Submarine with 13 from the game USSR. The feat of Marinesko and the tragedy of “Gustloff”

On October 1, 2011, a solemn meeting was held in Kronstadt dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the creation of the monument to the heroic crew of the Red Banner submarine "S-13", its combat commander, Captain 3rd Rank Alexander Ivanovich Marinesko. The rally was attended by veteran submariners from St. Petersburg and other cities, family members of the crew of the S-13 submarine, representatives of public organizations, and sailors of the Kronstadt garrison. The creator of the monument, Moscow sculptor Valery Semenovich Prikhodko (www.prikhodka.ru), was also a guest of honor.

The Führer mortally hated the Soviet military; it was no coincidence that no one in captivity was treated as cruelly as they were. But only one officer of the Soviet Navy received the honor of being declared an enemy of the Reich and his personal enemy... And for good reason.

Hitler hoped to prolong the war with the countries of the anti-Nazi coalition for an indefinitely long period, during which, according to the Fuhrer’s aspirations, the collapse of this not very organic bloc would inevitably occur, which would allow Germany to make peace with the Anglo-Saxons and the French in the West and continue the war in the East against the USSR .

In January 1945, Soviet troops, developing a powerful offensive deep into the Nazi Reich, besieged Danzig, the ancient Polish city of Gdansk. In this ancient citadel, turned by the Nazis into a stronghold of their dominance in the Vistula region and the northern Baltic, in addition to a powerful military group, the color of Hitler's official elite was cut off - all kinds of Fuhrers, Leiters, Commissars who led the plunder and Germanization of the Slavic lands.

The 2nd Reichsmarine submarine training division was also based here. In January 1945, within its walls, 3,700 “blond beasts” were preparing to lay down their lives on the altar of devotion to the Fuhrer and Fatherland. They dreamed of perpetuating their name with exploits similar to those performed by their predecessors, natives of the same alma mater Gunther Prien (in 1940 he sent the most powerful English battleship Royal Oak to the bottom, and in total destroyed 28 enemy ships) and Otto Kretschmer (broke the absolute performance record, sinking 44 merchant ships and 1 destroyer). The already formed crews, transported to Kiel and Flensburg, had to take places in the compartments of 123 of the newest submarines of the XXI series launched, equipped with a snorkel - a device for recharging batteries in an underwater position, which sharply increased the autonomy and secrecy of navigation.

Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz's submariners were Hitler's last hope. They had to implement a plan for total submarine warfare.

Suddenly releasing on sea communications between the Old and New Worlds (instead of those destroyed by the Anglo-American anti-submarine defense during the Battle of the Atlantic) more than three dozen fresh “wolf packs” of submarines, each of which had an ammunition capacity of 20 torpedoes and a navigation autonomy of up to 16,000 miles , the Fuhrer hoped to blockade England, disrupt the supply of troops landing in Europe and gain the time necessary for the collapse of the anti-Hitler coalition. Considering the brilliant technical data of the XXI series boats and the serious combat training of the German corsairs of the deep sea, this plan posed a serious threat to the lives of thousands of allies.

The issue of evacuating the Danzig submarine school, whose graduates were primarily entrusted with this fateful mission by Hitler, was specifically discussed at one of the January meetings in his bunker.

Since 1942, the school was located on the huge passenger liner Wilhelm Gustlow, which was stationed in the port of Danzig, originally built for cruise flights of the Nazi elite from the Reich to the Canary Islands, and with the outbreak of World War II, converted first into a hospital ship, and then into a floating barracks for Hitler’s favorites .

All of Germany was proud of the ship. It is no coincidence that he was given the name of a prominent figure of the NSDAP, who enjoyed the special trust of the leader and created assault troops like the SA from local Germans in Switzerland.

In 1936, Gustlov was shot and killed by a Yugoslav anti-fascist. The Fuhrer specially came to Hamburg in 1938 to celebrate the launch of the ship named after his comrade-in-arms. He himself chose the name of the tourist liner, which was supposed to personify the power and perfection of the “thousand-year Reich,” and in an hour-long “fiery” speech he expressed his genuine delight at the masterpiece of “Aryan” shipbuilding, created according to his plans.

Admittedly, there was something to admire. Almost two hundred meters long, a 9-deck giant, the height of a 15-story building, divided by bulkheads into countless compartments, in addition to hundreds of comfortable cabins, it had restaurants, a winter garden, a swimming pool, and a gym. Displacement 25 thousand tons! Few giants equal to the Gustlov still roam the oceans today.

And this superliner, having on board about 100 submarine crews, over 4,000 additional high-ranking officials, generals and officers of the SS and the Wehrmacht (in total more than 8,000 passengers), with all precautions at noon on January 30, 1945, took off from the berth walls and went out to sea...

On the same day, at 20:10, the Soviet submarine S-13, commanded by Captain 3rd Rank Alexander Marinesko, cruising in the Bay of Danzig awaiting targets for a torpedo attack, surfaced to recharge its batteries.

It belonged to the family of submarines of the C IX-bis series, built on the eve of the Great Patriotic War, and in its characteristics was significantly inferior to Hitler’s submarines of the XXI series, specially created for operations in the World Ocean. "Eska" had a displacement of 870 tons, a cruising range of 10,000 miles, an endurance of 30 days, and a diving depth of up to 100 meters. Its armament consisted of 6 torpedo tubes (4 bow and 2 stern), a 100 mm gun and a 45 mm semi-automatic machine. But Soviet designers did not invent the snorkel, and this created considerable difficulties in the “autonomous” system.

The campaign had already lasted 17 days. The area allocated for cruising was enormous: from the island of Bornholm to the Brewsterort lighthouse 150 miles - the width of the area, and to the throat of the Bay of Danzig 40 miles deep. Try, inspect it quickly, and most importantly, carefully... As luck would have it, the storm did not subside throughout the entire trip.

With great difficulty, the boatswain managed to keep the boat in balance for a minute or two, while the commander hurriedly clung to the periscope. And at night there was an extremely dangerous recharging of the batteries on the bumpy roads.

So - day after day. Monotonous, boring. The Eski's logbook sparingly testified: “January 17. From the Sovinformburo report we learned about the beginning of the offensive of the troops of the 1st Belorussian Front south of Warsaw. The crew was happy... The storm was about 9 points. During the night, several sailors fell out of their bunks. In the morning we immersed ourselves, then lay down on the ground. Although the depth is 50 meters, the boat rocks great...

January 18. We surfaced at 00.40. The storm continues. A huge wave almost washed midshipman Toropov overboard. Senior sailor Yurov held him back... From a radio message we learned about the liberation of Warsaw by our troops...

January 20th. Due to bad weather, we rarely surface under the periscope. No transports were found... Explosions of depth charges are heard..."

To an experienced submariner, these explosions spoke volumes. The ship's commander knew that the command of other submarines had not sent him to the area allocated for his search. This means that distant ruptures in the “outback” are not at all a sign that the Nazis are “chasing” one of his military friends around the Baltic, pursuing a discovered submarine. No, preventive bombing is underway. If so, big game will soon come - ships of large displacement, accompanied by destroyers and torpedo catchers, maybe a cruiser...

Get ready, friends! - the commander encouraged the sailors. - My heart senses that a convoy is about to leave. It's going to be a hot one!

But days give way to days, and still there is no serious goal...

“January 26-27. It rocks a lot, sometimes putting the boat on its side at 45 degrees. Storm over 8 points. Freezing. The antenna, railings, and deck are covered with solid ice. When submerged, the air supply shaft to diesel engines allows water to pass through until the ice on its lid thaws. From the operational report we learned that our troops were reaching the coast of Danzig Bay,” the radio operator writes in the logbook.

The sea has calmed down. But in the souls of submariners there is no calm, no, a storm is raging. More than a half-moon at sea, and we still haven’t seen the enemy on the horizon, and we haven’t fired a single one of the 12 torpedoes! People are tired of things to do!

And a coded message from fleet headquarters fuels the excitement: “To submarine commanders at sea. In connection with the beginning of the offensive of our troops, the fascists are expected to flee from Konigsberg and Danzig. Attack first of all the enemy’s large warships and transports...” But where is he, this enemy?

Navigator Nikolai Redkoborodov constantly “casts magic” in his enclosure above the map, every now and then clicking the stopwatch and the slider. His job is to calculate courses that would allow him to completely explore the entire area in a short time. This is not an easy task - you need to take into account all the shoals, banks, and sunken ships that come along the way. You need to remember all the mistakes that arise from inaccurate steering of the given course, from loss of speed during ascents.

