Part 2
On the eve of the October Revolution, in addition to surface ships, the Russian navy included 52 submarines, of which 41 were in service, 7 were under construction and assembly, and 4 were in storage at the port.
In terms of the number of submarines, the Russian fleet was not inferior to the fleets of many of the largest maritime powers. However, a significant drawback was the multi-type submarine, as well as the technical and moral obsolescence of almost half of them.
On the Baltic Sea there were 32 submarines of 6 types, on the Black Sea - 19 submarines of 7 types. One submarine was part of the Arctic Ocean flotilla ("St. George \").
Only about 60% of the submarine fleet (31 submarines of the Killer Whale, Lamprey, Walrus, Bars and Crab types) were built at domestic shipyards according to the designs of Russian designers. The rest of the submarines were either built in Russia according to foreign projects, or purchased from foreign firms. Of the 52 submarines, 49 were torpedo and 3 minelayers. In the Baltic, the submarines in the ranks were reduced to a division, on the Black Sea - to a brigade.
By the beginning of 1918, submarines in the Baltic were in the following bases:
In Revel - 17 submarines (like / "Catfish \" - / "Gudgeon \", / "Beluga \", / "Pike \", / "Sterlet \", like / "Cayman \" - / "Cayman \", / "Alligator \", / "Crocodile \". / "Dragon \"; type / "Bars \" - / "Tiger \", / "Panther \", / "Lynx \", / "Cougar \", / "Jaguar \", / "Unicorn \", / "Tour \", / "Snake \", / "Eel \".
In Helsingfors - 4 submarines (such as / "Bars \" - / "Boar \", / "Wolf \", / "Leopard \", / "Ruff \").
There are 4 submarines in Hange (such as / "AG \" - / "AG-11 \", / "AG-12 \", / "AG-15 \", / "AG-16 \").
In Petrograd - 7 PL ("Lamprey \", such as / "Killer Whale \" - - / "Killer Whale \", / "Chum \", / "Mackerel \", / "Perch \", type / "Bars \" - / "Trout \". / "Ide \"). PL / "Trout \" and / "Ide \" were transferred from Revel in November 1917 PL / "Lamprey \", / "Killer whale \", / "Chum \", / "mackerel \" and / "Perch \" "arrived from Finland for overhaul on December 19, 1917, the submarine \" AG-16 / "until July 21, 1917 was called \" AG-13 / ", \" Keta / "until August 17, 1917 - \" Field Marshal Count Sheremetev / ".
In connection with the recognition of the state independence of Finland on December 18 (31), 1917, the head of the Soviet government, Lenin, considered it absolutely necessary to completely relocate the ships of the Baltic Fleet to a new system of bases - Kronstadt, Petrograd, Sestroretsk, Luga Bay.
On February 15, 1918, the fleet received an order to prepare all icebreakers in Revel. On February 16, the chief of the 1st cruiser brigade in Reval received an order to bring the ships to a two-day readiness for the transition to Helsingfors. On the same day, the Naval General Staff issued an urgent directive to the command of the fleet, which, in particular, provided for the redeployment of ships from forward bases (Revel and Helsingfors) to Kronstadt. On February 17, on behalf of the Council of People's Commissars, the Central Committee of the Baltic Fleet (Tsentrobalt) was telegraphed a directive of the Board of the People's Commissariat for Maritime Affairs, which ordered to begin the transfer of ships from Reval to Helsingfors, and then to Kronstadt. These directives were the initial documents for the preparation and implementation of the first strategic operation of the Soviet AMF - the Arctic campaign, carried out in February - April 1918
On February 17, the head of the submarine division (these duties were temporarily performed by Captain 2nd Rank V. F. Dudkin) were ordered to immediately begin transferring all submarines to Helsingfors, as well as floating bases and other auxiliary vessels that were wintering in Reval.
Mechanisms were repaired on almost all submarines of the scuba diving division that wintered in Reval.
