Seaman Haskell Back from Convoy Duty to Murmansk

After surviving the hazards of floating mines, surface raiders, and dive bombers on a convey to Murmansk, seaman Winthrop Haskell is back in Cambridge studying to be a third mate. Souvenirs of his seven-month voyage are the current drawing card at the Russian War Relief headquarters on Dunster Street.

Submarines and convettes guarded the first legs of the convey's to Iceland, through the Denmark Straits where the Bismarck went down, and out from Iceland toward northern England. There the convey split into two parts, for England and Russia, with most of the escorting vessels accompanying the England-bound section.

Ships Attacked

The convey was unmolested until one day a signal flag was hoisted on the Commodore's ship meaning "Enemy Aircraft Approaching." Crowmen patiently waited for the mistake to be corrected. In less than two minutes the flag was hanled down, but another took its place, the "Attack Imminent" signal. Everyone waited for the "We're Just Foolin" model, but it never came.

Instead, Nasi planes came diving out of the sun, machine-gunning and bombing confused merchantmen as they came. Aided by the perpetual daylight of the season, they came again and again on a 24-hour schedule.

Reach Murmansk

A shattered and depleted convey nosed into Kola Bay, down to the Tulema River, and Murmansk. Crewmen on Haskell's ship, who were lounging around the mess galley while awaiting their boat's turn to be unblessed, were suddenly shaken by a terrific explosion. Rushing on deck to man the guns against air attack, they found that the explosion, which struck about number four batchway, was not a bomb but a floating mine.

Haskell and a couple of buddies rescued the one undestroyed lifeboat which was blown from its moorings into the sea. All living crewmen were crowded into the auxiliary vessel, and were picked up in a few minutes by Russian minesweepers. The merchantman cracked at the stern and sank.

The seamen, who were conducted to a survivors' camp below Murmansk, were housed in tin-roofed barracks, which resounded smartly to shrapnel all day long. When they first got there, they were inspected for injuries by Russian doctors, who administered vodka to the low in spirit. Haskell described the entire crew as low in spirit. They had been subjected to the horrors of one percent beverage in Iceland.

After a month of Russian black-bread, a kind of Juniper tea, and English Spillers' Biscuits, Haskell got a berth on a ship in a convoy bound for home. He reached port on August 3