The S-13 was lucky to have a navigator. Lieutenant-Commander Redkoborodov is the best specialist in the “esok” brigade; in 1943, he masterfully guided Yuri Russin’s M-90 submarine through the Gulf of Finland, which was stuffed with minefields and anti-submarine nets. But no matter what experience you have behind you, you never know in the turbulent sea of ​​interference that keeps you in constant tension?!

It wasn’t easy for the boat’s mechanical engineer, Yakov Kovalenko. For him, this was his first campaign as an independent commander of a combat unit (the previous warhead commander, Georgy Dubrovsky, was sent to study at the academy). From previous voyages with Dubrovsky, the young officer understood the main thing: it is necessary to strictly control the watchkeeping of electricians, the movement of the boat under water with the help of electric motors depends on them. But don’t forget the bilge ones either - they wouldn’t make mistakes, especially at the stages of immersion and ascent. The life of the ship is in the hands of the sailors...

But the hardest thing is for the boat commander. He is responsible for the success of the campaign, for the combat result. What worries him is the Baltic depths, which are stuffed with mines at different levels - bottom and anchor ones. How to maneuver if you have to evade the depth charges of enemy patrol ships without accidentally touching a mine?

And then I’m still overcome by sad thoughts about my own life. After all, Alexander Ivanovich was sent on a campaign to wash away his sin with blood. On the night of New Year, 1945, “cap three” went on a “little” spree in the Finnish city of Turku. I went to a restaurant with a friend, drank a glass... In general, I returned to the base two days later than expected.

The disappearance of a Soviet officer in a foreign port, and even a love affair with a citizen of another state, was a matter under jurisdiction at that time; they were sent to a penal battalion for other reasons than that. Marinesko was also threatened with a tribunal. The only thing that saved him was his reputation as a classy professional in underwater warfare (in October 1944, in the Danzig Bay, his “eska” sank an enemy transport with a displacement of 5,000 tons, and having fired all the torpedoes, he dared to surface and destroy the enemy with fire from the bow gun), and the support of the entire crew, heartbroken looked for in the commander and stood up in his defense. The command decided not to wash dirty linen in public and while the investigation was going on, they quietly sent the boat with the offending officer on a voyage. But soon this silence echoed with a ringing resonance...

On the evening of January 30, having received another radiogram from fleet headquarters, which spoke of the beginning evacuation of the Nazis, Alexander Ivanovich made a desperately bold decision: to go straight to Danzig harbor and guard the enemy at the exit from it.

After a 40-minute rush to the target, we surfaced to recharge the power supply. The stormy winter Baltic greeted us with huge waves that fell heavily over the narrow hull of the boat and rained down myriads of prickly spray, snow charges that came suddenly and densely - you couldn’t see anything. And when this scorching cold whirlpool was momentarily broken, the signalman on duty Anatoly Vinogradov shouted excitedly:

Lights! Right on the nose!

The fireflies blinking in the distance could not belong to coastal lighthouses - they were far away, and besides, they were not lit during wartime. So that's the goal! And then it sounded:

Combat alert!

The howler monkeys howled loudly. "S-13" went into the "attack of the century."

Standing on the bridge under the gusts of a furious wind, Marinesko feverishly thought about a plan of action. It is clear that there is at least one vessel behind the lights detected by the signalman. Just what is it - a large warship, a transport, or some kind of small fry on which it would be a pity to waste even torpedoes? Until you get close, you can’t define it. But if you follow the rules and dive first, the boat will lose half its speed while submerged. What if it’s not a slow-moving cargo ship, but a fast liner? You can’t catch up... Besides, you won’t see anything from the periscope depth in such a storm, and the boatswain won’t be able to hold the boat during a torpedo salvo - look how it throws on the waves! So, there is only one thing left: to catch up and attack on the surface...

Rising from the very bottom of society (his father was a Romanian sailor, and his mother a Ukrainian peasant), growing up on the outskirts of Odessa in a family with very modest incomes and making his way into long-distance navigation navigators of the merchant fleet with remarkable will and enormous hard work, Marinesko was not afraid of responsible decisions.

Only a constant attitude to the maximum allowed him to become an ace of underwater warfare unsurpassed among the Baltic sailors, after in 1939 he became the commander of a “baby” submarine, and 4 years later he was given command of an “esku”.

Navigator, night sight! - Marinesko ordered. - We shoot from the surface, bow! Let's go under diesel engines! Develop full speed!

Soon the hydroacoustician reported that, judging by the noise of the propellers, the still invisible target was pulling towards the cruiser.

“What if we attack from the shore? - a crazy thought occurred to the boat commander. “They don’t expect an attack from there, from their own people!” They probably won't wait! There are coastal aviation, batteries of forts... They believe that the rear is covered! Hit from there!”

Alexander Ivanovich was aware of the risk he was taking by deciding to cross the course of the enemy convoy and choose a position for attack from the coastline. If they find it, neither turn it away nor dive in (the depths will not allow it). Certain death...

The cup of doubt was finally outweighed by the report of the most experienced helmsman and signalman, First Class Petty Officer Alexander Volkov, who was called to the bridge and had the rare ability to see at night as during the day. Looking through binoculars at the lights blinking in the snow haze, he confidently reported:

A destroyer is ahead! Behind him is the liner!

For a moment, the snow suddenly stopped falling, and Marinesko, with a sinking heart, convinced that they had overtaken a huge ship, exclaimed, referring to the tonnage of the target:

Twenty thousand, no less!

Now - away with doubts! Their patience is rewarded. A little more, and a torpedo salvo...

Suddenly the liner's bearing began to change. A red rocket star flashed above the destroyer that was walking in front of the ship. “Have they really discovered it? Is the destroyer signaling that it is going to attack? - shot through my brain.

Urgent dive! Boatswain, dive to 20 meters! - ordered the commander of the S-13.

The boat slid down, under the heavily breathing waves. The last sharp rocking from side to side, and now only the shallow trembling motion reminds of the storm raging above... The outboard noises intensified, even through the steel of the durable hull the roar of huge ship propellers, similar to the rumble of a locomotive, can be clearly heard.

The liner seems to pass directly overhead. I just want to bend down. But since the outbacks didn’t fly, it means the enemy didn’t detect them...

Ascent! The boat, picking up speed, again rose above the waves. In afterburner, having developed 18 knots impossible for the “eski” and risking disrupting the diesel engines, Marinesko overtook the retreating target. It was a desperate, almost doomed effort - the probability of a happy outcome was not even a hundredth of a percent. If the Germans find them, and even lost their speed, they will instantly smash them to pieces. But he believed in his star...

An hour, the second unprecedented chase. And now you can shout into the speaking tube:

First mate, calculate the number of torpedoes in the salvo!

This command had barely sounded when suddenly a signal spotlight from the liner danced across the deckhouse of the boat, marking out dots and dashes. The enemy asked him for his call signs! But we need to buy a few more minutes to have time to get ready!

Give him something! Anything! - Marinesko ordered.

The signalman Ivan Antipov calmly signaled a short, salty word to the enemy, and... Oh, miracle! The German has calmed down! It turned out that the Nazis mistook a Soviet boat going side by side for their torpedo gun assigned to the convoy. Psychologically understandable. If someone answers and doesn’t try to hide, it means they belong! Insolence, but how calculating...

At 23.08 Marinesko finally commanded:

Devices, please!

Three swift stripes from the stem of the "esque" rushed towards the high side of the liner. There were no more than 15 minutes left before he plunged into the abyss...

Alexander Ivanovich and his comrades all this time, without even fearing the approaching enemy escort ships and without hiding in the depths of the sea, eagerly watched the agony of the Gustlov from the bridge. The naked eye could see how a dark mass was tossing along the tilted deck in the flashes of fire - the crew and passengers in panic hurried to the sides to throw themselves into the icy Baltic... Retribution was cruel, but fair: the abyss of the sea swallowed up its corsairs, failed prins and kretschmers ...

The convoy ships saved only 988 Nazis, among them there were less than one crew of submariners. The assistant captain of the liner, Heinz Schön, who survived swimming in the Baltic water, wrote many years later in his book “The Death of the Wilhelm Gustlov”: “This was undoubtedly the biggest disaster in the history of navigation, compared to which even the death of the Titanic, which collided in 1912 year with an iceberg - nothing.”

After the sinking of the giant motor ship, Marinesko evaded pursuit of enemy destroyers for 4 hours, either climbing directly to the place of her death, where the drowning people were still floundering and it was dangerous to jam the water column with depth charges, or performing cunning maneuvers. Eventually he swam close to the German coast and laid the boat on the ground.

