At the end of the 30s, none of the strategists and politicians had yet quite clearly imagined what role an aircraft carrier could play in a naval war. This class of ships was considered only as a useful addition to the line forces, as a means of providing the fleet with aerial reconnaissance, preliminary weakening of ship groupings and striking enemy coastal targets in order to subsequently defeat them with artillery of battleships and cruisers. At that time, it was believed that aircraft carriers could not operate on their own, since they were not able to defend themselves against surface ships, submarines and enemy aircraft.
The first impetus to clarify the combat capabilities of the aircraft carrier was the raid of British naval aviation on the main Italian base of Taranto on November 11, 1940. The next, more significant, was Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. After these two dramas, aircraft carriers became a strike force on the seas.
Interest in their history also increased. However, who first thought about the aircraft carrier? The Americans believe that the primacy belongs to them. In the United States, in 1910, the World newspaper suggested arranging sites for aircraft take-off on ships. In England, they are sure that the first was Admiral McKerr, who in 1911 presented the aircraft carrier project to the Admiralty. In France, the countdown dates back to 1912, when the La Foudre mine transport was converted into the first aircraft carrier.
Well, in Russia we have archival and literary sources testifying that our compatriot, the captain of the corps of mechanical engineers Lev Makarovich Matsievich, was the first to correctly assess the interaction of the ship and the aircraft - in 1909.
“You have little chance of success,” Colonel Krylov, acting chairman of the Marine Technical Committee, told Matsievich. - "However, I will try to turn to Prince Golitsyn for help." Left alone, the colonel wrote down in the calendar "Business": "Report on the proposal cap. Matsievich to the Assistant to the Minister of the Sea”. Then again: "Talk with Professor Boklevsky." The professor was not only interested in aviation, but also had great connections.
Colonel Alexei Nikolaevich Krylov, the future academician, knew who had what opportunities, he also knew about the attitude of the naval authorities, up to the supreme, towards the aviation that appeared abroad. The attitude is very skeptical. This was facilitated by the report of our naval attaché in France, who shared the point of view of the admirals there: "About airplanes, - wrote the attaché, - there is nothing to say, they will not see the sea soon … in the near future this apparatus will not be able to conquer the air over the sea" …
L. M. Matsievich, the author of the armored cruiser project and fourteen submarine projects, became interested in the "air" in 1907, when he made a close acquaintance with his comrade in service, Lieutenant B. M. Zhuravlev. The lieutenant suggested equipping the cruisers with balloons in order to increase the visibility range of the horizon. Zhuravlev did not succeed in realizing this idea, but his article in the journal "Russian Shipping" helped many sailors appeal to the sky. Including Matsievich.
In a memo, submitted to the Main Naval Headquarters on October 23, 1909, Matsievich predicted the future of naval and naval aviation. “The qualities of airplanes,” he wrote, “make it possible to think about the possibility of their application to naval affairs. When one or more airplanes are placed on the deck of a ship, they can serve as scouts, as well as to establish communication between individual ships of the squadron and to communicate with the shore. In addition, a special type of reconnaissance ship equipped with a large number of airplanes (up to 25) is possible. The technical side of creating sea-type airplanes (having the ability to land on water, while maintaining the necessary buoyancy and stability), as well as the possibility of placing them on the deck of warships, apparently do not present insurmountable difficulties and are already being developed by me. It is not difficult to arrange special platforms in the bow and stern of the vessel, on which airplanes would be placed and from which they would rise. Airplanes would be lifted from the course of the ship or by means of specially adapted rails."
That is, an aircraft carrier, a seaplane and a catapult were proposed for launching it.
This note, like the second, filed soon, had no effect. According to the second chief of the main naval headquarters, Vice Admiral N. M. Yakovlev appointed a commission. She recognized the project worthy of attention, but did not find it possible to finance it from the treasury. And all other attempts to stir up the command resulted only in the creation of commissions, consideration, resolutions. The case is well known, for Russia it was very typical both in those days and now.
Matsievich, however, was lucky: one of his reports and, accordingly, about the resolution on this report became known (not without the assistance of Colonel A. N. And then someone advised the prince to give part of the donation, 900 thousand rubles, to the development of the aviation business in Russia. Having caught the favor of such an important person, Golitsyn, Krylov and Boklevsky worked with other committee members to create the required number of votes. To some extent, they succeeded.
Then, on December 13, 1909, a closed meeting of members of the Council of Ministers, representatives of the State Council and some officials of the State Duma was held at the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. Academician, Admiral B. B. Golitsyn. He criticized the military, naval and internal affairs ministries for the inactivity. B. B. Golitsyn expressed the idea that the state should take the development of the aviation business in Russia into its own hands. It should, of course … However, practically the academician suggested organizing a commission again, though this time a special, interdepartmental one, consisting of representatives of the State Council, the State Duma, interested ministries, higher educational institutions, as well as public organizations and associations.
And again, the result was familiar both in the old days and in the present. The Council of Ministers approved the admiral's proposal, but two days later, an addition was added to the protocol by some unknown person, which reduced the approval to zero: "Improvement of methods of movement in airspace and practical testing of new inventions should be the subject of private initiative."
In December, Captain Matsievich also joined the Grand Ducal Committee. On January 12, 1910, the committee asked the donors to express their opinion on what to spend 900 thousand rubles on. We decided: for domestic aeronautics. On January 30, the Air Fleet Division was created under the committee. In March, eight officers and seven lower ranks were seconded to France, the center of aviation thought at the time, at the expense of the committee for training in flight and maintenance of equipment. At the same time, it was decided to order eleven airplanes of different systems from France. Captain Matsievich was appointed chairman of the selection committee.