On February 20, the first 3 submarines left Revel on the icebreaker / "Volynets \" in tow. Two days later, the icebreaker / "Ermak \" took another 2 submarines and two loaded vehicles to Helsingfors.
On February 24, the transport / "Europe \" left Revel, together with the submarine / "Tiger \" and / "Cougar \".
German aviation tried to prevent the passage of ships by bombing, but it failed. The Baltic sailors in extremely difficult conditions withdrew 9 submarines of the "Bars" type from Revel. The defective submarine "Unicorn" sank on the way to Helsingfors. This boat, which had no speed, was driven by the tug "Germanmark", mooring it at its side. The boat was getting water all the time, so the water pump was continuously working in tug. When the pump got clogged and the submarine began to quickly fill up with water, the mooring lines had to be given up. The PL went to the bottom. The PL / "Unicorn \" turned out to have a very peculiar fate. On September 25, 1917, she sat down on the stones near the island of Eryo (Abo-Alan archipelago), while receiving a hole. After being removed from the stones, following in tow, she again ran into the underwater reefs and sank. Was raised by the rescue ship / "Volkhov \" on October 7, 1917.
At noon on February 25, German troops entered Revel. Here they captured a submarine of the type / "Catfish \" of the training detachment / "Beluga \", / "Gudgeon \", / "Sterlet \" and / "Pike \" (entered service in 1905 - 1906), as well as 4 Submarine type / "Cayman \", which entered service in 1911, obsolete and therefore handed over to the port (submarine / "Crocodile \" was converted into a charging station). It was not possible to withdraw from Reval the transport "Saint Nicholas", which contained the property of the 4th division of the submarines of the "AG" type, based in Hange, the tugboat "Grenen" with the property and some mechanisms of the submarine "Eel", the floating workshop of the Baltic Shipyard.
In total, 56 warships and vessels were withdrawn from Reval. Several ships were covered with ice, they came to Helsingfors in early March.
In Helsingfors, intensive preparations were under way for the redeployment of ships to Kronstadt.
On March 12, the first detachment of ships, consisting of 4 battleships and 3 cruisers, left. The escort was carried out by icebreakers "Ermak" and "Volynets". But soon the military-political situation in Finland deteriorated significantly. On April 3, a German division landed in Hang.
Therefore, the sailors of the 4th division were forced to blow up the submarines / "AG-11 \", / "AG-12 \", / "AG-15 \" and / "AG-16 \" and destroy the floating base / "Oland \", so that they do not fall to the invaders.
By this time, 12 submarines of the Bars type, the Tosno and Voin floating bases, the Peter the Great training ship, which was used as a floating base and the Volkhov rescue ship, were concentrated in Helsingfors. Only 7 submarines could go under their own power. especially difficult was the condition of the submarine / "Cougar \" and / "Eel \"
On the night of April 5, the second detachment began the transition to Kronstadt. On the tug of the battleship "Andrey Pervozvanny" was the submarine "Tur", with the cruiser "Oleg" - the submarine "Tiger", with the cruiser "Bayan" - the submarine "Rys". Abeam the Grokhar lighthouse, about 6 miles from Helsingfors, the Lynx submarine was covered with ice and its hull was damaged. The cruiser "Bayan" handed over the tug. By the evening of April 6, this submarine managed to return to Helsingfors.
Submarine "Tour" and "Tigr" at noon on April 11 entered Kronstadt behind the icebreaker "Ermak". The bow ballast tanks and superstructure of the submarine "Tur" were seriously damaged, the bow end of the submarine "Tigr" was broken. The transfer of the third detachment was carried out by 5 echelons from April 7 to 12. This detachment consisted of 48 destroyers, 10 submarines, 5 minelayers, 6 minesweepers, 11 patrol ships. This was the most difficult and difficult stage of the Ice campaign. The German government issued an ultimatum demanded that all Soviet warships in the ports of Finland be disarmed by 12 noon on April 12.