10 days later, acting just as boldly and thoughtfully, Alexander Ivanovich also sank the German auxiliary cruiser General von Steuben with a displacement of 15,000 tons, on board which 3,600 Wehrmacht soldiers and officers were transferred from the Courland pocket.

Marinesko did not yet know that Hitler had shown him a rare honor by declaring him - the commander of the boat that sank the Wilhelm Gustlow - an enemy of the Reich and his personal enemy. Of course, a sea plan would have been buried on the Baltic seabed, giving a chance to delay the collapse of the “thousand-year-old” Aryan empire.

Three days of mourning were declared in Germany, all members of the NSDAP and other functionaries put on mourning armbands. In the history of the Reich, something similar happened only once - after the death of Paulus's 6th Army in Stalingrad.

On May 5, 1990, USSR President M. S. Gorbachev signed a Decree conferring the title of Hero of the Soviet Union posthumously on Captain 3rd Rank Marinesko. How did it happen that his merits were appreciated almost half a century later?

Upon returning to base, the S-13 commander was indeed nominated for the rank of Hero. But the vigilant personnel officers grabbed their heads: “Excuse me, is this the same Marinesko?..”. Envious people and ill-wishers, of which people of the type like Alexander Ivanovich - independent, courageous, going against the odds - always have in abundance, began to spread gossip about him, that he was arrogant, drinks heavily, etc.

In September of the same victorious year, the Fuhrer's personal enemy was demoted to senior lieutenant by order of the People's Commissar of the Navy "for lapses in personal behavior", written off the boat and sent with a demotion to the Tallinn defensive region, as the commander of a small minesweeper. A few months later he was dismissed from the Armed Forces.

Having become a civilian, Marinesko soon spent time in Kolyma on an absurd charge of allegedly committing the theft of socialist property. Having undermined his health in grueling sea voyages and in Kolyma penal servitude, upon his release Alexander Ivanovich was terribly poor.

The Soviet state paid the hero submariner a meager pension, and he lived out his life in a St. Petersburg communal apartment. Marinesko died in 1963. He was a little over 50 years old...

Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union N.G., who fought long and hard for the good name of his comrade in arms. Kuznetsov prophetically wrote: “History knows many cases when heroic deeds performed on the battlefield remain in the shadows for a long time, and only descendants appreciate them according to their merits. It also happens that during war years major events are not given due importance, reports about them are subject to doubt and people evaluate them much later. This fate befell the Baltic submariner A.I. Marinesko."

Pravdinform.RF

In 1974-1977, Valery Prikhodko had the opportunity to serve as a helmsman-signalman on a minesweeper of a brigade of water area protection ships of the Baltic Fleet. Presumably, even then Valery became aware of the heroic campaign of the “S-13” in January-February 1945. It was on that campaign that the crew under the command of Alexander Ivanovich Marinesko achieved outstanding combat success, sinking the Wilhelm Gustlov liner and the General Steuben transport with a total displacement of more than 40 thousand tons. In terms of tonnage sunk, this is the most significant result achieved by Soviet submariners during the Great Patriotic War.

Subsequently, while studying at the sculpture department of the Theater and Art Institute in his native Minsk, Prikhodko decided to create a sculptural composition that would immortalize the feat of the S-13 crew. He completed his diploma work on the topic “The image of the commander of the submarine “S-13” Alexander Marinesko.” The young sculptor had to spend a lot of time and labor to turn his plans into bronze reality. In those days, naval authorities were very wary of any mention of Marinesko’s personality and military successes. The author's proposals to erect a monument in Odessa and Kronstadt were not supported. Only after some time were smart and courageous commanders found at the submarine squadron in Liepaja who agreed to provide real assistance in the creation and installation of the monument on the territory of the squadron.

On October 3, 1986, the monument was inaugurated. In the foreground of a three-meter bronze stele, viewers, as if from an adjacent compartment through a bulkhead door, see the submarine commander standing at the raised periscope in the central control room. Turning half a turn to those present, he gives the necessary orders. Above the stele is the inscription: “To the heroic crew of the Red Banner submarine “S-13”, to its combat commander Alexander Ivanovich Marinesko.” Behind the stele is a wall made of Swedish granite, on which the names of the S-13 crew members are imprinted. An impressive memorial!

According to the testimony of knowledgeable people, two days after the opening, by someone’s authoritative order, only “To the crew of the Red Banner submarine “S-13”” remained from the inscription on the monument. One of the central newspapers reported on this blasphemy, which caused a flurry of indignation, primarily from the naval community of the USSR. The collection of signatures began for the restoration of Marinesko’s good name and recognition of his military merits. Finally, on May 5, 1990, by decree of the then President of the USSR, Alexander Ivanovich Marinesko was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Alas, posthumously! On November 21, 1963, Alexander Ivanovich Marinesko died in Leningrad, where he lived in poverty and oblivion. A month and a half before his death, writer Sergei Smirnov, speaking on Leningrad television, spoke about the bitter fate of the man who was called submariner No. 1. Letters, telegrams, and money orders poured in. Late! Alexander Ivanovich was buried at the Bogoslovskoye cemetery. A bronze bust of him by Valery Prikhodko is installed on the grave.

After the collapse of the USSR, the monument from Liepaja had to be moved to Kronstadt, where it was re-opened on the anniversary of Victory Day on May 9, 1995 in the Merchant Harbor on the shore. In 2003, the author was awarded a diploma from the Governor of St. Petersburg “For creating the modern sculptural appearance of the city of St. Petersburg,” and in 2007 the Russian Academy of Arts awarded the Gold Medal named after V.V. Vereshchagin.

Of course, Marinesko was not a clear-cut personality. Anything happened in his service, including something for which in wartime he was threatened with a tribunal and a penal battalion. You can argue for a long time and until you are hoarse - whether it was the “attack of the century” or military luck, whether mourning was declared in Germany, and whether Marinesko was a personal enemy of the Fuhrer or not, etc. etc. One thing is indisputable - the crew of the S-13 submarine, led by its commander, achieved an outstanding combat result and made a significant contribution to the victory over the enemy. Without a doubt, this is the main criterion for assessing the combat actions of submarine heroes.

The monument created by Valery Prikhodko is essentially the only work of monumental art dedicated to a specific submarine commander and his crew. The memory of submariners from the Great Patriotic War is immortalized by the creation of museums in the hulls of surviving submarines, installed on a coastal pedestal or near the coastline. The most famous are “K-21” in Severomorsk (commander during the war, Hero of the Soviet Union N.A. Lunin) and “S-56” in Vladivostok (Hero of the Soviet Union G.I. Shchedrin). In some naval bases, fences of submarine conning towers are installed as monuments. In particular, such a memorial sign is located at the entrance to the Marinesko Submarine Force Museum in Leningrad.

During my very long service in the Soviet submarine fleet, I had the opportunity to visit almost all of our submarine bases. Almost everywhere, in one form or another, memorable events of the Cold War at sea are reflected. But, unfortunately, they are all dedicated to tragic events - mass graves of submariners who died at sea or monuments to submarines killed at sea. In western Litsa - the submarine "Komsomolets", in Murmansk - "Kursk", the submarine "K-129" in Krasheninnikov Bay in Kamchatka, "S-178" in Vladivostok.

A reasonable question is: do the heroic actions of Soviet submariners, who did not die and honorably fulfilled their duty to prevent the transition of the “cold” war into the “hot” third world war, deserve to be immortalized in sculptural compositions? I think that for the brotherhood of submariners, who have fully experienced underwater adventure in all the oceans of the planet, the answer is clear - they certainly deserve it! And there are still enough places where it is possible to erect a memorial composition. In the capital, for example, on Poklonnaya Hill. Not all of it has been built up with temples yet. I think it’s time, at least on this issue, to unite all Associations and Unions of submariners, Maritime Assemblies and make a corresponding proposal to the Navy Command and the Russian Government. Maybe there will be money after the election campaigns.

And the monument created by Valery Prikhodko, which remains so far the only work of monumental art dedicated to submariners in the 105-year history of the submarine fleet, will be a memory of all Soviet submariners, dead and living, who selflessly served our great Motherland.

Thank you, Valery Semenovich, for creating it!

Hero of the Soviet Union
retired vice admiral
Golosov Rudolf Alexandrovich.
November 2011.

