[Juha]

Yes, there was also a Catalina sqn for searches, altogether 32 Hampdens, 13 Catalinas and 4 Spitfires to protect PQ-18 and QP-14. Hampdens flew only one mission searching Tirpitz for an attack but found nothing. Then it was decided that flight back to GB against prevailing winds would be too foolhardy, so it was decided to turn over the surviving Hampdens to the Russians and the crews returned on warship(s). One of the Hampdens flown by a Sqn/Ldr on way to the SU landed in Norway and Germans got important papers from it on the PQ 18, IIRC also its timetable, but that was also picked off by the Finnish radio-intelligence who had intercepted and decoded a low-level VVS message which also gave away the timetable of the PQ 18.