gradwell commanding the ASW adapted 575 long tons (584 t) Middlesbrough-built trawler HMS Ayrshire (FY 225), concluded that as he was heading north to the Arctic ice shelf, nothing prevented him from escorting merchantmen. Leading his convoy of Ayrshire and three US merchant vessels, the Panamanian-registered Troubador, Ironclad and Silver Sword, he proceeded north, using only a sextant and The Times World Geographic Pocket Book. On reaching the Arctic ice pack, the convoy stuck fast and so the ships stopped engines and then banked their fires. Gradwell arranged a defence, formulated around the fact that Troubador was carrying a cargo of bunkering coal and drums of white paint: the crews painted all the vessels white; covered decks with white linen; and arranged the Sherman tanks on the merchant vessels decks into a defensive formation, with loaded main guns. After a period of waiting and having evaded Luftwaffe reconnaissance aircraft, finding themselves unstuck, they proceeded to the Matochkin Strait. They were found there by a flotilla of corvettes, who escorted the four-ship convoy plus two other merchant vessels to the Russian port of Archangel, arriving on 25 July. Gradwell was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross on 15 September 1942."
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convoy_PQ_17