On Thursday, we, a warm company of former officers and admirers of our guest’s authorial talent, held a creative evening with the participation of the writer Alexander Pokrovsky, the one who wrote “72 Meters” and “Shoot”.
I haven't laughed like that for a long time.
When Alexander Mikhailovich began to tell naval stories, as if in an antediluvian bathyscaphe, I plunged into the ocean of my memories.
It’s not that I was overwhelmed by nostalgia and wanted to return to that time, but it was something akin to when, after many years of absence, you return to your home and look at things so close to your heart and already completely alien.
It’s as if you’ve come on a tour of your youth, but no matter how hard you try, you can’t remember anything negative, but only funny and kind things, like from an old comic film with Charlie Chaplin.

Laughter and banter in the navy is a form of survival, without which adult, strong men, clad to the eyes in the armor of the ship's regulations, under conditions of continuous tension, under the burden of responsibility for the fate of the sailors, the ship and the performance of combat missions, would have gone crazy long ago. That's why we say:
I wouldn't serve in the Navy if it weren't funny!

And the officer does not have any personal tragedy or emergency over which they would not laugh in the wardroom.
Your mental health on the ship was determined only by whether you could laugh at yourself or not.
So, while we were musing about the past, we started talking about Alexander Marinesko.

A lot has been written and said about him, but all verbal battles usually come down to his sharp condemnation for “Gustloff”, for drunkenness, for prison, for his disregard for subordination and discipline, for love affairs unworthy of a Soviet officer, or to the same sharp praise for approximately the same.
The Soviet commander, to whom a monument was erected in the Museum of the Royal Navy of Great Britain immediately after the Second World War, and who sat in Kolyma in the USSR, was simply not understood by his contemporaries.
Alexander Pokrovsky here made me look at this person from a different angle.

Marinesko is a fragment of the era of the Great Seas, which fate accidentally brought into the 20th century. Pirate, privateer, adventurer to the core. A captain who had an animal sense that allowed him to escape from the German traps.
Not everyone may remember that Marinesko left the escort of the sunken Gustloff with a torpedo stuck in the torpedo compartment, and during the pursuit more than 200 depth charges were dropped on his S-13 submarine.
The entire Kriegsmarine was hunting for him, the shallow Baltic was dotted with tens of thousands of underwater mines, every day our ships and submarines were dying nearby, and only Marinesko - an old, hungry, sea wolf - brought his crew to the harbor safe and sound every time.
For this he was idolized.
The storm of the seas, the name of which German mothers frightened their children, the personal enemy of the Fuhrer, a commander with a phenomenal gift of luck, to whose good fortune not only Soviet but also German submarine officers drank, was a real “gentleman of fortune.”
And this is the whole point of it.

After all, in just one winter raid in 1945, Marinesko sank two German giant liners, the Wilhelm Gustloff with a displacement of 25 thousand tons and the General Steuben, with a displacement of almost 15 thousand tons.
This is the most successful Soviet submarine officer.
Marinesko was born in 1913. Of the 13 Soviet C-class submarines of the Baltic Fleet, only one survived during the war, the unlucky number 13.
In Scandinavian mythology, it is 13 warrior maidens who pick up the souls of fallen heroes.
When he died, the Valkyries, their swords flashing, carried him off to Valhalla to feast at the same table with Ragnar Lothbrok, Francis Drake and Henry Morgan.
For a thousand years the skalds will glorify his exploits.
***
On July 13, 1724, the cities of Altstadt, Löbenicht and Kneiphof were officially united to form Königsberg.
Otto Lyash signed the act of surrender of the city in his city in office No. 13.
If we sum up the numbers from the founding date of Königsberg (1255), we also get thirteen. Ironically, the same result when added is obtained only for two large European cities - Berlin and Moscow...

Legendary commander of the submarine S-13

Historians, writers, journalists and naval veterans again began a debate regarding the identity of the commander of the S-13 submarine, Captain 3rd Rank A. I. Marinesko, and his exploits during the Great Patriotic War. On the eve of the 50th anniversary of the victory, he was called “the outstanding naval commander of the 20th century,” “submariner No. 1,” and the attack he carried out on January 30, 1945 was called “the attack of the century.” What is the statement worth that as a result of the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustlow liner, which carried more than 1,000 German submariners, the naval blockade of England was broken?! There are authors who claim that Marinesco's attack had a huge impact on the course and even the outcome of World War II! Almost all publications note that in Germany, on the occasion of the death of “Wilhelm Gustlov,” three days of mourning were declared, and Marinesko himself was included in the list of Hitler’s personal enemies (at No. 26).
I, like most Russians, admire the exploits of Soviet submariners in the last war, but I am categorically against those writers who “exploit” these exploits for their own purposes. Why was everyone silent during the life of A.I. Marinesko? Why didn’t they give him a helping hand in difficult times?
In the brochure by O. V. Strizhak “May 1945: who prevented Marinesko from attacking?” (1999) states that German submariners in the Atlantic sank large-capacity ships sailing without any security, while in the Baltic “small transports sailed with powerful security.” Let me remind you that German submariners operated in extremely difficult conditions: they had to deploy to combat areas thousands of miles away from their home bases, while overcoming the most powerful anti-submarine lines; the protection of Atlantic convoys was in no way comparable to the Baltic ones. In the Atlantic Ocean, compared to the Baltic, the security forces included hundreds of anti-submarine ships and aircraft.
Earlier, I compared submariners from different countries not in order to “shame Marinesko” (as Strizhak thinks), but in order to show the order of tonnage sunk by American and German submariners and to substantiate the absurdity of fiction like “submariner No. 1”.
As a source of data, Strizhak chose the memoirs of the helmsman of the S-13 submarine G. Zelentsov. Referring to him, he writes that “On April 27 at midnight, S-13 was attacked from under water by a group of fascist submarines. The S-13 commander avoided the maneuvers. The Germans fired several salvos. 9 enemy torpedoes passed along the sides of the S-13.” According to numerous Western publications about the combat activities of German submarines, the fact of this attack was not confirmed. In addition, during World War II, German submariners never operated in tactical groups in the Baltic.
Strizhak almost passes off as Marinesko’s heroism the fact that he was transported from Finland to Libau on the deck of a Ford submarine S-13, which “made the authorities angry to the limit.” Strizhak does not know that this is truly incompatible with maritime culture, or rather, it is a failure to comply with the basic rules of service on submarines. A self-respecting submarine commander would never allow such an act, because it contradicts the requirements of the Ship's Charter - the most important document in the fleet. The commander is obliged not only to observe it himself, but also to demand it from his subordinates.
In the domestic literature, the maneuvering scheme of the S-13 during the attack of the Wilhelm Gustlov liner has been reconstructed in detail. Overall, it was executed impeccably and deserves the highest praise. Although here, too, there are conjectures when describing it. For example, citing the testimony of crew members, some researchers claim that after the attack on the liner, more than 260 depth charges were dropped on the submarine C-13, that it was bombed from 23:15 on January 30 to 4:00 in the morning on January 31. This simply couldn't happen! As follows from German reference books from the Second World War, the most common German destroyers with a displacement of 1800 tons had 4 bomb droppers, and their ammunition load included 36 depth charges. It turns out that the Soviet submarine should have been pursued by at least 7 destroyers. It is a myth! From the S-13 logbook you can find out that after the attack at 23:49 a destroyer, 4 patrol ships and 2 minesweepers arrived in the area, and the boat was pursued only by 2 patrol ships and a minesweeper. During the pursuit, not 260, but only 12 depth charges were dropped. And it started not at 23:15, but at 23:49.
Let us dwell on the questions that were posed at the very beginning: on the inventions of newly minted writers and passionate admirers of Marinesco’s talent.
Has Germany declared three days of mourning in connection with the death of the liner? Was Marinesko included in the list of Hitler's personal enemies? Touching on these issues, everyone refers to the statements of Captain 1st Rank V.P. Anisimov, a participant in the Great Patriotic War, who claimed that in early February 1945 he held and read the German newspapers “Völkischer Beobachter” and “Das Schwarze Kor” , where it was officially announced that three days of mourning had been established in Germany over the death of the Wilhelm Gustlow liner. None of the domestic historians and journalists have ever seen such newspapers with similar messages. When a particularly heated controversy developed around the name Marinesko in 1988, caused by articles published in the newspapers “Izvestia” and “Guardian of the Baltic,” the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Admiral of the Fleet V.N. Chernavin, ordered the employees of the Historical Group of the General Staff to look into this question. An official request was sent to the German archive. On March 23, 1988, we received a response from Potsdam stating that the information that A. I. Marinesko was considered a personal enemy of Hitler and that on January 30, 1945, three days of mourning was declared in Germany was not confirmed. At the same time, many materials from domestic archives and libraries were studied. I also managed to look through German periodicals from the largest libraries in St. Petersburg and Moscow, and not a single word about mourning and “Hitler’s enemy” was mentioned in any of them. For comparison, we looked through the same newspapers and magazines published during the Battle of Stalingrad, when three days of mourning were actually declared in Germany, which was officially reported in all periodicals without exception. Then in Germany flags with mourning ribbons were lowered. But on January 30 and after, nothing like this happened.
Writer V. S. Gemanov in the book “The Feat of the Thirteenth: The Glory and Tragedy of the Submariner A. I. Marinesko,” published in 1991, writes that “with his attack Marinesko saved England from defeat,” as well as some others claim that as a result of the sinking of the liner and 1000 selected submarine aces - the elite of the German fleet - the naval blockade of England was broken. Nothing like this! All this is the speculation of authors who have little understanding not only of strategy, but also of the history of the Second World War, in particular the history of the so-called Battle of the Atlantic.

