NAVAL veterans have been honoured for their courage and determination in braving the Arctic to deliver supplies during the Second World War.

Douglas Shelley, 88, and Alfred Fowler, 91, were presented with the Ushakov Medal, a Russian naval decoration, for sailing through temperatures of -40C to break a Nazi blockade.

The Russian ambassador decorated the men, who left Southend as teenagers to man vessels heading through the icy Barents Sea to Arkhangelsk, in Russia, in a ceremony in London.

Mr Shelley, of Gayton Road, said: “I’ve got the greatest feeling for the Russians and they respect us – which you don’t find from our own Government.

“Our Government hasn’t laid it on like the Russians have.

“But if it wasn’t for what we did for them, they would have been finished.”

Mr Fowler, of Sutton Road, who stills receives Christmas cards each year from Russian school children, said: “The Russian people, from young children to older ones, show respect because they know if we hadn’t got all the tanks and aircraft through to them, there wouldn’t be a Russia today.

“When we went there, they treated us like royalty.”

As a naval seaman, part of Mr Shelley’s role was to chip ice off the deck of destroyer HMS Milne as it escorted merchant ships carrying supplies through a deadly net of German U-Boats and bombers.

The grandfather-of-six said: “The Barents Sea is the coldest in the world.

“If you fell in you lasted about four minutes before you were a block of ice.

“If your nose dripped, it was an icicle.”

Seamen were permanently wrapped in thick Russian underwear, a seaman’s jersey, a boiler suit and a duffel coat.

He added: “You lived and died in that”.

As a lead stoker, Mr Fowler, who has nine grandchildren and three great grandchildren, was in the engine room of cruiser HMS Sheffield – but he wasn’t protected from the cold.

He had to chip ice from the fans in the boiler room.

The pair admit being “gung-ho” when they signed up aged 17 and 18 and failed to fully comprehend the dangers they faced.

Mr Shelley, who served until 1947, recounted watching German submarines sink three ships around him and a torpedo miss the Milne by mere feet.

And Mr Fowler, who served until 1946, gave a poignant reflection on his role in the war: “Over the years you mellow and you think about those times and about how you remember the good times more than the bad ones.

“I remember sinking a German destroyer and 268 men died.

“I thought back as an adult that 268 families lost a husband, a son or a father and I was instrumental in that.

“It appals me to think about it now.

“But that was war.”

The British Government awarded veterans who took part in the Arctic Convoys the Arctic Star medal last year – but only after a 70 year fight for recognition of their contribution to the war effort.

Each year British veterans attend a service at the Soviet Memorial, in London, before the Russians host a party – with lashings of vodka – aboard HMS Belfast.