The fate of the Shch-211 submarine was not an easy one. She fought and died in the Great Patriotic War, having fulfilled her duty to the end. For 60 years, only the gloomy depths of the Black Sea knew the cause and place of the Pike's death. What little people knew, they had to keep in the twilight of military secrets. Even in the official documents of that time, they did not indicate what exactly the heroes were awarded for, but sparingly wrote "for completing a special task of the command." Then Victory came, and the feat of the crew was adequately appreciated. In the "turbid 90s" the enemies again declared battle "Shch-211". This time they tried to drown the memory of the submariners who died on it.
The Pike-class submarines are a series of medium-sized submarines built in the USSR in the 1930s - 1940s. They were relatively cheap to build, maneuverable and tenacious. "Pike" took an active part in the Great Patriotic War, 31 of 44 fighting boats were killed. Submarines of the "Sh" type sank a total of 27 enemy transports and tankers with a total displacement of 79 855 brt, in their combat account - 35% of the sunk and damaged tonnage of the enemy … "Shch-211" was laid down on June 3, 1934 at the plant number 200 "named after 61 Communards" in Nikolaev, serial number 1035. She was launched on September 3, 1936, and on May 5, 1938 entered service and became part of the Black Sea fleet.
"Shch-211" on the move
On June 22, 1941, "Shch-211" was part of the 4th division of the 1st submarine brigade, based in Sevastopol, and was undergoing maintenance. The commander of the Pike was cap. leith. Alexander Danilovich Devyatko. In July, Art. leith. Pavel Romanovich Borisenko. On July 6, the Pike set out on its first military campaign, at position No. 5 near Cape Emine, on the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria, but did not meet with enemy ships. The boat returned to Sevastopol on 27 July.
On August 5, 1941, a group of 14 Bulgarian communists arrived on board the Shch-211. The head of the group was Tsvyatko Radoinov. Their task was to lead the Resistance Movement in different regions of Bulgaria and to deploy massive partisan, subversive, intelligence and propaganda activities in the strategic rear of the Third Reich. The group was deeply conspiratorial and, in theory, no one, except the captain, was supposed to communicate with its members. Even the captain was "strictly recommended" not to communicate directly with the members of the group, but to resolve all the issues that arose through the senior Tsvyatko Radoinov. However, it went smoothly only on paper.
The Bulgarians were extremely surprised by the irrational, in their mind, distribution of the load in a cramped "tin can", where they were crammed in the strictest secrecy. They knew that they would have to travel for at least three or four days and were not too lazy to distribute the load in such a way as to get as comfortable as possible in these conditions. The submarine mechanic was also extremely surprised by the sudden imbalance of the ship, which he suddenly "got mad" and nearly capsized at the pier. Finally, the watch mastered the emergency, keeping the Pike on an even keel, and the saboteurs settled down almost like at home. The idyll was destroyed by the commander of the ship, who revived the presumptuous guests. The saboteurs turned out to be conscious and immediately began to return everything "as it was." However, cap. leith. Nine did not risk trying fate once again. The Bulgarians were put overboard and the team itself, for the umpteenth time, redistributed the load and differentiated the submarine. Greatly judging that the safety of the ship is more important than any conspiracy, the commander of the "Pike" distributed the "guests" evenly in all rooms of the submarine. The Bulgarians became close friends with the Soviet crew and for the rest of their lives spoke of Soviet submariners with great respect and genuine human warmth. The conspiracy was a success.
Meeting at the stern of the "pike" before going out to sea. Cap. 3 ranks B. A. Uspensky, extreme left, dressed "for the marching". On the right, the commander of the 2nd DNPL Captain 3rd Rank Yu. G. Kuzmin, an officer from the "pike" team and a military commissar of the 1st BRPL regimental commissar V. P. Obidin
Late in the evening of August 5, "Shch-211" set off. The commander of the 4th battalion of the submarine cap went on a hike as support on board. 3 ranks B. A. Uspensky. The submarine reached the Bulgarian coast on 8 August. Due to the strong light of the moon and the risk of being detected, the group landed three days later - on August 11, at the mouth of the Kamchia River, north of Cape Karaburun. Of the entire group, only Kostadin Lagadinov, later a military lawyer and general of the Bulgarian People's Army, survived the war.
Already on August 22, members of G. Grigorov's combat group set fire to a railway train in Varna with fuel intended for dispatch for the Eastern Front, 7 tanks with gasoline burned down. In the same month, in Sofia, P. Usenliev's combat group organized the crash of a freight train carrying cargo for the German army. By the end of the summer of 1941, 55 members of the BRP (k) had illegally entered the territory of Bulgaria with the help of Soviet submarines and aircraft. In November, Tsvyatko Radoinov became a member of the Central Military Commission of the Bulgarian Workers' Party (communists). During the first year of combat groups' activity alone, police reports recorded over 260 acts of sabotage and sabotage.
