A trail of saboteurs
On the night of April 13-14, it became known about a fire and an explosion on the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet — cruiser «Moskva», and less than a day later the Ministry of Defense reported: the warship sank while trying to tow it to Sevastopol. The current tragedy – this is the third case in the last little over a century of the death of the largest warships off the coast of the main Crimean base of our fleet on the Black Sea.
Photo : Global Look Press
Perhaps, we can talk about some mystical coincidences.
And it's not even that the trouble with “Moscow” happened exactly on the 13th, under the sign of a number that some superstitious sailors really dislike.
After all, it was there, in Sevastopol, many years ago, under very strange circumstances, two of the largest ships for their time, also heading the Black Sea fleet.
The first of these high-profile in the literal sense of the word state of emergency happened on October 7 (20 according to a new style) of October 1916. Then the battleship “Empress Maria”, the first-born of the latest series of domestic dreadnoughts, exploded and sank in the Sevastopol Bay.
The explosion, which thundered on October 7 at seven o'clock in the morning, was heard by the whole of Sevastopol. The sailors from the ships that were in the bay next to the “Empress Maria” saw that the superstructure with the foremast and conning tower suddenly disappeared on the battleship, the forward funnel disappeared, and instead of them a huge funnel swirled with black smoke, “gnawed through” pieces of the board almost to the very level of the water. Following the first threw more explosions – it was exploding ammunition. Sailors and officers rushed about on the deck among the flames of the fire, the wounded and the dead were lying.
On alarm, tugboats and fire boats approached the ship in distress, arrived the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Vice Admiral Kolchak. But it was no longer possible to help the armored giant. 50 minutes after the first, there was another particularly powerful explosion. The battleship lay down on the starboard side, rolled up her keel and quickly sank to the bottom.
“Empress Maria” Photo: en.wikipedia.org
According to official data, together with “Empress Maria” 152 people died. Almost the same number later died in hospitals from wounds and burns.
Literally the next day, commissions of inquiry appointed by the tsar left for Sevastopol – Supreme Investigative and Technical Investigative.
After ten days of work, the interrogators summed up: “The cause of the explosion was a fire that arose in the bow artillery cellar of the battleship as a result of the ignition of a 305-mm gunpowder charge, which led to the explosion of several hundred charges and shells of the main caliber… It was impossible to prevent the death of the battleship after damage to the outer side.
As for the causes of the fire, the report indicated three versions: spontaneous combustion of gunpowder, negligence in handling fire or gunpowder itself, and, finally, “malicious intent”.
Specialists also suggested that the culprit could be a damaged cap with a powder charge. There were also good reasons to suspect someone outside the battleship's crew of creating the conditions for the explosion.
From the materials of the commission of inquiry: “On the” Empress Maria ” there were significant deviations from the statutory requirements regarding access to artillery cellars & hellip; During the stay in Sevastopol, representatives of various factories worked on the battleship, and their number reached 150 people. Work was also carried out in the shell cellar of the 1st tower — they were performed by 4 people. Surname checking of workmen was not carried out — they only noted their total number.
The retired captain of the 1st rank, Oktyabr Bar-Biryukov, now deceased fleet historian, with whom the author of these lines happened to meet, collected information about this tragedy. He told about one very interesting fact:
– A few years ago, employees of the Central Archive of the FSB found in the documents of the OGPU of Ukraine information about the exposure in 1933 in Nikolaev of a deeply clandestine group of German intelligence officers, headed by the Russified German Werman. This group has been working there since pre-war times and one of its main targets was shipyards.
During interrogation, Verman said that he began to cooperate with the Germans as early as 1908, and later, having headed a spy network in southern Russia, he personally recruited several engineers who then specially went to work at the Nikolaev shipyards, among them the electrical engineer Sgibnev, who was responsible for installation of electrical equipment at all facilities under construction at the Russud plant warships (including the Empress Maria).
According to Werman, the electrical circuits of the artillery turrets of the new Russian dreadnoughts were of particular interest to German intelligence.
Unfortunately, the Chekists in 1933 were no longer interested in the details of that long-standing spy story. They “stabbed” Verman and his assistants on the episodes of their work against the USSR. Therefore, the final confirmation of the sabotage version of the catastrophe of the “Empress” these documents were never found.
October Petrovich also managed to get acquainted with other archival documents that convinced him that the Russian dreadnought was blown up by German saboteurs.
