The United States began to move massive supplies by other routes: half of all wartime American shipments reached Russia through its Pacific ports, a quarter through Iran, and only a quarter—4.43 million tons—via Archangel and Murmansk. The human cost of the Arctic convoys was astonishingly small by the standards of other battlefields: though 18 warships and 87 merchantmen were lost, only 1,944 naval personnel and 829 merchant seamen died serving on Arctic convoys between 1941 and 1945. The Germans lost 1 battleship, 3 destroyers, 32 U-boats and a substantial number of aircraft.
