Icy cool of a convoy hero
QUESTION After the World War II Arctic convoy PQ17 was ordered to scatter following news of a threatened German attack, some ships were saved by the good work of Lieutenant Leo Gradwell. What was his story? Leo Joseph Anthony Gradwell was born i n Chester i n 1899 and educated at Stonyhurst College, a public school in Lancashire. He served as a midshipman in World War I before completing a classics degree at Balliol College, oxford.
Gradwell was called to the bar in 1925 and took up residence in chambers in Liverpool. An expert yachtsman, he spent his leisure time sailing in the Irish Sea.
I n World War I I , Gradwell was commissioned i nto the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve as a lieutenant and given command of the anti- submarine adapted trawler HMS Ayrshire.
In July 1942, Ayrshire was part of the 36- ship Arctic Convoy PQ17. on July 4, First Sea Lord Sir Dudley Pound, spooked by reports that the German battleship Tirpitz was on its way to engage convoy PQ17, gave the order for the convoy to scatter. Had an attack taken place, it would have been disastrous for the Anglo– American convoy — not only for the ageing, merchant ships ferrying supplies to the Soviets, but also for their destroyer and cruiser escort.
Twenty-four of the scattered ships were subsequently picked off by German U-boats and aircraft and 153 sailors died.
When the convoy scattered, Gradwell hit on the inspired idea of heading not for port but to the last place the enemy would expect — deeper into the Arctic Circle.
He gathered t he American ships Troubador, Ironclad and Silver Sword and led them into the ice pack. Troubador carried a cargo of bunkering coal and drums of white paint.
Locked in the ice pack, these ships stopped engines and Gradwell ordered them to paint themselves white to fool German reconnaissance aircraft.
Gradwell’s act was a huge risk, but it saved the lives of the crews. eventually they broke out and reached Archangel on July 24. Gradwell was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions on September 15, 1942.
After the war Gradwell was made a stipendiary magistrate at Marlborough Street Magistrates’ Court, London, in 1951. During his career Gradwell processed the case of Stephen Ward during the 1963 Profumo Affair.
And in 1967, he was the presiding judge for the private obscenity prosecution brought by Sir Cyril Black, Tory MP for Wimbledon, against Calder and Boyars, publishers of Hubert Selby Jr.’s novel Last exit To Brooklyn. The action succeeded but was later overturned after a successful appeal by the lawyer and writer John Mortimer.
Retiring i n 1967, Gradwell died in November 1969, aged 70.
Ernest J. Thompson, Leeds.
QUESTION How did the Irish prince Wolf the Quarrelsome win his name? NOT much is known about Wolf The Quarrelsome, whose story features twice in the Viking Njals saga.
In 1005 AD, Brian Boru from the southern kingdom of the Dál Cais (County Clare) asserted his right to the title of Imperatoris Scotorum, ‘the emperor of the Irish’.
At the time Ireland had 150 kings, and for much of his reign Boru battled those who refused to bow to his rule, in particular the Vikings of Dublin and the kings of Munster and Leinster. The struggle culminated in the Battle of Clontarf near Dublin on April 23, 1014.
Boru’s army was pitted against a VikingIrish alliance of Sigtrygg Silkbeard, king of Dublin, Mael Morda mac Murchada, king of Leinster, and a Viking contingent led by Sigurd of orkney and Brodir of Mann. The battle ended in a rout of the Viking and Leinster forces, with between 7,000 and 10,000 men killed.
While the battle is remembered in both the Irish and Viking sagas, the name Ulf Hreda, ‘ Wolf the Quarrelsome’, only features in the Njals saga. In it he twice confronts King Brodir: ‘ Brodir went through the host of the foe, and felled all the foremost that stood there, but no steel would bite on his mail. Ulf Hreda was on that wing of the battle against which Brodir stood; but on the other wing, where Sigtrygg stood against them, were ospak and his sons.
‘Ulf Hreda turned then to meet him, and thrust at him thrice so hard that Brodir fell before him at each thrust, and was well-nigh not getting on his feet again; but as soon as ever he found his feet, he fled away into the wood at once.’
Brodir hides in the woods awaiting his chance and later slays Boru. Brodir is captured and meets a horrible end at the hands of Ulf: ‘Then they threw a ring round Brodir and his men, and threw branches of trees upon them, and so Brodir was taken alive. Ulf Hreda cut open his belly, and led him round the trunk of a tree, and so wound all his entrails out of him, and he did not die before they were all drawn out of him.’
Scholars believe the soubriquet refers to Boru’s son Murchad who commanded the flank arrayed against Brodir. This would tie in with the Irish record of the battle.
The 19th- century author Dr Webbe Dasent suggests the uncomplimentary name might have been suggested by the account which Leinster’s king, Mael Morda, gave to his Danish allies about provocations he had suffered f rom Murchad, with the soubriquet supplanting the true name among the invaders.
Walter Kinnerson, London SW11.
QUESTION Why does Leuchars, in Fife, have a Norman Castle (only a motte survives) and a Norman Romanesque church? I DISAGREE with the previous answer: there is no recorded history of William the Conqueror suppressing Scotland, only that he withdrew his forces in 1072.
The Norman influence came with the return to Scotland from schooling in england of David, son of Malcolm Canmor, king of Scotland. on becoming king in 1124, he gave his Norman friends lands and titles. even King David never controlled all of Scotland which was the main reason William was unsuccessful.
Furthermore, the lowland Scots did not speak Anglo- Saxon english; they still speak a version of Doric Scots, which has no connection with Anglo Saxon english.
Scotland is the only part of the British isles which has never been successfully conquered by anyone.
Colin MacGregor, Almeria, Spain.