Diary of Squandered Valor: First Convoy to Murmansk

A U. S. Navy Armed Guard Gunner's Mate's gripping day-by-day account of his ship, the SS Larranaga's terrifying run through German U-boats' infamous gauntlet of death in the icy North Seas—in the U. S.'s first convoy to Russia, launched in 1941, before World War II was even declared—and the Armed Guard's hellish ordeal of defending the ship after it reached Murmansk, Russia against the Luftwaffe's relentless daily air attacks.

Hastily trained as gunners, assigned to protect an old, slow, poorly-armed freighter, they were ill-prepared for the perils they were to face.

They responded with extraordinary valor on a voyage whose story, according to the U.S. Office of Naval Operations' official public report, “ … is one of almost unbelievable horror … There is nothing quite like it in all history”.

One out of every three ships that left the U.S. for Russia never made it home.