text: The Arctic convoys of World War II were oceangoing convoys which sailed from the United Kingdom, Iceland, and North America to northern ports in the Soviet Union – primarily Arkhangelsk (Archangel) and Murmansk in Russia. There were 78 convoys between August 1941 and May 1945, sailing via several seas of the Atlantic and Arctic oceans, with periods with no sailings during several months in 1942, and in the summers of 1943 and 1944.
  About 1,400 merchant ships delivered essential supplies to the Soviet Union under the Anglo-Soviet Agreement and US Lend-Lease program, escorted by ships of the Royal Navy, Royal Canadian Navy, and the U.S. Navy. Eighty-five merchant vessels and 16 Royal Navy warships (two cruisers, six destroyers, eight other escort ships) were lost.  Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine lost a number of vessels including one battleship, three destroyers, 30 U-boats, and many aircraft. The convoys demonstrated the Allies' commitment to helping the Soviet Union, prior to the opening of a second front, and tied up a substantial part of Germany's naval and air forces.
  Background
  During World War I (1914-1918), Central Powers blockades halted traffic between  Imperial Russia and its  Allies via the Black Sea and the Baltic. The Tsarist authorities sped up development of an ice-free port at Romanov-on-Murman (present-day Murmansk); however, supplies arriving via the Arctic came too little and too late to prevent the Allied collapse on the  Eastern Front.
  But the operation of Murmansk proved and established the feasibility of a Arctic supply-line for military materiel.