At dawn on April 7, the Yastreb and Ruslan patrol ships, together with the Arkona tug, took out 8 submarines from Helsingfors. On April 9, the submarine "Ugor" (9) in tug near the transport "Izhe") and the submarine "Cougar" (in tow near the floating base "Tosno") left the harbor. On the submarine "Cougar", which left the last, there was the temporarily acting chief of the division, Captain 2nd Rank VF Dudkin.
During the passage, ships were often compressed by ice. Submarines of the "Bars" type did not have watertight bulkheads and the appearance of a hole in the solid hull could lead to their death. The boats were so covered with ice that sometimes only the wheelhouses towered over the boulders piled up on the decks. Submariners constantly chipped off the ice. Often the way the ships had to be paved with crowbars. The movement of ice was especially dangerous. Ice crawled onto the submarine, squeezed them. Dents formed in the housings, rivets flew out, seams diverged. Many submarines had damaged bow torpedo tubes' covers, bow and ballast tanks and superstructures, vertical and horizontal rudders bent, propeller blades broke off.
On April 15, at nightfall, the Vepr, Volk, Jaguar, Lynx, Yorsh, Snake, Leopard submarines and the Tosno floating base from the Cougar submarine in tow arrived in Kronstadt, and the next day they crossed over to Petrograd.
On April 17 the submarine "Eel" arrived, on April 18 - the submarine "Panther", on April 22 - the floating base - "Voin".
Thus, the transfer of the third group of ships was successfully completed. In Helsingfors, the transport "Europe", the floating base "Pamyat Azov" and the rescue ship "Volkhov" remained from the submarine division, which could not leave due to a lack of coal and a significant shortage of crews.
The last ships of the third detachment left on April 12, when the German troops had already entered the outskirts of the city. The next day, the German dreadnoughts Westfalen, Posen and the battleship Beowulf entered the Helsingfors raid and opened artillery fire on the coast.
During the Ice campaign, V. F. Dudkin, S. P. Yazykov, G. V. Vasiliev, B. M. Voroshilin, N. A. Gornyakovsky, G. I. Gutta, A. A. Zhdan showed exceptional courage and dedication. Pushkin, Ya. K. Zubarev, A. A. Ikonnikov, N. K. Kechedzhi, M. V. Lashmanov, Yu. V. Poiret, M. F. Storozhenko, G. M. Trusov, G. A. Schroeder and many others
The rescue ship Volkhov left Helsingfors on May 11, 1918.
The last to leave it on May 28 was the Pamyat Azov ship, which was used as the flagship of the senior naval commander in Finland.
The rescued submarines, together with a small number of submarines stationed in Petrograd, formed the core of the Soviet submarine forces.
The Soviet government took urgent measures to protect Kronstadt and Petrograd. In connection with the aggravation of relations with Germany, Fort Ino was blown up on May 14.
On May 16, 1918, the Baltic ship forces, put on high alert, were divided into 3 categories:
Active fleet, Armed reserve, Ships in long-term storage.
On May 22, Captain 2nd Rank K. E. Vvedensky, mine driver I. V. Vladimirov was appointed chief commissar of the division for political affairs.
Instead of 6 divisions, of which the division had previously consisted, two were formed.
The first division (chief - senior lieutenant K. L. Sobolev, commissar I. E. Ivanov) was a reserve one and consisted of 11 submarines: "Wolf", "Vepr", "Ruff", "Snake", "Trout", "Cougar", "Ide", "Eel", "Chum salmon", "Killer whale" and "Perch". All of them were in need of repair or were being completed.
The second division (chief captain of the 2nd rank Ya. K. Zubarev, commissar S. P. Yazykov) included the most efficient submarines - "Tiger", "Panther", "Lynx", "Tour", "Jaguar", "Leopard", Lamprey and Mackerel.
The division had 5 auxiliary vessels.
