It was crucial to the Allied war effort and involved almost unimaginable hardship, but 60 years on the sacrifices of those involved in the Arctic conveys still go unrecognised with a medal. Nick Morrison speaks to a survivor.

BEAR Island is an almost triangular-shaped rock in the middle of the Barents Sea, a couple of hundred miles north of the Norwegian coast. Home to a small race of arctic fox, it has been permanently settled for less than 100 years. To the Arctic convoys of the Second World War, it signalled they were entering the Gates of Hell.

On a journey when danger was ever-present, this was the most perilous leg of all. The eight-week round trip saw the convoys of Merchant and Royal Navy vessels under almost constant attack from planes, ships and U-boats. But it was as they entered the Barents Sea that the terror reached its height.

"The submarines lined up in front of us. We couldn't see them, but they knew we were there. We were sitting ducks," says Jimmy Taylor. "It was going on all the time, but there was nothing we could do. You just had to grin and bear it."

Jimmy is a veteran of the Arctic convoys, the heroic effort to keep Russia in the war by supplying guns, ammunition, equipment and fuel. Had they failed, Russia may have been forced to capitulate, allowing Hitler to divert his troops in the East to the Western Front. As a result, D-Day would have either become impossible, or would have involved a much greater loss of life.

Between August 1941, when Russia was attacked by Germany, to May 1945 when Victory in Europe was achieved, some 78 convoys of merchant ships and their Navy escorts made the journey, the majority from Loch Ewe in the north of Scotland, via Reykjavik in Iceland to Murmansk and Arkhangel in Russia.

The operation delivered more than 16 million tonnes of material, including 417,000 vehicles, 22,000 aircraft and 13,000 tanks, as well as food and clothes. Official figures put the death toll at 2,773. Russia resisted the German invasion and the sieges of Leningrad and Stalingrad ended in disaster for Hitler.

Jimmy, now 83 and living in Middlesbrough, joined the Arctic convoys after serving on merchant ships crossing the Atlantic. A fisherman originally from Fraserburgh, in Scotland, he had moved to Teesside shortly after enlisting in the Merchant Navy as an 18-year-old.

He was assigned to the SS Adolph S Ochs, a "Liberty ship" leased from the United States. After loading up with ammunition, planes, guns, tanks and steam locomotive engines, the merchant vessels arrived at Loch Ewe, where they were joined by a Royal Navy escort from Scapa Flow.

But it was after leaving Reykjavik that the most dangerous phase of the journey began. Dive bombers from bases in Norway would attack the convoy, screaming towards the virtually defenceless merchant ships before releasing their torpedoes. German ships based at Bear Island were a constant danger, but most chilling of all was the unseen menace of the U-boats.

As the convoys steamed north the days became longer, until reaching the 24-hour daylight of the Arctic. Attacks now took place around the clock.

"Around Bear Island was the worst part of it," says Jimmy. "We were on action stations most of the time, 24 hours a day sometimes.

"We did four hours on, four hours off, but if you were not on duty you were on stand-by. It was going on all the time, they were just sending down bombers all the time."

Jimmy's job was as a water tender, helping to keep the engines running. It was only later that he had time to think about the danger.

"I had to work down a tunnel under thousands of tonnes of ammunition. I never thought anything of it, but I was locked in because of the watertight doors and if anything had happened I wouldn't have had a chance. I wouldn't get blown up, I'd get blown down," he says.

But there were times when the engine room crew couldn't resist coming on deck to see what was happening.

"If there was a torpedo coming towards you, we would swing the ship towards it so it would brush down the side. You knew that because you were full of ammunition, if you got hit that would be it.

"If a ship was hit it would get blown to smithereens. There would just be a red flash and smoke and the next thing there was no ship there," he says.

But the Germans weren't the only menace to the crews. It was so cold that bare flesh would freeze to exposed metal, and would have to be painfully torn away. Anyone who did escape a stricken ship would not expect to survive for long adrift on the sea, even in a lifeboat.

"We had to wear duffel coats in the engine room because it was so cold," says Jimmy. "You had to keep moving to circulate your blood.

"You wore long johns all the time and even in bed it was freezing, and it wasn't because we didn't have enough bed clothes. You just couldn't get warm. When you were on deck you had to chip at the ice, chip the guns so they could revolve. There were a lot of times I was frightened, but the cold attacked your nerves also."

Jimmy returned from two convoys before his service took him away from the Arctic. During the war, he married Annie, who worked in the munitions factories at Newton Aycliffe, and after the war ended he worked at sea for another six years, before the couple moved to Australia, where he got a job in a power station. But in 1999 he returned to Teesside.

Now he is one of those campaigning for recognition of the sacrifices of the Arctic campaign. Cold War politics meant no separate medal was ever issued for those who served on the convoys, the Ministry of Defence insisting their contribution is recognised by the Atlantic Star. Instead, the veterans have been offered a badge.

Jimmy, who received the Russian Medal for his tours on the convoys, took part in a protest march last year, but after suffering a stroke he will be unable to attend a Downing Street reception for the veterans in May.

"I think it's a disgrace we haven't got a medal for it," he says. "It doesn't make me any richer, it doesn't put food in my mouth, but I like to think about those fellers left up there. It wasn't like normal living up there."