From the memorandum of the head of the Sevastopol gendarme department to the chief of staff of the Black Sea Fleet: “I have the honor to report that the intelligence data that comes to me boils down to the following: wounded sailors from the ship say that the explosion occurred from an incorrect connection of electrical wires, since the ship went out before the fire electricity. In addition, these sailors say that the workers on the wiring of electricity, who were on the ship on the eve of the explosion until 10 a.m. Evenings, they could have done something with malicious intent, since the workers did not look around at the entrance to the ship and also worked without inspection.
The engineer of the company on Nakhimovsky Prospekt in house No. 35, allegedly on the eve of the explosion, he left Sevastopol.
However, all this is only circumstantial evidence. The mystery of the death of a huge ship remained unsolved.
The second disaster in the Sevastopol Bay, as a result of which the then largest ship of the Black Sea Fleet sank to the bottom, occurred almost exactly 39 years later.
“Novorossiysk” Photo: en.wikipedia.org
On the night of October 29, 1955, the battleship Novorossiysk, which was anchored in the Northern Bay, was shaken by a powerful explosion. He pierced the hull from the keel to the deck, forming a huge hole in the side, and more than 300 sailors were immediately killed and wounded. After some time, the armored hulk turned over. Many members of the team were buried in the internal compartments of the sunken flagship, others were covered by the battleship's wide stern. According to official figures, 657 people died on the battleship.
Oktyabr Bar-Biryukov then served at Novorossiysk and only by a lucky chance did not appear at the time of the explosion on the ship. He tried to unravel the mystery of the tragedy of the battleship for many years.
«Novorossiysk» was the flagship of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet for a very short time. And before that, this huge ship had a completely different citizenship and name. He was part of the Italian Navy under the name “Giulio Cesare”; (“Julius Caesar”).
— At the end of World War II, the victorious countries agreed on the division of the Italian fleet, — said Bar-Biryukov. — A special commission of representatives from England, America, France and the USSR worked on this for almost two years. For Soviet Russia, the most difficult thing was to get from “friends-allies” “Giulio Cesare”.
The British put forward a variety of reasons, allegedly preventing its transfer to the Russians. Instead, they offered other Italian ships, but we needed the Caesar. This giant, 185 meters long and with a displacement of more than 30,000 tons, is armed with ten 320-mm caliber guns, which we had no equal in the fleet. «Tsar Cannon» could fire shells of half a ton weighing 32 kilometers!
As it turned out later, the military leadership of the USSR wanted for the main caliber of the “Italian”; to make a set of tactical shells with atomic “stuffing”, and, thus, the ex-“Julius Caesar” could become the first nuclear strike ship in the USSR.
By the autumn of 1955, a batch of such ammunition had already been made and even brought to the Crimea. They were going to load them into the artillery cellars of the battleship immediately after the naval parade dedicated to the next anniversary of the October Revolution. However, these secret plans of the command were not destined to come true.
At half past two on the night of October 29, when “Novorossiysk” anchored near the coast of the Northern Bay, an explosion thundered in the bow of the battleship. Almost immediately “passed out” electricity, and a “combat alert” was announced on the battleship plunged into darkness: it seemed to everyone that the ship had been bombed from the air. Later, it was discovered that the blow was struck from below: a 15×18 meter hole was formed in the side from a terrible explosion.
The destruction fell on the most habitable part of the Novorossiysk: a significant part of the crew slept in the forward cockpits. The explosion killed about 170 people and injured 140.
Half an hour later, the fleet commander Parkhomenko, accompanied by fifty admirals and officers, arrived on the ship choking with water. First of all, the fleet fleet suspended the operation to tow the Novorossiysk that had already begun. to the nearest shallows: he was sure that the huge battleship, even with serious damage, would remain afloat. Meanwhile, the water was rapidly spilling inside the hull, under its pressure, one after another, the watertight bulkheads bulged and burst. The battleship gradually rolled to the port side and more and more sank with her bow — time to drag him to shallow water was lost. 2 hours 45 minutes after the explosion, the armored hulk lay on board and rolled over.
The tragedy of “Empress Maria” repeated as if in a mirror image!
A special government commission that arrived in Sevastopol devoted only a week to investigating the disaster. By November 4, the final report was ready: the ship was blown up by a German bottom mine of the RMH type, which remained at the bottom of the Northern Bay from wartime.
