below some of my favourite pictures of vessels sailed in Baltic wintertime
now you can imagine how north convoys looked after arraval at Murmansk !
<a href="http://img154.imageshack.us/my.php?image=eurostormicing0453fh.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img154.imageshack.us/img154/9672/eurostormicing0453fh.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>
Wow thats a lot ice
I bet they have a hard time getting new merchant sailors for these routes
"That one over there" - Oswald Boelcke pointing at Manfred von Richthofen after having been asked who of the rookies shows most of whats required to become a great fighter pilot.
Great photos Mari!
I especially like the name of the last ship..."Storm" duh!
Pictures of Eurostorm were taken in Hamina (Finland) and Finnoak's at Szczecin (Poland).
I heard first one had to wait for 3-4 days to get the ice melted and ready to
discharge.
Nice photos. That last one reminds me of that scene in Titanic when Leonardo di Crappio does his "king of the world" thing.
The Murmansk runs were extremely stressful for those who had to sail them. There were practically no means of rescue; falling overboard or abandoning ship in those climes meant death within only a few minutes. In one of my books I read an account of crew from one ship observing an escort. It had a huge accumulation of ice on its decks and structure, which made it heavier. The observer watched it plunging and heaving in the waves, until it went down in one trough and never came up again; the weight of accumulated ice made it plunge under the water and it never came up again. Horrifying to realize how helpless sailors can be in the face of an angry sea.
Imagine the watch crew of a u-boat after hunting murmansk convoys.
I bet they also had to wait a few hours until the ice on the deep froozen watch crew was melting.
"That one over there" - Oswald Boelcke pointing at Manfred von Richthofen after having been asked who of the rookies shows most of whats required to become a great fighter pilot.
Have you heard such story ?
One of Polish destoyer sailed in 1944 to Murmansk (as escort of convoy). Some of her sailors did not come even for a moment to the port !!!
Many persons could not believe - it's impossible after dangerous trip via Arctic Ocean.
That's fact - they were so afraid - all of them were in Russian POWs and escape from Soviet Union together with Anders'Army in 1942.
I don't blame them for not wanting to go ashore. Who would trust "Uncle Joe?" Stalin treated his own people barbarically. I once worked with a Black American whose unit had the dirty job of forcing Soviet POW's to board the train home after their camp was liberated by the advancing Allied forces. He said they were crying and begging not to go back. They were forced into the trains, the doors were closed. As the train was pulling out he said they could hear the machine guns of the NKVD guards.
Note to self.....do NOT piss overboard while at sea, you'll get rid of more than just your piss.
Hell, your ****** might just go overboard with it if you're out there long enough (and don't lick anything either).
its a wonder that the weight of the ice didnt break that front mast pole off. after seeing one the other day , i drove the crane barge to the ship to have it repaired. , im figuring they either drove it under something or a big wave hit it.
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