During the 1918 campaign, the composition of the division underwent significant changes. In July, only 6 submarines ("Tiger", "Panther", "Jaguar", "Leopard", "Lynx" and "Tour") were left in the active fleet, consolidated into a separate division. In the reserve in Petrograd there were submarines "Volk", "Vepr", "Ruff", "Trout", "Lamprey" and "Mackerel", and the rest of submarines (from the beginning of August also "Lamprey" and "Mackerel" Petrograd port.
Submarine "Keta" was completely excluded from the fleet.
Four submarines of the active division conducted reconnaissance in the Gulf of Finland and Narva, and two in Lake Ladoga in order to prevent the landing of enemy troops on the near approaches to Petrograd. Submarine Vepr was the first to leave on July 3, 1918, into Lake Ladoga, and Panther submarine, the second, on August 23.
In the fall of 1918, the military-political situation changed dramatically. The Entente troops defeated the exhausted German army. On November 13, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted a resolution annulling the Brest Peace Treaty. However, Germany's defeat in the war allowed the United States, Great Britain and France to use the liberated forces to intensify the armed struggle against Soviet Russia.
In the summer of 1918, the Eastern Front became the main front, with its southern flank resting on the Caspian Sea. Holding the Volga delta in their hands and controlling the northern part of the Caspian, the Soviet troops did not allow the armies of General Denikin and Admiral Kolchak to connect. At the direction of Lenin, measures were taken to strengthen the naval forces in the north of the Caspian Sea.
In August 1918, the transfer of a destroyer detachment from the Baltic to the Caspian Sea along the Mariinsky water system began. However, due to the aggravation of the situation on the Eastern Front, the destroyers were included in the Volga flotilla.
Lenin insisted on the transfer of several more destroyers and submarines here.
In Petrograd, an urgent preparation was made to send submarines Lamprey, Makrel, Kasatka and Okun to the Caspian by rail. Soon, these submarines were delivered to Saratov and launched into the Volga water. On November 15, the Lamprey and Mackrel submarines arrived in Astrakhan and became part of the Astrakhan-Caspian Flotilla, formed in October 1918. The Kasatka and Okun submarines hibernated near Saratov.
On April 30, 1919, the landing force landed by the ships of the Astrakhan-Caspian Flotilla captured Fort-Aleksandrovsky (Fort Shevchenko), located in the Tyub-Karagan Bay of the Mangyshlak Peninsula. Thus, the flotilla received a maneuverable base on the eastern coast of the Caspian. By mid-May, the ships concentrated in Tyub-Karagan Bay, but soon the main forces of the flotilla moved to the Astrakhan raid. Only a few ships remained at Fort-Aleksandrovsky, including the lamprey and Mackrel submarines, and the Revel floating base.
On May 20, 1919, an enemy reconnaissance aircraft appeared over the bay, and about noon the next day, 11 ships of the interventionists and White Guards were discovered on the horizon. Six enemy ships, approaching the bay at 14.20, opened fire. An unequal battle ensued. Submarine "Mackerel" at this time received torpedoes. Its commander G. A. Schroeder ordered to submerge immediately. Quickly sinking under the water, "Mackerel" headed towards the exit from the bay to meet the enemy ships. The depth of the fairway did not exceed 7 meters, and the draft of the submarine under the periscope was 6, 6 meters. To increase the water supply under the keel, the Mackrel submarine left the bay with a lowered periscope. The commander led the submarine blindly. On the horizontal rudders was the sergeant major M. V. Lashmanov. High craftsmanship allowed him to maintain the depth of the dive, despite the continuous change in the trim of the boat due to the fact that the seals and rivets let water through.
The second submarine - "Lamprey", which had faulty diesel engines, approached on electric motors to the board of the floating base "Revel", which stood at the pier. At this time, one of the shells hit the "Revel". A fire broke out at the floating base, the flame spread to the submarine. The Revel commander ordered the mooring lines to be chopped off to protect the wooden pier. The burning floating base was turned in the wind, and she fell on the artillery transport "Tuman". The messenger ship "Helma" was nearby. The ships were engulfed in flames.
