It is not in vain that you can never write about planes or tanks the way you write about ships. The ship is a thing in itself, as if playing for a long time on the stage of history, if you're lucky. Therefore, fate often arranged such tests for them that one simply wonders how this could have happened at all.
Here is today's hero of my story - one of the Novik-class destroyers. The project of the ship was simply gorgeous, and Russia in those years became the trendsetter of the destroyer fashion, so to speak.
Probably it should be said about the ships in numbers.
Full displacement: 1260 tons
Length: 98 meters
Width: 9.3 meters
Draft: 3 meters
Engines: 2 х 16,000 hp on fuel oil
Speed: 35 knots
Cruising range: 2800 miles
Armament:
4 102-mm guns, 1 37-mm gun, 2 Maxim machine guns, 3 457-mm three-tube torpedo tubes, 80 mines.
Crew: 150 people.
The ship, as you can see, is small, but fast and toothy.
And now one of the Noviks, which was laid down at the shipyard of the Society of Putilov Plants in St. Petersburg in September 1913, was named Captain Kinsbergen on October 11.
Truly, "what do you call a yacht, so …"
The big deal is the name given to the ship.
We start from the beginning, namely, who was Captain Kinsbergen and why was the ship of the Russian fleet named after him?
The name is clear that he is Dutch. Jan Hendrik van Kinsbergen, to be exact. Following the example of many of his compatriots, in 1771 he entered the Russian Navy with the rank of lieutenant commander. Looking ahead, he rose to the rank of captain of the first rank.
In 1772, during the Russian-Turkish war of 1768-1774, he was assigned to the Danube Flotilla, where he took command of the "Peaceful Bearer" galeot.
In 1773, Jan Hendrik van Kinsbergen led the squadron of the Azov flotilla.
On June 23, 1773, commanding two newly-invented ships, he won the first victory of the Russian fleet on the Black Sea in the battle of Balaklava.
On July 30, 1773, he was awarded the Order of St. George of the 4th degree. Then there was a successful battle with the Turks at Sujuk-Kale and another Order of St. George, 3rd degree.
But then it began …
In 1775, Kinsbergen seemed to have retired from the Russian service, left for his homeland and continued his naval career in the Dutch navy. In 1777 he was excluded from the lists of Russian officers due to failure to appear. But attempts to return Kinsbergen to the bosom of the Russian fleet continued, he was really appreciated.
From 1780 he commanded one of the ships of the squadron of Admiral Zutman and on August 5, 1781 he took part in the Battle of Dogger Bank. That is, he fought on the side of the Dutch against the British.
He rose to the rank of full admiral, became the commander of the Dutch naval forces.
Organized the fortification of the Dutch ports against the invasion of the French. After the establishment of the Batavian Republic in 1795, he was stripped of his admiral's rank and imprisoned, but was soon released (without being reinstated in rank).
Offended by his homeland, Kinsbergen found himself in the service of its neighbors in Denmark. After Denmark, he somehow fought for those against whom he built defenses in Holland, that is, in Bonaparte's fleet. Received the title of Count van de Doggersbank from Louis Bonaparte.
He returned to Holland, but did not have time to really accomplish anything, since after the fall of Napoleon he was again dismissed from service (but at least not imprisoned), retired and died peacefully in 1819.
Why did I talk in such detail about the life of the admiral? It's simple. "What do you call a yacht …" Let's see what fate was in store for the ship named after Count van de Doggersbank.
And mysticism was going on with the ship. In general, in addition to our destroyer, the Dutch named their ships in honor of Kinsbergen three times, but it was not possible to trace their fate. But our Novik is enough for us.
In June 1915, the destroyer under construction was renamed at the request of the crew and became known as Captain 1st Rank Miklouha-Maclay. Of course, it's a little crooked, since "Maclay" was a nickname that became part of the surname of the eldest of the three Miklukh brothers, a famous ethnographer, Nikolai Nikolaevich.
And the captain of the first rank Vladimir Nikolaevich bore, like his father, the surname Miklukh. But that was the name of the destroyer.
After October 1917, the destroyer changed its flag, as it ended up in the fleet of another state - Soviet Russia. Naturally, the name had to be changed immediately, because how is it normal if the ship carries the name of a Russian officer, and even heroically died in battle? Of course not.
That is why a year later (it took a long time to choose the name) the ship was named "Spartak". A very nautical name, but it can't be helped.