According to available information, about 1,300 German naval personnel, 173 crew members, 162 wounded from the local hospital and more than 9,000 refugees, including military personnel, were on board the Wilhelm Gustlow. 1,300 representatives of the fleet constituted the personnel of the second section of the second training division of the submarine force. Some argue that these are mainly submariners who could crew 100 submarines. This may be true, but the quality of these crews was questionable. Most of these submariners did not go to sea on their own; at best, during combat training they made 1-2 trips to sea with instructors. The duration of such trips did not exceed 2 days. Most of the real aces of the German submarine fleet, who completed 5-6 combat campaigns and had up to 30 sunken ships, died in 1941-1942. The growth of anti-submarine forces and weapons of the United States and Great Britain during the Second World War acquired unprecedented proportions, and the Allies managed to win the Battle of the Atlantic. In the spring of 1943, a crisis arose in the actions of the German “wolf packs”. Having destroyed 34 transports in the North Atlantic, the Germans lost 33 submarines. Submarines became a one-shot weapon. Rarely has a submarine managed to return from a combat cruise. The main reasons for their death were the poor training of the crews and the powerful anti-submarine defense of the Anglo-American convoys.
How can we talk about the critical situation in England in 1945? Already in 1944, the British completely solved the problem of protecting their shipping. Since the spring of 1943, German submariners managed to sink less than 0.5 percent of the number of ships crossing the Atlantic. The reproduction of transport tonnage, which at that time far outweighed the losses, should not be discounted.
It turns out that it was not Marinesko who “thwarted the plan for a total submarine war” directed against England, but the allies themselves dealt with this problem.

Now about “submariner No. 1” and “attack of the century”. By what parameters of naval art does the Wilhelm Gustlov attack go beyond traditional boundaries to be considered the “attack of the century”? Nobody can explain this. During the Great Patriotic War, there were tactically more complex attacks. These include the sinking of the Japanese aircraft carrier Shinano by the American submarine Archer Fish in 1944. Firstly, it was a warship, not a hospital ship, and secondly, it was escorting 3 destroyers and was the largest ship sunk by a submarine. Its displacement was 72 thousand tons. "Wilhelm Gustlov" followed in the guard of one patrol ship. What's worse about the attack carried out by the German submariner Prien in 1939? His boat penetrated the heavily guarded English naval base of Scapa Flow at night and sank the battleship Royal Oak there. In 1939 alone, the same submarine sank 15 ships with a total tonnage of 89 thousand gross registered tons. If we talk about the attack of the century, then we must remember the German submarine U-9, which sank 3 English battleships at once in September 1914 - Hog, Cressy and Abukir. This attack did influence the views of many military experts regarding the use and effect of submarine attacks.
To call Marinesko “submariner No. 1” means to belittle the importance of other equally distinguished Soviet submariners. They say that Marinesko was first called “submariner No. 1” by Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union I. S. Isakov. Let's say! But I wonder what numbers supporters of such a strange approach to assessing military merit would assign to such outstanding Soviet submariners as P. D. Grishchenko, G. I. Shchedrin, M. I. Gadzhiev, I. I. Fisanovich, A. M. Matiyasevich and etc.? Yes, Marinesko has the largest total tonnage of destroyed ships, but in other indicators he is inferior to many Soviet submariners, for example, in the number of military campaigns, the number of destroyed ships, the consumption of torpedoes per sunken ship, the percentage of successful exits, etc. Why not the Germans, neither the Americans nor the Japanese named their submariner No. 1? Apparently they considered this unethical. For the Germans, for example, the submarine U-66 sank 26 ships with a total tonnage of 200 thousand gross registered tons in 4 military campaigns, and U-103 destroyed 29 transport ships with a total capacity of 150 thousand gross registered tons in 3 military campaigns. The Americans have more than 10 submarines approaching or exceeding 100,000 tonnage of ships sunk. Thus, the submarine “Totog” sank 26 ships, “Tanch” - 24, “Flasher” - 21, etc. For a submarine officer, such indicators as experience in service on submarines and, of course, basic training are also important. Marinesko graduated from the ship's school, the Odessa Marine College, special courses for command staff of the RKKF and the S. M. Kirov Diving Training Unit. He became a submarine commander only in 1939. In the Soviet Navy, dozens of submarine commanders graduated from the M.V. Frunze Naval School, special underwater classes, and some even from the Naval Academy and have commanded submarines since the early 30s 's Of the 6 military campaigns carried out by Marinesco, half were unsuccessful. The Central Naval Archive in the city of Gatchina contains conclusions from the commanders of the brigade and division of submarines, as well as the fleet headquarters on the last cruise of the S-13, carried out from April 20 to May 13, 1945. In them, in particular, the following is noted:

"1. During the period of being at sea, in a position, in a zone of intense enemy traffic since 04/23/45.
I detected targets for attack 7 times, but could not attack...
1. On April 24, at 23.38 on the Shp, he discovered a convoy, but, having surfaced, he could not open the hatch... The attack failed, since it was impossible to see anything through the periscope at that time.
2. 26.04 at 01.35 I discovered the operation of the search device... The opportunity to attack was missed due to the wrong actions of the commander.
3. 27.04 at 22.46 on the Shp they detected the noise of a TR and the operation of two SPDs. After 7 minutes at a distance of 35 cables. visually detected a TR guarding two TFRs and two SKAs. The commander refused the attack due to high visibility. The commander’s actions were incorrect: before that, he brought the submarine to the bright part of the horizon, and then did not follow the enemy, did not move to the dark part of the horizon...
4. 28.04 at 16.41, while under water, through the Shp he detected the noise of a TR and the operation of two UZPN... The commander increased the speed to 4 knots and after 14 minutes abandoned the attack, considering himself beyond the maximum angle of attack... The opportunity to attack was missed due to his fault a commander who did not seek to get close to the enemy, but took care of the battery, fearing that it would have to be charged several nights in a row.
5. 28.04 at 19.23 the noise of TR was detected. I didn’t see the enemy through the periscope. Nine minutes later, the commander allegedly established, without changing the three-node stroke, that he was outside the maximum angle of attack.
6. 02.05 the noise of a TR was detected over the ShP... Apparently, the commander incorrectly determined the direction of movement and therefore did not close with the enemy...
7. 03.05 at 10.45 the periscope detected a TR guarding two TFRs, but failed to attack due to improper maneuvering.
Conclusion: The submarine did not complete its combat mission. The commander's actions are unsatisfactory.
Captain 1st Rank Orel."

Here's what the other document says:
“While in position, the submarine commander had many cases of detecting enemy transports and convoys, but as a result of improper maneuvering and indecisiveness, he was unable to get close to attack...
Conclusions: 1. The commander’s actions at the position are unsatisfactory. The submarine commander did not seek to search for and attack the enemy...
2. As a result of the inactive actions of the submarine commander, the S-13 did not complete its assigned combat mission. The assessment of the combat campaign of the submarine S-13 is unsatisfactory.
Captain 1st Rank Kurnikov."