Submariners quickly dropped the Lamprey's mooring lines on board the Revel. But when the submarine began to move, it accidentally wound around the steel mooring screw. Then the commander of the "Lamprey" Yu. V. Poiret, divisional mechanical engineer A. N. Kalinin with three sailors, jumping into the boat, took the submarine in tow and leaned on the oars with all his might. Hardly was it possible to pull the submarine "Lamprey" away from the burning ships, when an explosion was heard on the "Fog". The transport, the floating base and the messenger ship sank almost simultaneously.
The auxiliary vessel "Bakinets" hastened to help the submarine. Submarine "Lamprey" was taken to one of the piers. Soon an enemy seaplane appeared over the bay, which began to fire at ships and drop bombs. Opening rifle and machine-gun fire, the Soviet sailors repulsed the attack of this aircraft.
At night it became known that the enemy had landed a naval assault 30-40 km from Fort-Aleksandrovsky. The enemy ships were still keeping close to the Tyub-Karagan Bay. The command of the flotilla sent a land detachment against the landing, reinforced by naval sailors removed from the ships. The commander of the submarine "Lamprey", which lost its speed due to the rope wound around the propeller, was ordered to destroy it. But the divers decided to save their ship. The communist steering sergeant major V. Ya. Isaev volunteered to free the screw from the steel cable. Working in cold water, he showed tenacity and endurance. After 2 hours, the propeller was cleared of the cable, and the submarine was able to move. Meanwhile, the Mackrel submarine that emerged from the gulf was discovered by an enemy aircraft, bombarded, but escaped unharmed. The appearance of the submarine at sea alarmed the enemy. In his report, the commander of the Mackrel submarine wrote that the enemy, having found her, "turned back, concentrating all his fire on the square where the Soviet submarine was located, which saved the ships with mines and shells in the harbor from complete defeat." Fearing a torpedo strike by the LPO, the enemy ships hastened to leave.
In this difficult situation, the chief sergeant of the L "Mackrel" MV Lashmanov, who was on watch on horizontal rudders, distinguished himself especially. For 8 hours in a row he held the ship at a given depth in shallow water conditions. At the request of the commander of the submarine G. A. Schroeder and the commissar of the division S. N. Naumov, M. V. Lashmanov, for the courage and skill shown in this battle, was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. G. A. Schroeder, in his petition of January 2, 1924, on awarding M. V. Lashmanov with the Order of the Red Banner, indicated: "Upon returning to the fort, it turned out that the only assistant
Renoyan lost his mind from the experiences he had experienced, and on the campaign comrade. Lashmanov had to replace the retired assistant on my order, which he did brilliantly. V. V. Lashmanov was awarded only in April 1928.
The Mackrel submarine could not pass to Astrakhan due to a sharp drop in water on the so-called 24-foot roadstead formed by the Volga delta. The boat had to stay in the roadstead. Together with her was a river tug, armed with a machine gun. Only 6 people remained at the Mackrel submarine, including the commander and commissar. For a week, the submariners successfully repelled attacks from enemy aircraft and sail-motor boats - "Rybnitsa", armed with torpedo tubes. Only with the rise of the water, removing some of the mechanisms from the submarine and pumping out the ballast, the sailors managed to bring the submarine "Mackrel" to Astrakhan with the help of a tug. Safely reached Astrakhan and submarine "Lamprey".
Baltic submariners, fulfilling Lenin's assignments, acted decisively and selflessly in the Caspian. Submarine crews consisted almost entirely of communists and their sympathizers.
On the submarine "Lamprey" 10 submariners were communists, 8 were sympathizers and only 2 were non-partisan. The Mackrel submarine crew consisted of 9 communists, 8 sympathizers, 2 non-partisans.
The commander of the submarine division (and at the same time the Lamprey submarine) was Yu. V. Poiret. The commissar of the division was the communist motor foreman SN Naumov, the commissar of the submarine "Lamprey" was the communist V. Zhukovsky, the commissar of the "Makreli" was the communist I. V. Kelner.
Part 4
