Stalin’s Umbilical Cord
9th February 2025
In total, 78 convoys sailed to or returned from Soviet ports, but it was only on 19 December 2012, after lobbying for sixteen years, that David Cameron’s government finally awarded convoy veterans their own official Arctic Campaign Star, by which time an estimated 400 were still alive. In 2015, the Kremlin subsequently awarded these ancient mariners their Ushakov Medal (named after the patron saint of the Russian Navy), and until recently they appeared as honoured guests at May Day parades in Red Square. Alas, too late for Able Seaman MacLean who died in 1987, but he would have heartily approved. So it is each winter, that I picture and honour the crews who took part in those Arctic runs, a job I would not have wished for all the lottery wins on earth.