Operation Orator was the code name for the defence of the Allied Convoy PQ 18 by British and Australian air force units, based temporarily in North-West Russia, against attack by the German battleship and other surface vessels. The wing, known as the Search & Strike Force, was commanded by Group Captain Frank Hopps and its maritime strike element was the Leuchars Wing, comprising 144 Squadron, Royal Air Force (RAF) and 455 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) equipped with Handley-Page Hampden TB 1 torpedo bombers.
The Hampden crews made a long and dangerous flight from bases in Scotland (4–5 September) and assembled at Vaenga airfield on the Kola Inlet, north of Murmansk. The two squadrons lost nine aircraft shot down or crashed in transit but the remainder joined a detachment of 210 Squadron Catalina flying boats and a section of photographic reconnaissance Spitfires from 1 Photographic Reconnaissance Unit to make up the Search & Strike Force (S&SF).
At on 14 September, 23 Hampdens were scrambled, after Tirpitz was reported absent from its moorings. The Hampdens flew to the maximum distance that Tirpitz could have reached then turned to follow the track back to Altafjord, as far as the Catalina cross over patrols. After an uneventful flight, the Hampdens returned at from what turned out to be a false alarm; Tirpitz having moved to a nearby fjord. The S&SF Hampdens stayed at readiness and the Spitfires watched over Tirpitz until October. Operation Orator had deterred the Germans from risking their capital ships against Convoy PQ 18 and after converting the Soviet Air Forces (VVS) to the Hampden and Spitfire aircraft to be left behind, the aircrew and ground personnel returned to Britain.
Background
Arctic convoys
In October 1941, after Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the USSR, which had begun on 22 June, the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, made a commitment to send a convoy to the Arctic ports of the USSR every ten days and to deliver a month from July 1942 to January 1943, followed by and another The first convoy was due at Murmansk around 12 October and the next convoy was to depart Iceland on 22 October. A motley of British, Allied and neutral shipping loaded with military stores and raw materials for the Soviet war effort would be assembled at Hvalfjörður, Iceland, an anchorage convenient for ships from both sides of the Atlantic.
By late 1941, the convoy system used in the Atlantic had been established on the Arctic run; a convoy commodore ensured that the ships' masters and signals officers attended a briefing to make arrangements for the management of the convoy, which sailed in a formation of long rows of short columns. The commodore was usually a retired naval officer, aboard a ship identified by a white pendant with a blue cross. The commodore was assisted by a Naval signals party of four men, who used lamps, semaphore flags and telescopes to pass signals, coded from books carried in a weighted bag, to be dumped overboard in an emergency. In large convoys, the commodore was assisted by vice- and rear-commodores who directed the speed, course and zig-zagging of the merchant ships in co-operation with the escort commander.
Convoy hiatus Following Convoy PQ 16 and the disaster to Convoy PQ 17 in July 1942, Arctic convoys were suspended for nine weeks and much of the Home Fleet was detached to the Mediterranean. During the lull, Admiral John "Jack" Tovey concluded that the Home Fleet had been of no great protection to convoys once beyond Bear Island, midway between Svalbard and the North Cape of Norway. Tovey planned to oversee the operation from Scapa Flow, where the fleet was linked to the Admiralty by landline and immune to variations in wireless reception. The next convoy was to be accompanied by the longer-range destroyers of the Home Fleet. Along with the close escort force of anti-submarine and anti-aircraft ships, the fleet destroyers could confront a sortie by German ships with the threat of a massed torpedo attack. Instead of meeting homeward-bound QP convoys near Bear Island, QP 14 was to remain in port until Convoy PQ 18 was near its destination, despite the longer journey being more demanding of the escort crews, fuel and equipment. The new escort carrier (Commander A. P. Colthurst) had arrived from the United States and was added to the escort force.
Signals intelligence
Bletchley Park
The British Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) based at Bletchley Park housed a small industry of code-breakers and traffic analysts. By June 1941, the German Enigma machine Home Waters () settings used by surface ships and U-boats could quickly be read. On 1 February 1942, the Enigma machines used in U-boats in the Atlantic and Mediterranean were changed but German ships and the U-boats in Arctic waters continued with the older (Hydra from 1942, Dolphin to the British). By mid-1941, British Y-stations were able to receive and read Luftwaffe W/T transmissions and give advance warning of Luftwaffe operations.
In 1941, naval Headache personnel, with receivers to eavesdrop on Luftwaffe wireless transmissions, were embarked on warships and from May 1942, ships gained RAF Y computor (sic) parties, which sailed with cruiser admirals in command of convoy escorts, to interpret Luftwaffe W/T signals intercepted by the Headaches. The Admiralty sent details of Luftwaffe wireless frequencies, call signs and the daily local codes to the computors, which combined with their knowledge of Luftwaffe procedures, could glean fairly accurate details of German reconnaissance sorties. Sometimes computors predicted attacks twenty minutes before they were detected by radar.
B-Dienst
The rival German (, Observation Service) of the (MND, Naval Intelligence Service) had broken several Admiralty codes and cyphers by 1939, which were used to help Kriegsmarine ships elude British forces and provide opportunities for surprise attacks. From June to August 1940, six British submarines were sunk in the Skaggerak using information gleaned from British wireless signals. In 1941, read signals from the Commander in Chief Western Approaches informing convoys of areas patrolled by U-boats, enabling the submarines to move into "safe" zones. had broken Naval Cypher No 3 in February 1942 and by March was reading up to 80 per cent of the traffic, which continued until 15 December 1943. By coincidence, the British lost access to the Shark cypher and had no information to send in Cypher No 3 which might compromise Ultra. In early September, Finnish Radio Intelligence deciphered a Soviet Air Force transmission which divulged the convoy itinerary and forwarded it to the Germans.