And these are excerpts from the following document, dated May 30, 1945:
“I report the conclusions and assessment of the combat campaign of the S-13 and D-2 submarines given by the commander of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet...
...The fact that both submarines did not have combat successes or even combat contacts with the enemy at that time indicates poor observation. They did not look for the enemy and completed their task unsatisfactorily...
Chief of Staff of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet Alexandrov."
As they say, comments are unnecessary. But this happened at the end of the war. By that time, it seems, every commander had acquired combat experience. On September 14, 1945, the People's Commissar of the Navy, Fleet Admiral N. G. Kuznetsov signed order No. 01979: “For neglect of official duties, systematic drunkenness and everyday promiscuity of the commander of the Red Banner submarine S-13 of the Red Banner submarine brigade of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet, captain 3rd rank Marinesko Alexander Ivanovich should be removed from his position, reduced in military rank to senior lieutenant and placed at the disposal of the Military Council of the same fleet.
Fleet Admiral Kuznetsov."
On October 18, 1945, according to the order of the commander of the Baltic Fleet No. 0708, Marinesko was appointed commander of the minesweeper T-34. On November 20, the People's Commissar signed a new order No. 02521:
“The commander of the minesweeper T-34 of the 2nd division of minesweepers of the 1st Red Banner minesweeper brigade of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet, senior lieutenant Alexander Ivanovich Marinesko, is to be transferred to the Navy reserve under Article 44, paragraph “A”, in accordance with the “Regulations on the service of command and control personnel of the Red Army” .
Then, as if repenting, in 1968, the disgraced Vice Admiral N.G. Kuznetsov wrote in the Neva magazine: “The time has come to appreciate the feat of A.I. Marinesko. We must, albeit belatedly, directly state that in the struggle for the Motherland he proved himself to be a real hero.” In 1990, A. I. Marinesko was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumously).

January 30, 1895 born in Schwerin William Gustloff, future middle-level functionary of the National Socialist Party.
January 30, 1933 came to power Hitler; this day became one of the most significant holidays in the Third Reich.
January 30, 1933 Adolf Hitler appointed Gustloff Landesgruppenleiter of Switzerland based in Davos. Gustloff conducted active anti-Semitic propaganda, in particular, contributed to the dissemination of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” in Switzerland.
January 30, 1936 medical student Frankfurter came to Davos with the aim of killing Gustloff. From a newspaper bought at a station kiosk, he learned that the governor was “with his Fuhrer in Berlin” and would return in four days. On February 4, a student killed Gustloff. Next year name "Wilhelm Gustloff" was assigned to a sea liner laid down as "Adolf Gitler".
January 30, 1945 years, exactly 50 years after birth Gustloff, Soviet submarine S-13 under the command of captain 3rd rank A. Marinesko torpedoed and sent the liner to the bottom "Wilhelm Gustloff".
January 30, 1946 Marinesko was demoted in rank and transferred to the reserve.

He began his working life as a small bank employee in the city of the seven lakes of Schwerin, and Gustloff compensated for his lack of education with diligence.
In 1917, the bank transferred its young, diligent clerk, who was suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis, to its branch in Davos. The Swiss mountain air completely cured the patient. While working at the bank, he organized a local group of the National Socialist Party and became its leader. The doctor who treated Gustloff for several years spoke of his patient as follows: “Limited, good-natured, fanatical, recklessly devoted to the Fuhrer: “If Hitler orders me to shoot my wife at 6 o’clock tonight, then at 5.55 I will load the revolver, and at 6.05 I will the wife will be a corpse." Member of the Nazi Party since 1929. His wife Hedwig worked as Hitler's secretary in the early 30s.

On February 4, 1936, Jewish student David Frankfurter entered a house marked W. Gustloff, NSDAP. He left for Davos a few days earlier - January 30, 1936 Without luggage, with a one-way ticket and a revolver in my coat pocket.
Gustloff's wife showed him into the office and asked him to wait; the frail, short visitor did not arouse any suspicion. Through the open side door, next to which hung a portrait of Hitler, the student saw a two-meter giant—the owner of the house—talking on the phone. When he entered the office a minute later, Frankfurter silently, without getting up from his chair, raised his hand with a revolver and fired five bullets. Quickly walking to the exit - amid the heartbreaking screams of the murdered man's wife - he went to the police and stated that he had just shot Gustloff. Called to identify the killer, Hedwig Gustloff looks at him for a few moments and says: “How could you kill a man! You have such kind eyes!”

For Hitler, Gustloff's death was a gift from heaven: the first Nazi killed by a Jew abroad, moreover, in Switzerland, which he hated! The all-German Jewish pogrom did not take place only because the Winter Olympic Games were being held in Germany in those days, and Hitler could not yet afford to completely ignore world public opinion.

The Nazi propaganda apparatus made the most of the event. A three-week period of mourning was declared in the country, national flags were lowered at half-mast... The farewell ceremony in Davos was broadcast by all German radio stations, the melodies of Beethoven and Haydn were replaced by Wagner's "Twilight of the Gods"... Hitler spoke: "Behind the murderer stands the hate-filled force of our Jewish enemy, trying to enslave the German people... We accept their challenge to fight!" In articles, speeches, and radio broadcasts, the words “a Jew shot” sounded like a refrain.

Historians view Hitler's propaganda use of Gustloff's murder as a prologue to the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question."

Gustlov is dead, long live Wilhelm Gustlov!

The insignificant personality of V. Gustloff, almost unknown before the assassination attempt, was officially elevated to the rank of Blutzeuge, a holy martyr who fell at the hands of a mercenary. It seemed that one of the main Nazi figures had been killed. His name was given to streets, squares, a bridge in Nuremberg, an air glider... Classes on the topic were held in schools "Wilhelm Gustloff, killed by a Jew".

In the name "Wilhelm Gustloff" was named the German Titanic, the flagship of the fleet of an organization called Kraft Durch Freude, abbreviated KdF - "Strength through joy".
Led it Robert Ley, head of the state trade unions "German Labor Front". He was the one who invented the Nazi salute Heil Hitler! with an outstretched hand and ordered that it be carried out first by all civil servants, then by teachers and schoolchildren, and even later by all workers. It was he, a famous drunkard and “the greatest idealist in the labor movement,” who organized a fleet of ships KdF.

The Nazis, led by Adolf Hitler, having come to power, in order to increase the social base of support for their policies among the German population, outlined the creation of a broad system of social security and services as one of their activities.
Already in the mid-1930s, the average German worker, in terms of the level of services and benefits that he was entitled to, compared favorably with workers in other European countries.
A whole flotilla of passenger ships to provide cheap and affordable travel and cruises was conceived for construction as the embodiment of the ideas of National Socialism and their propaganda.
The flagship of this fleet was to be a new comfortable airliner, which the authors of the project planned to name after the German Fuhrer - "Adolf Gitler".

On May 5, 1937, at the Hamburg shipyard, Blum and Voss solemnly launched the world's largest ten-deck cruise ship, commissioned by KdF. Gustloff's widow, in the presence of Hitler, broke a bottle of champagne on the side, and the ship received its name - Wilhelm Gustloff. Its displacement is 25,000 tons, length is 208 meters, cost is 25 million Reichsmarks. It is designed for 1,500 vacationers, who have glazed promenade decks, a winter garden, a swimming pool...

Thus began a short happy time in the life of the liner; it would last a year and 161 days. The “floating holiday home” worked continuously, the people were delighted: the prices for sea travel were, if not low, then affordable. A five-day cruise to the Norwegian fjords cost 60 Reichsmarks, a twelve-day cruise along the coast of Italy - 150 RM (the monthly earnings of workers and employees were 150-250 RM). While sailing, you could call home at an ultra-cheap rate and vent your delight to your family. Vacationers abroad compared living conditions with their own in Germany, and the comparisons most often turned out to be not in favor of foreigners. A contemporary reflects: “How did Hitler manage to take control of the people in a short time, to accustom them not only to silent submission, but also to mass rejoicing at official events? A partial answer to this question is given by the activities of the KdF organization.”

Gustlov's finest hour fell in April 1938, when, in stormy weather, the team rescued the sailors of the sinking English steamer Pegaway. The English press paid tribute to the skill and courage of the Germans.

The inventive Ley used the windfall propaganda success to use the liner as a floating polling station for the popular vote on the annexation of Austria to Germany. On April 10, at the mouth of the Thames, Gustlov took on board about 1,000 German and 800 Austrian citizens living in the UK, as well as a large group of journalist observers, left the three-mile zone and anchored in international waters, where the vote was held. As expected, 99% of voters voted yes. British newspapers, including the Marxist Daily Herald, were lavish in their praise of the union ship.

The ship's last cruise took place on August 25, 1939. Unexpectedly, during a planned voyage in the middle of the North Sea, the captain received a coded order to urgently return to port. The time for cruises was over—less than a week later, Germany attacked Poland and World War II began.

With the outbreak of war, almost all KdF ships ended up in military service. "Wilhelm Gustloff" was converted into a hospital ship and assigned to the German Navy - Kriegsmarine. The liner was repainted white and marked with red crosses, which was supposed to protect it from attack in accordance with the Hague Convention. The first patients began to arrive on board during the war against Poland in October 1939. Even in such conditions, the German authorities used the ship as a means of propaganda - as evidence of the humanity of the Nazi leadership, most of the first patients were wounded Polish prisoners. Over time, when German losses became noticeable, the ship was sent to the port of Gothenhafen (Gdynia), where it took on board even more wounded, as well as Germans (Volksdeutsche) evacuated from East Prussia.