In Paris, on the Grands Boulevards, at the Brabant Hotel, a kind of headquarters for Russian aviators, Matsievich told pilot Efimov that although there is no aviation in Russia yet, there is already a rule according to which every takeoff and landing of an aircraft must be present police officers. In addition, a separate police permit is required for any flight. In the Duma, a left-wing deputy, Maklakov, spoke out against this and received a truly amazing answer: "Before you teach the inhabitants to fly, you need to teach the police to fly!"
From France, Matsievich wrote: "I fly on Farman, I know how to fly Sommer, upon arrival in Sevastopol I will begin to study on Bleriot, I will thoroughly study the shortcomings of existing airplanes, and then I will start designing a new airplane."
Flight L. M. Matsievich.
He returned to St. Petersburg on September 3, immediately went to the next meeting of the committee. The project of creating an aviation school in Sevastopol was discussed. Matsievich was appointed head of the workshops there, allocated 15,000 rubles for the construction of an airplane of his design and an old military ship for making experiments. Colonel Krylov was the first to congratulate him on his new appointment: “Here, sir, the first victory is obvious! God knows, your business has moved off dead center."
However, fate decreed otherwise. Before leaving for Sevastopol, the captain decided to take part in the First All-Russian Aeronautics Festival, which was held with great triumph. He flew in front of hundreds of thousands of spectators on "Farman", set a record for the duration of the flight (44 minutes 12, 2 seconds), won a prize for landing accuracy. Matsievich rode passengers in the air, including Professor Boklevsky, Chairman of the Council of Ministers Stolypin (a special protocol was drawn up about this) and Vice-Admiral Yakovlev, the same one who once tried to drown the captain's idea of equipping ships with airplanes in the commission. Satisfied with the flight, the admiral said goodbye: “It looks like airplanes can indeed be useful to the fleet. There will be suggestions on this part - write your reports, consider and try to help."
The first All-Russian festival of aeronautics. A group of aviators at the airplane. In the center M. N. Efimov, 1st from the left L. M. Matsievich
On September 24, in the evening, Matsievich's mechanic, non-commissioned officer Alexander Zhukov, who was traveling with the captain to France, noticed signs of fatigue on the pilot's face. When Matsievich started the engine, the clock showed 5 hours 33 minutes in the afternoon. At exactly six o'clock, a cannon shot was heard, announcing the end of official flights that day, but the audience did not disperse, watching the flight of one of their favorites. Farman was at an altitude of 480 meters when the audience heard an incomprehensible crack in the air. The airplane swayed uncertainly, pecked its nose, rushed down. Then for a moment it leveled off and immediately began to break apart. The pilot, ahead of the wreckage, fell to the ground.
Matsievich at "Farman"
Spectators rushed to the crash site. Captain Matsievich lay prone, throwing his right hand aside and bending his left under him. As if I wanted to turn my face to the sky for the last time. The next day, the commission established the cause of the pilot's death. During the flight, one of the guy wires in front of the engine burst, hit the propeller, pulled tight and forced other guy wires to burst. The rigidity of the system was broken, the airplane began to deform. While trying to straighten the falling car, Matsievich jumped out of his seat and fell out of the airplane.
Lev Makarovich Matsievich became the first victim of the Russian aviation, tens of thousands of people accompanied him to the cemetery. One of the people seeing off, a high school student, recalled many years later: “I raised my whole class, we collected money for a wreath, went to Emil Tsindel under the Passage to buy it. The wreath was laid on the coffin, still visible from the pile of flowers, in the naval church of Spyridonius in the Admiralty. The girls were crying, although it was difficult for me, I was strong. But then my mother, seeing it must be that it was still very difficult for me, took and led me either to some kind of meeting, or a matinee in memory of the deceased hero. Everything would have been nothing, and I probably would have sat out the speeches, obituaries, and musical accompaniment with dignity. But the organizers had the idea to start the civil funeral ceremony with a funeral march, and the musicians, instead of the usual, well-known, so to speak familiar Chopin march, suddenly brought down Beethoven's mighty, proud and endlessly tragic opening chords "March Funebra" onto the hall. And this I could not bear. They took me home."
The death of Captain Matsievich made specialists think about flight safety. The naval newspaper Kronstadtsky Vestnik wrote on September 26: “How many eyewitnesses of the flight would have given so much that at the moment of the airplane's fall Matsievich would have tore off … the parachute and landed on the Commandant's field safe and sound, while his damaged Farman would turn over in the air and fly like a stone to the ground … If there were such a parachute, or something like that for Matsievich - 90% for the fact that a decisive and courageous aviator would remain alive for the good of Russia."
The irony of fate: the balloonist Drevnitsky successfully performed at the festival with a parachute jumping demonstration. Unfortunately, it was impossible to jump from an airplane with such a parachute. The parachute to save the pilot was invented only a year later by one of the eyewitnesses to the death of Matsievich, Gleb Kotelnikov.
At the Commandant airfield, a marble slab was laid with the inscription: “In this place, Captain Lev Makarovich Matsivich fell a victim of duty on September 24, 1910, flying on the Farman airplane of the Corps of Naval Engineers of the Navy. This monument was erected by the Imperially established Special Committee for Strengthening the Navy on voluntary donations, of which the deceased was a member."
References:
1. Grigoriev A. Albatross: From the history of hydroaviation. M.: Mashinostroenie, 1989. S. 17-18.
2. Grigoriev A. "I did not know the discord between dream, word and deed." // Inventor and innovator. - 1989. - No. 10. S. 26-27.
3. Uspensky L. Man flies. // Around the world. - 1969. - No. 5. S. 66-70.