Allied Arctic operations
As Arctic convoys passed by the North Cape of Norway into the Barents Sea, they were easily within range of German aircraft, U-boats and ships based in Norway and Finland. The ships were still vulnerable while unloading at Murmansk, Arkhangelsk and Polyarny and Hawker Hurricane fighters delivered by the first Arctic convoy, were intended for air defence against the . In Operation Dervish (21–31 August 1941), six elderly freighters sailed from Iceland for Arkhangelsk carrying wood, rubber, tin and fifteen crated Hawker Hurricane fighters. In Operation Strength, the aircraft carrier carried 24 Hurricanes concurrent with the convoy, escorted by three cruisers with the RAF ground party. When Argus was in range of Vayenga, the Hurricanes were flown off and all reached their destination.
No. 151 Wing RAF (Wing Commander Neville Ramsbottom-Isherwood) flew in the defence of Murmansk for five weeks and claimed 16 victories, four probables and seven aircraft damaged. The winter snows began on 22 September and the conversion of Soviet Air Force (VVS, ) pilots and ground crews to the Hurricane Mk IID began in mid-October and in late November the RAF party returned to Britain, less various signals staff. The Allied Operation Gauntlet (25 August – 3 September 1941), Fritham (30 April 1942 – 2 July 1943) had taken place in the Svalbard Archipelago on the main island of Spitsbergen, midway between northern Norway the North Pole, to eliminate German weather stations and to stop its coal exports to Norway. In Operation Gearbox II (2–21 September 1942) two cruisers and a destroyer took of supplies and equipment to Spitsbergen. On 3 September, Force P, the oilers , and four destroyer escorts sailed for Van Mijenfjorden (Lowe Sound) in Spitsbergen and from 9 to 13 September refuelled destroyers detached from Convoy PQ 18.
German plans
Authority in the was derived from the (SKL, Supreme Naval Command) in Berlin and Arctic operations were commanded by Admiral Boehm, the Admiral Commanding Norway, from the (Naval Group North) HQ in Kiel. Three flag officers were detached to Oslo in command of minesweeping, coast defence, patrols and minelaying off the west, north and polar coasts. The large surface ships and U-boats were under the command of the Flag Officer Northern Waters at Narvik, who did not answer to Boehm but had authority over the Flag Officer Battlegroup, who commanded the ships when at sea. The Flag Officer Northern Waters also had tactical control of aircraft from ( Hans-Jürgen Stumpff) when they operated in support of the . The Norwegian-based aircraft had tactical headquarters at Kirkenes, Trondheim and Bardufoss. The HQs were separate from the commanders except at Kirkenes, with the Flag Officer Polar Coast.
On 24 June, a British minesweeper based at Kola was sunk by Ju 87 Stuka dive-bombers and on 16 August, Admiral Scheer conducted Operation Wunderland (), a sortie against Russian ships thought to be sailing along the route north of Siberia. Admiral Scheer sailed north of Novaya Zemlya and then to the east and sank a Soviet icebreaker; by 30 August Admiral Scheer was back in Narvik. signals interception and documents recovered from the crashed Hampden UB-C, revealed the crossover and escort changeover points of Convoy PQ 18 and Convoy QP 14 and other details including Operation Orator. U-boats, destroyers and the minelayer Ulm sailed on Operation Zar () to sow mines at the entrance of the White Sea and off Novaya Zemlya. On 25 August, Ultra revealed the itinerary of Ulm and three of the destroyers with south of Bear Island, were sent to intercept the ship; Ulm was sunk that night and sixty survivors were taken prisoner. The Germans had to press Admiral Hipper into service as a minelayer. Tirpitz, the cruiser Lützow and three destroyers had been in dock for repairs since against Convoy PQ 17 (2–5 July) and were not available. Twelve U-boats formed a patrol group in the Norwegian Sea against Convoy PQ 18 and the planned (Operation Double Hit) in which the cruisers Admiral Scheer, Admiral Hipper and Köln with four destroyer escorts, would sail against the convoy.
(Golden Comb)
The used the lull after Convoy PQ 17 to assemble a force of 35 Junkers Ju 88 A-4 dive-bombers of (KG 30) and 42 torpedo-bombers of (I./KG 26 with 28 Heinkel He 111 H-6s and III/KG 26 with 14 Ju 88 A-4s) to join the reconnaissance aircraft of 5. After analysing the results of anti-shipping operations against Convoy PQ 17, in which the crews of 5 made exaggerated claims of ships sunk, including a cruiser, the anti-shipping units devised the (Golden Comb). Ju 88 bombers were to divert the defenders with medium and dive bombing attacks as the torpedo-bombers approached out of the twilight. The torpedo bombers were to fly towards the convoy in line abreast, at wave-top height to evade radar, as the convoy was silhouetted against the lighter sky, then drop their torpedoes in a salvo. When discovered that an aircraft carrier would accompany the next convoy, Hermann Göring gave orders that it must be sunk first; aircrew were told that the destruction of the convoy was the best way to help the German army at Stalingrad and in southern Russia.
Operation Orator
Plan