Already the autumn of '43 showed that the quiet life was ending - on October 8 (9), the Americans covered the harbor with a bomb carpet. The floating hospital Stuttgart caught fire and sank; this was the first loss of a former KdF ship. The explosion of a heavy bomb near Gustlov caused a one and a half meter crack in the side plating, which was brewed. The weld will still remind itself on the last day of Gustlov’s life, when the S-13 submarine will slowly but surely catch up with the initially faster floating barracks.

In the second half of 1944, the front came very close to East Prussia. The Germans of East Prussia had certain reasons to fear revenge from the Red Army - the great destruction and killings among civilians in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union were known to many. Germanpropaganda depicted the “horrors of the Soviet offensive.”

In October 1944, the first detachments of the Red Army were already on the territory of East Prussia. Nazi propaganda began a widespread campaign to “expose Soviet atrocities,” accusing Soviet soldiers of mass murder and rape. By spreading such propaganda, the Nazis achieved their goal - the number of volunteers in the Volkssturm militia increased, but the propaganda also led to increased panic among the civilian population as the front approached, and millions of people became refugees.

On January 21, Grand Admiral Doenitz gave the command to begin Operation Hannibal - the largest evacuation of the population by sea of ​​all time: more than two million people were transported to the West by all the ships at the disposal of the German command.

At the same time, the submarines of the Soviet Baltic Fleet were preparing for the war-ending attacks. A significant part of them was blocked for a long time in the Leningrad and Kronstadt ports by German minefields and steel anti-submarine nets deployed by 140 ships in the spring of 1943. After breaking the blockade of Leningrad, the Red Army continued its offensive along the shores of the Gulf of Finland, and the capitulation of Finland, an ally of Germany opened the way for Soviet submarines to the Baltic Sea. Stalin's order followed: submariners based in Finnish harbors to detect and destroy enemy ships. The operation pursued both military and psychological goals - to complicate the supply of German troops by sea and to prevent evacuation to the West. One of the consequences of Stalin’s order was Gustlov’s meeting with the submarine S-13 and its commander, Captain 3rd Rank A. Marinesko.

Nationality: Odessa.

Captain of the third rank A. I. Marinesko

When life in Odessa returned to normal, foreign ships began to arrive at the port. Dressed and cheerful passengers threw coins into the water, and Odessa boys dived after them; Few people managed to get ahead of the future submariner. He left school at the age of 15, knowing how to read, write somehow and “sell his vest sleeves,” as he later often said. His language was a colorful and bizarre mixture of Russian and Ukrainian, flavored with Odessa jokes and Romanian curses. A harsh childhood hardened him and made him inventive, teaching him not to get lost in the most unexpected and dangerous situations.

He began life at sea at the age of 15 as a cabin boy on a coastal steamer, graduated from a nautical school, and was called up for military service. Marinesko was probably a born submariner; he even had a naval surname. Having started his service, he quickly realized that a small ship was most suitable for him, an individualist by nature. After a nine-month course, he sailed as a navigator on the submarine Shch-306, then completed command courses and in 1937 became the commander of another boat, M-96 - two torpedo tubes, 18 crew members. In the pre-war years, M-96 bore the title "the best submarine of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet", putting emergency dive time record - 19.5 seconds instead of 28 standard, for which the commander and his team were awarded a personalized gold watch.

By the beginning of the war, Marinesko was already an experienced and respected submariner. He had a rare gift for managing people, which allowed him to move without loss of authority from “comrade commander” to an equal member of the feast in the wardroom.

In 1944, Marinesko received under his command a large submarine of the Stalinets series, S-13. The history of the creation of boats in this series deserves at least a few lines, as it is a vivid example of secret military and industrial cooperation between the USSR and the Third Reich before the war. The project was developed by order of the Soviet government in an engineering bureau owned jointly by the German navy, Krupp and the shipyard in Bremen. The bureau was headed by the German Blum, a retired captain, and it was located in The Hague - in order to circumvent the provision of the Versailles Peace Treaty, which prohibited Germany from developing and building submarines.

At the end of December 1944, the S-13 was in the Finnish port of Turku and was preparing to go to sea. It was scheduled for January 2, but Marinesko, who had been on a spree, appeared on the boat only the next day, when the “special department” of the security service was already looking for him as a defector to the enemy. After evaporating the hops in the bathhouse, he arrived at headquarters and honestly told about everything. He couldn’t or didn’t want to remember the names of the girls and the place of the “spree,” he only said that they drank Pontikka, Finnish potato moonshine, compared to which “vodka is like mother’s milk.”

The S-13 commander would have been arrested if not for the acute shortage of experienced submariners and Stalin’s order, which had to be carried out at any cost. Divisional commander Captain 1st Rank Orel ordered the C-13 to urgently put to sea and wait for further orders. On January 11, the fully fueled C-13 headed along the coast of the island of Gotland into the open sea. For Marinesco, returning to base without a victory was tantamount to being court-martialed.

As part of Operation Hannibal, on January 22, 1945, the Wilhelm Gustloff in the port of Gdynia (then called Gotenhafen by the Germans) began accepting refugees on board. At first, people were accommodated with special passes - primarily several dozen submarine officers, several hundreds of women from the naval auxiliary division and almost a thousand wounded soldiers. Later, when tens of thousands of people gathered in the port and the situation became more difficult, they began to let everyone in, giving priority to women and children. Since the planned number of places was only 1,500, refugees began to be placed on decks, in the passages. Women soldiers were even placed in an empty swimming pool. In the last stages of the evacuation, the panic intensified so much that some women in the port, in desperation, began to give their children to those who managed to get on board, in the hope of at least saving them in this way. In the end , January 30, 1945, the ship's crew officers had already stopped counting the refugees, whose number had exceeded 10,000.
According to modern estimates, there should have been 10,582 people on board: 918 junior cadets of the 2nd training submarine division (2. U-Boot-Lehrdivision), 173 crew members, 373 women from the auxiliary naval corps, 162 seriously wounded military personnel, and 8,956 refugees, mostly old people, women and children.

Attack of the century.

Captain Gustlov Peterson is 63 years old; he has not driven ships for many years and therefore asked for two young sea captains to help him. The military command of the ship was entrusted to an experienced submariner, corvette captain Tsang. A unique situation has arisen: on the ship’s command bridge there are four captains with an unclear distribution of powers, which will be one of the reasons for Gustloff’s death.

On January 30, accompanied by a single ship, the torpedo bomber Lev, Gustloff left the port of Gotenhafen, and a dispute immediately broke out among the captains. Tsang, who knew more than the rest about the danger of attacks by Soviet submarines, proposed to go in a zigzag with a maximum speed of 16 knots, in which case slower boats would not be able to catch up with them. “12 knots, no more!” - Peterson objected, recalling the unreliable weld in the side plating, and insisted on his own.

Gustloff walked along a corridor in minefields. At 19:00 a radiogram was received: a formation of minesweepers was on a collision course. The captains gave the command to turn on the identification lights to avoid a collision. The last and decisive mistake. The ill-fated radiogram remained forever a mystery; no minesweepers appeared.

At about 19 o'clock the boat surfaced, just at that time the lights on Gustloff came on. In the first seconds, the officer on duty could not believe his eyes: the silhouette of a giant ship was glowing in the distance! He appeared on the Marinesco bridge, wearing the non-standard, oily sheepskin sheepskin coat known to all Baltic submariners.

At 19:30, Gustloff's captains, without waiting for the mystical minesweepers, ordered the lights to be turned off. It’s too late - Marinesko has already grabbed his cherished goal with a death grip. He could not understand why the giant ship did not zigzag and was accompanied by only one ship. Both of these circumstances will make the attack easier.

A joyful mood reigned on Gustloff: a few more hours and they would leave the danger zone. The captains gathered in the wardroom for lunch; a steward in a white jacket brought pea soup and cold meat. We rested for some time after the arguments and excitement of the day, and drank a glass of cognac for success.

On the S-13, four bow torpedo tubes are prepared for attack, on each torpedo there is an inscription: on the first - "For the Motherland", On the second - "For Stalin", on third - "For the Soviet people" and on the fourth - "For Leningrad".
700 meters to the target. At 21:04 the first torpedo is fired, followed by the rest. Three of them hit the target, the fourth, with the inscription "For Stalin", gets stuck in a torpedo tube, ready to explode at the slightest shock. But here, as often with Marinesko, skill is complemented by luck: the torpedo engine stalls for an unknown reason, and the torpedo operator quickly closes the outer cover of the apparatus. The boat goes under water.