The monarchist-fascist police of Bulgaria did not doze either. Driven by diplomatic and political pressure from the Third Reich, Bulgaria in the summer of 1942 held two high-profile show trials of leaders and members of the Resistance Movement. At the Trial of Submariners and Parachutists, the Sofia Military Field Court passed the death sentence on 18 of the 27 defendants, among those shot was Tsvyatko Radoinov. At the “Trial of the Central Committee of the BRP (k)”, the same court of 60 people sentenced 12 to death (6 of them in absentia), 2 to life imprisonment, and the rest to various terms of imprisonment. The death penalty was carried out the very next day at the shooting range of the Reserve Officers' School in Sofia.
Despite brutal public reprisals, harassment and torture in police custody, the militant groups continued to resist. Just two months after the mass shootings, on September 19, 1942, Slavcho Bonchev's militant group of six communists armed with only one pistol disarmed a guard and set fire to the warehouse of the Sveti Iliya cooperative in Sofia. It kept sheepskin coats produced in Bulgaria for the Wehrmacht units on the Eastern Front. In view of the tense situation with the provision of warm clothing for the German troops in the USSR, the diplomatic representatives of the Third Reich in Bulgaria reacted extremely sharply. The police urgently identified all the perpetrators of the sabotage, and the court obediently sentenced Slavcho Bonchev to death in absentia. Nevertheless, on November 5, 1942, in Sofia, on Ferdinand Boulevard, another warehouse with warm clothes prepared for the Nazi army flashed.
In the victorious 1943, the Central Military Commission of the BRP (k) was reorganized into the General Staff of the People's Liberation Insurgent Army of Bulgaria, and the country's territory was divided into 12 partisan operational zones. During 1943, the partisans held 1606 actions, and by the end of August 1944 - another 1909. To protect their military facilities and communications in Bulgaria, the Wehrmacht command was forced to divert 19, 5 thousand people. When the troops of the 3rd Ukrainian Front came to the northern border of the country, the German command reasonably considered that it was not worth defending in a country with such powerful popular resistance. Hitler's troops fled home and not a single Soviet soldier died during the liberation of Bulgaria, except, of course, single deaths due to careless handling of weapons and equipment, illness and other non-combat losses.
All these combat successes became possible to a large extent thanks to the efforts of the Shch-211 crew. After all, out of 55 leaders and organizers of the Resistance Movement in Bulgaria, on August 11, 1941, 14 were landed from Shch-211. 44 Pikes combined.
Four days after the landing of the Bulgarian group - on August 15, 1941, "Shch-211" opened a "combat account" of the Black Sea Fleet in the Great Patriotic War, sinking the Romanian transport "Peles" (5708 brt) near Cape Emine. In its third military campaign on September 29 of the same year, "Shch-211" sank the Italian tanker "Superga" (6154 brt) off the Bulgarian coast.
November 14, 1941 "Shch-211" went on a military campaign to position number 21 near Varna, from which it did not return. The cause and place of death remained unknown for a long time.
In early 1942, the sea threw the body of a Soviet naval officer in a rubber suit on a sandy beach near the village (now the city) of Byala, north of Cape Ak-Burnu (now Cape Sveti Atanas). Around the neck were wrapped binoculars 6X30 No. 015106 from 1921 with a broken eyepiece. This officer turned out to be the assistant to the commander of Shch-211, senior lieutenant Pavel Romanovich Borisenko. Probably, at the time of the sinking, the Pike was on the surface, and Borisenko, who was on duty on the bridge, was killed in the explosion. He was buried in the city cemetery in Varna, where grateful Bulgarians look after his grave to this day.
Both officers - the captain and his assistant were awarded the Order of the Red Banner, but did not live to see their awards. In the section "description of the feat" in their award lists they wrote "for courageous and decisive actions to destroy enemy ships and for the fulfillment (ensuring the commander's decision when performing) a special mission." During the war, it was impossible to disclose who, from where and in what way the organizers of the Resistance Movement in Eastern Europe were sent. Even in their secret award documents.
Italian tanker "Superga"
After the war, the commander of "Shch-211" was awarded by the Presidium of the People's Assembly of Bulgaria with the Order "September 9, 1944" I degree with swords. A street in Varna was named after Alexander Devyatko, on which a modest bronze plate with a bas-relief and the name of the hero was installed. The place and circumstances of the sinking of the Pike were still unknown.
End of the first part.
Literature:
Balgarin is taken, but Russia will eat the homeland (bulg.) // Duma: newspaper. - 2010. - No. 209.
Diving: Give me credit for the feat of diving and parachuting prez 1941/1942 / Kiril Vidinski; Lit. processing Alexander Girginov; [From preg. from Ivan Vinarov] Sofia: BKP, 1968, 343 p.; 25 cm (bulg.)
Platonov A. V. Encyclopedia of Soviet submarines 1941-1945. - M.: AST, 2004.-- S. 187-188. - 592 p. - 3000 copies. - ISBN 5-17-024904-7