— On that they calmed down, – did not hide his annoyance even many years later, October Bar-Biryukov. – Although the version does not stand up to criticism. After all, such a mine can only work if there is a charged battery in it. But what kind of miracle battery is this, which is capable of maintaining a charge under water for 11 years (the Germans left Sevastopol in 1944) ?! In addition, it seems very strange to me that literally a few months later, at the beginning of 1956, “upstairs” it was decided to destroy all materials with testimonies collected during the study of the circumstances of the Novorossiysk disaster.
It is simply amazing that in a country where endemic “spy mania” reigned for decades, they did not want to see sabotage. But such a reason for the death of the battleship looks much more convincing.
— During the war, the British and Italians had excellent submarine assault groups — The 12th Flotilla of the Royal Navy under the command of Captain Crabbe and the 10th Flotilla of the Italian Navy, led by the famous “Superman” Valerio Borghese. Moreover, the Italian swimmers knew the design of this battleship in every detail! – emphasized Oktyabr Petrovich and added: – I managed to look at the materials in the archives of the border service. Among the documents relating to the protection of the Sevastopol raid, there was a mention that after the explosion, local residents told the “green caps” that people in light diving suits seemed to be seen on one of the beaches.
And in the intelligence reports of our fleet Another important circumstance was recorded: these days there were 5 merchant ships from NATO member countries in the Black Sea. On the eve of October 29, all the mentioned “traders”, as if on cue, turned towards Turkey, but one of them made a strange “turnaround” at the same time. to Sevastopol… The question is – not in order to pick up the saboteurs who completed the task?
Probably, several NATO states had a hand in organizing the terrorist attack — UK, Italy, USA. But here's a curious touch: apparently, blowing up Novorossiysk performed “on a commercial basis”. The fact is that by this time the unit of Italian underwater saboteurs had been officially disbanded, but these people had not forgotten their former military craft, and all weapons, instruments and equipment remained at their disposal. When the opponents of the USSR came up with a plan to destroy the first Soviet nuclear attack ship, they easily found executors from among the submariners Borghese — “for an appropriate remuneration.”
Here it is important to take into account the fact that a detachment of several swimmers of the 10th flotilla operated in the Crimea during the war (the Italian base was in Foros). On account of these saboteurs — more than a dozen of our ships sunk. Therefore, the situation in the vicinity of Sevastopol was thoroughly known to the Italian “underwater special forces”. But the saboteurs used the technique, most likely, English. The following option seems likely: they were parachuted from a secret compartment of a bulk carrier on a mini-submarine “Miges” with a displacement of 30 tons and a length of 14 meters. This submarine was armed with a pair of underwater charges of two tons. According to experts, it was the explosion of such mines that could cause such severe destruction that Novorossiysk received.
As if specifically to facilitate the work of saboteurs, the Sevastopol raid in the last days of October 1955, when the fleet was being prepared for the festive parade, was practically not guarded at all. The gates of the booms are open, the permanent observation posts in Severnaya Bay have been removed due to downsizing, and even the direction finders have been turned off by someone's order!
Bar-Biryukov believed that not only the cause of the fatal explosion at Novorossiysk, but also the number of victims of this tragedy, remains unknown. During those long-standing meetings of ours with him, he expressed his thoughts on this matter, – considerations of the man who served on the lost battleship.
— In the documents of the commission, which I happened to hold in my hands, the number of people on board the ship is said in a veiled way: “The composition of sailors and foremen at Novorossiysk” was 120% of the staff. So guess — how many people fought death that night on the blown up flagship battleship?! It can be considered very approximately that on board the battleship, taking into account the fleet leaders who arrived there on alarm and several emergency parties from other ships, there were about 2 thousand people. The explosion killed about 170 sailors, and at least 300 more Black Sea sailors died when the ship capsized. But besides this, someone died already in the cold October water, someone died from wounds and burns in the hospital…
The very first list of victims of the disaster, prepared for a report to “higher authorities”, included 602 sailors. This figure was later corrected, and now the total number of deaths in the accident is estimated at 657 people. Although in fact, I'm sure there were at least fifty more. After all, just on the eve of the explosion, replenishment arrived at the battleship — about 50 coast guard sailors transferred from our naval bases in Finland. They were placed to spend the night in the spire compartment, almost completely destroyed by the explosion. The names of these people were never included in the lists of victims of the nightmare at Novorossiysk…
In October 1916, an explosion destroyed the Empress Maria, and after 39 years, it also went to the bottom from a powerful explosion “Novorossiysk”, now – almost 67 years later, in the same place, near Sevastopol, “exploded” on the cruiser “Moskva” so that because of the damage received, this huge ship sank.
Three Black Sea flagships – three tragic fates.