The renaming took place on December 18, 1918, and already on December 26 "Spartak", together with the destroyer of the same type, "Avtroil", went on its first combat mission: a reconnaissance raid to the Revel port.
In general, this frankly stupid operation is worth telling separately, since it very clearly manifested the organizational talents of the demonstrating naval commanders such as F. F. Ilyin / Raskolnikov, who donated two warships to the enemy.
The result of the operation was the capture by the British of two excellent ships and disgrace for the Baltic Fleet. We will not touch Avtoil, but what happened to Spartak?
Waiting for the approach of Avtroil with the cruiser Oleg, Spartak began shelling the Estonian islands, but seeing a detachment of British ships (2 cruisers and 4 destroyers) moving in its direction, the crew held a short meeting (as was then accepted) and, turning the ship, began to move away from the enemy.
What happened next is a subject of special study, since there are several versions of what happened.
I tend to stick to the one that says that a single shell hit Spartak. British sailors have always been able to do this - to hit other people's ships with shells.
But this shell smashed the navigator's cabin, navigator NN Struisky was wounded and lightly wounded by shrapnel, he was taken to the cabin, and the wheelhouse was … slightly crushed. They say that the map on which Struisky laid the route turned out to be "crumpled and torn."
As a result, the only person who could navigate the ship turned out to be incapacitated, there was no one to replace the navigator (this is not to hold a meeting on the poop), therefore the ship sat down on the Kuradium bank quite normally.
The British approached, the ship's flag was already lowered. The crew surrendered, many sailors were shot by the British on the island of Naisaar, the head of the campaign, Raskolnikov, was exchanged for British officers who were captured during the attack on Kronstadt on torpedo boats.
The British calmly removed the ship from the shallows and already on January 3, 1919, transferred the destroyer to the Estonian navy. Here he received the name "Wambola".
Under a new flag and with a new name, the ship managed to participate, together with the British fleet, in hostilities against the ships and land units of Soviet Russia.
"Vambola" participated in the shelling of the forts "Krasnaya Gorka" and "Gray Horse", setting up minefields (which, by the way, blew up and killed three destroyers of the Baltic Fleet: "Gabriel", "Constantine" and "Svoboda") and landings in the rear of the red troops.
But after the end of the civil war, he, in general, had no business. The ship with the reduced crew was mostly moored. Remember, "if you want to ruin a small country - give it a cruiser"? And so it happened.
Basically, the ship was at the pier with a semblance of a crew on board, and in 1933 it was sold to Peru. In the naval forces of this state, he received the name "Almirante Villar".
It is clear that the ship would not be named after an ordinary employee. Rear Admiral Manuel Oliveira Villar was in 1881 the commander-in-chief of the combined Chilean-Peruvian squadron during the battle with the Spaniards at Abtao.
One of the authors of the new naval charter of Peru. By the way, the destroyer Almirante Villar is the first of the three ships of the Peruvian fleet that bore this name. Almost like the story with Kinsbergen.
And so, on the other side of the world, the former Russian destroyer had to fight. Villars took part in two wars. I could not find details of his actions in the Colombian-Peruvian war of 1932-33, but the battle with the Ecuadorian gunboat "Abdon Calderon" in 1941 is described in some detail.
In general, wars in Latin America are the most boring and ordinary phenomenon. I would say that the main thing is not the result, but the process itself. But the victims were not an example of Europe. For example, in the described war of 1941-42 (they fought on the sly for the disputed lands), a little less than 1200 people died, and almost 300 thousand square kilometers of territory went to Peru.
According to the version of the Ecuadorian military, "Admiral Villar" received great damage, according to the Peruvian version, the destroyer, of course, emerged victorious from the battle. But most likely, the fight ended in a draw, and zero.
If only because after the conclusion of the next peace treaty in 1942, "Admiral Villard" was in service right up to 1955. This is a lot for a ship of this class, especially since it did not stand still.
40 years, several wars, long hikes …
The ship's service life came to an end in 1955 when the Almirante Villar was cut into metal. This destroyer turned out to be the longest-lived of all Noviks.
Truly, how to name a ship, so it will live.
Captain Kinsbergen served under the flags of Russia, Holland, Denmark, France. The destroyer, originally named after him, served the Russian Empire, Soviet Russia, Estonia, Peru.
Well, how not to be surprised at such strange coincidences?
