On 12 January the convoy had to turn south to avoid ice; the weather was calm, visibility was exceptional, with a short period of twilight around noon.

On 17 January, U-454 of wolfpack Ulan damaged the merchant ship SS Harmatris and sank the destroyer HMS Matabele with the loss of all but two of its crew, when the convoy had almost reached Murmansk.

[1] Before September 1941 the British had dispatched 450 aircraft, 22,000 long tons (22,000 t) of rubber, 3,000,000 pairs of boots and stocks of tin, aluminium, jute, lead and wool.

The USSR turned out to lack the ships and escorts and the British and Americans, who had made a commitment to "help with the delivery", undertook to deliver the supplies for want of an alternative.

The main Soviet need in 1941 was military equipment to replace losses because, at the time of the negotiations, two large aircraft factories were being moved east from Leningrad and two more from Ukraine.

The Anglo-Americans also undertook to send 42,000 long tons (43,000 t) of aluminium and 3, 862 machine tools, along with sundry raw materials, food and medical supplies.

[2] The growing German air strength in Norway and increasing losses to convoys and their escorts, led Rear-Admiral Stuart Bonham Carter, commander of the 18th Cruiser Squadron, Admiral sir John Tovey, Commander in Chief Home Fleet and Admiral Sir Dudley Pound the First Sea Lord, the professional head of the Royal Navy, unanimously to advocate the suspension of Arctic convoys during the summer months.

[3] The British Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) based at Bletchley Park housed a small industry of code-breakers and traffic analysts.

In 1941, B-Dienst read signals from the Commander in Chief Western Approaches informing convoys of areas patrolled by U-boats, enabling the submarines to move into "safe" zones.

[6] In early September, Finnish Radio Intelligence deciphered a Soviet Air Force transmission which divulged the convoy itinerary, which was forwarded it to the Germans.

British convoys to Russia had received little attention since they averaged only eight ships each and the long Arctic winter nights negated even the limited Luftwaffe effort that was available.

[14] Oberkommando der Luftwaffe (OKL, the high command of the Luftwaffe) was not able to increase the number of search and rescue aircraft in Norway, due to a general shortage of aircraft and crews, despite Stumpff pointing out that coming down in such cold waters required extremely swift recovery and that his crews "must be given a chance of rescue" or morale could not be maintained.

In large convoys, the commodore was assisted by vice- and rear-commodores with whom he directed the speed, course and zig-zagging of the merchant ships and liaised with the escort commander.

On 12 January the convoy reached 73°45′N 00°00′E / 73.750°N 0.000°E / 73.750; 0.000 and had to turn south to avoid ice; the weather remained calm and visibility was exceptional, with a short period of twilight around noon.

[29] The Kriegsmarine had established gruppe Ulan, its first Arctic wolfpack, a patrol line consisting of the U-boats U-134 (Rudolf Schendel), U-454 (Burckhard Hacklander) and U-584 (Joachim Deecke), based at Kirkenes, searched for the convoy.

A junction with the Murmansk-based minesweepers was made difficult by fog; HMS Britomart and Salamander were stuck in the Kola Inlet but Sharpshooter sailed, followed a while later by Hazard.

An hour later the ship shook and Brundle thought it was a mine explosion but U-454 had manoeuvred round and hit Harmatris on the port side with a torpedo that failed to explode.

[35] At 10:00 p.m. Trinidad sent Matabele back to Harmatris as Sharpshooter had arrived from Kola at 9:45 p.m.[34] U-454 had sailed ahead of the ships and saw the tanker British Pride illuminated by the lighthouse at Cape Teriberskiy and fired a salvo of torpedoes.

Only two men, Ordinary Seamen William Burras and Ernest Higgins survived, the crew being killed in the torpedo explosion, the detonation of its depth charges or of hypothermia in the water.

Somali made a wide circuit 10 nmi (19 km; 12 mi) around the starboard side of the convoy and depth-charged several Asdic contacts.

[37] The Heinkel strafed Harmatris at low altitude but was hit and driven off, trailing smoke, by the anti-aircraft fire of the minesweepers and the eight Defensively equipped merchant ship (DEMS) gunners on board.

A Junkers Ju 88 attacked about an hour later, straddled the ship with bombs, which caused no damage and turned away, also trailing smoke, leaving bullet holes in the superstructure.

[40] The crew surveyed the ship and found that iron locking bars had been scattered about the deck and wooden hatched and tarpaulins were trapped in the rigging.

[42] Despite the loss of Matabele, PQ 8 had been fortunate that a sortie by Tirpitz had been cancelled, due to its destroyer escorts being diverted south for the Channel Dash.

The regular sailings to Murmansk and the failure of the German Army to capture the port six months after the start of Operation Barbarossa, made the establishment of a U-boat force in Norway permanent and become a significant part of the anti-shipping effort.

In February, Rear-Admiral Harold Burrough, commander of the 10th Cruiser Squadron, was dispatched to Murmansk in HMS Nigeria to represent Tovey's views that the Russians should make more effort to defend convoys between Bear Island and the Kola Inlet.

The Captain sent groups of crewmembers to cadge spares from other ships but the shortages and the intense cold stopped work, then Brundle was told that Harmatris was being evicted from the dry dock to make room for a destroyer.

The Senior British Naval Officer, Rear-Admiral Richard Bevan, overruled Brundle's objections and on 14 March Harmatris was moved to a coal dock near Vaenga, about 4 mi (6.4 km) from Murmansk.

No help was forthcoming from the Russian authorities and the engineers in the crew offered to continue the repair work provided the employer paid overtime.

2 hold had been taking on water which would add to the ship's list; Brundle spent much time telephoning British and Russian agencies to find an electric pump and had to be talked out of writing to Stalin in despair.