At 21:16 the first torpedo hit the bow of the ship, later the second one blew up the empty swimming pool where the women of the naval auxiliary battalion were, and the last one hit the engine room. The passengers' first thought was that they had hit a mine, but Captain Peterson realized it was a submarine, and his first words were:
Das war's - That's all.

Those passengers who did not die from the three explosions and did not drown in the cabins on the lower decks rushed to the lifeboats in panic. At that moment, it turned out that by ordering the watertight compartments in the lower decks to be closed, according to the instructions, the captain had accidentally blocked part of the team, which was supposed to lower the boats and evacuate passengers. Therefore, in the panic and stampede, not only many children and women died, but also many of those who climbed to the upper deck. They could not lower the lifeboats because they did not know how to do this, besides, many of the davits were iced over, and the ship was already heavily listing. Through the joint efforts of the crew and passengers, some boats were able to be launched, but many people still found themselves in the icy water. Due to the strong roll of the ship, an anti-aircraft gun came off the deck and crushed one of the boats, already full of people.

About an hour after the attack, the Wilhelm Gustloff completely sank.

Dozens of rescue boats and rafts lowered from the decks floated around the sinking ship. Overloaded rafts are surrounded by people frantically clinging to them; one by one they drown in the icy water. Hundreds of dead children's bodies: life jackets keep them afloat, but the children's heads are heavier than their legs, and only their legs stick out of the water.

Captain Peterson was one of the first to leave the ship. A sailor who was in the same rescue boat with him would later say: “Not far from us, a woman was floundering in the water screaming for help. We pulled her into the boat, despite the captain’s cry of “Leave us alone, we are already overloaded!”

More than a thousand people were rescued by the escort ship and seven ships that arrived at the scene of the disaster. 70 minutes after the first torpedo exploded, Gustloff began to sink. At the same time, something incredible happens: during the dive, the lighting that failed during the explosion suddenly turns on, and the howl of sirens is heard. People look in horror at the devilish performance.

S-13 was lucky again: the only escort ship was busy rescuing people, and when it began to throw depth charges, the “For Stalin” torpedo was already neutralized, and the boat was able to leave.

One of the survivors, 18-year-old administrative trainee Heinz Schön, collected materials related to the history of the liner for more than half a century, and became a chronicler of the greatest ship disaster of all time. According to his calculations, on January 30 there were 10,582 people on board Gustlov, 9,343 died. For comparison: the disaster of the Titanic, which ran into an underwater iceberg in 1912, cost the lives of 1,517 passengers and crew members.

All four captains escaped. The youngest of them, by the name of Kohler, committed suicide shortly after the end of the war - he was broken by the fate of Gustloff.

The destroyer "Lion" (a former ship of the Dutch Navy) was the first to arrive at the scene of the tragedy and began rescuing the surviving passengers. Since in January the temperature was already −18 °C, there were only a few minutes left before irreversible hypothermia set in. Despite this, the ship managed to rescue 472 passengers from the lifeboats and from the water.
The guard ships of another convoy, the cruiser Admiral Hipper, which also, in addition to the crew, also had about 1,500 refugees on board, also came to the rescue.
Due to fear of attack from submarines, he did not stop and continued to retire to safe waters. Other ships (by “other ships” we mean the only destroyer T-38 - the sonar system did not work on the Lev, the Hipper left) managed to save another 179 people. A little more than an hour later, new ships that came to the rescue could only fish dead bodies from the icy water. Later, a small messenger ship that arrived at the scene of the tragedy unexpectedly found, seven hours after the sinking of the liner, among hundreds of dead bodies, an unnoticed boat and in it a living baby wrapped in blankets - the last rescued passenger of the Wilhelm Gustloff.

As a result, according to various estimates, from 1200 to 2500 people out of a little less than 11 thousand on board managed to survive. Maximum estimates place losses at 9,985 lives.

In Germany, the reaction to the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff at the time of the tragedy was rather restrained. The Germans did not disclose the scale of losses, so as not to worsen the morale of the population even further. In addition, at that moment the Germans suffered heavy losses in other places. However, after the end of the war, in the minds of many Germans, the simultaneous death of so many civilians and especially thousands of children on board the Wilhelm Gustloff remained a wound that even time did not heal. Along with the bombing of Dresden this tragedy remains one of the most terrible events of the Second World War for the German people.

Some German publicists consider the sinking of Gustlov a crime against civilians, the same as the bombing of Dresden. However, here is the conclusion made by the Institute of Maritime Law in Kiel: “Wilhelm Gustloff was a legitimate military target, there were hundreds of submarine specialists, anti-aircraft guns on it... There were wounded, but there was no status as a floating hospital. The German government on 11/11/44 declared the Baltic Sea an area of ​​​​military operations and ordered the destruction of everything that floats. The Soviet armed forces had the right to respond in kind."

Disaster researcher Heinz Schön concludes that the liner was a military target and its sinking was not a war crime, because:
ships intended for transporting refugees, hospital ships had to be marked with the appropriate signs - a red cross, could not wear camouflage colors, could not travel in the same convoy with military ships. They could not carry any military cargo, stationary or temporarily placed air defense guns, artillery pieces or other similar equipment on board.

"Wilhelm Gustloff" was a warship, being assigned to the navy and armed forces, on which six thousand refugees were allowed to board. The entire responsibility for their lives, from the moment they boarded the warship, lay with the appropriate officials of the German navy. Thus, the Gustloff was a legitimate military target of Soviet submariners, due to the following facts:

"Wilhelm Gustloff" was not an unarmed civilian ship: it had weapons on board that could be used to fight enemy ships and aircraft;
"Wilhelm Gustloff" was a training floating base for the German submarine fleet;
"Wilhelm Gustloff" was accompanied by a warship of the German fleet (destroyer "Lion");
Soviet transports with refugees and wounded during the war repeatedly became targets for German submarines and aircraft (in particular, motor ship "Armenia", sunk in 1941 in the Black Sea, was carrying more than 5 thousand refugees and wounded on board. Only 8 people survived. However, “Armenia”, like "Wilhelm Gustloff", violated the status of a medical ship and was a legitimate military target).

Unlike the lengthy search for the Titanic, finding the Wilhelm Gustloff was easy.
Its coordinates at the time of sinking turned out to be accurate, and the ship was at a relatively shallow depth - only 45 meters.
Mike Boring visited the wreck in 2003 and made a documentary about his expedition.
On Polish navigation maps the place is marked as "Obstacle No. 73"
In 2006, a bell recovered from a shipwreck and then used as decoration in a Polish seafood restaurant was exhibited at the Forced Paths exhibition in Berlin.

On March 2-3, 2008, a new television film was shown on the German channel ZDF called “Die Gustloff”

In 1990, 45 years after the end of the war, Marinesko was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Later recognition came thanks to the activities of the Marinesko Committee, which operated in Moscow, Leningrad, Odessa and Kaliningrad. In Leningrad and Kaliningrad, monuments were erected to the S-13 commander. A small museum of Russian submarine forces in the northern capital bears Marinesko’s name.

The IX-bis series submarine was laid down on October 19, 1938 at plant No. 112 (Krasnoe Sormovo) in Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod) under serial number 263. On April 25, 1939, the submarine was launched and on June 11, 1941, began its transition to the Baltic along the Mariininskaya water system in Leningrad. On June 22, 1941, the submarine met under the command of Senior Lieutenant P.P. Malanchenko as part of the Submarine Training Brigade. The beginning of the war found S-13 in the city of Voznesenye. On June 25, the submarine arrived in Leningrad.

Until July 31, the submarine underwent sea trials, and on August 14, 1941, it became part of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet. On August 30, S-13 was included in the 1st Division of the 1st Submarine Brigade of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet. The submarine was supposed to be relocated to the North, for which purpose the S-13 underwent dry-docking in the first half of September. The submarine was ready to move when the Germans blockaded Leningrad from land, and the S-13 remained in the Baltic.

Having safely wintered through the first winter of the siege in Leningrad, the S-13 set out on its first combat campaign to a position in the Gulf of Bothnia on September 2, 1942. This year, Soviet submarines have not yet penetrated this area. The commander of the 1st Submarine Division, Captain 2nd Rank E.G. Yunakov, went to ensure the trip to sea. To the diving point, the S-13 was accompanied by minesweepers and patrol boats. At 02.30 the escort left the submarine and it continued on its own. On the evening of September 3, at the Helsinki lighthouse, when the periscope was raised, the submarine was twice detected by an enemy patrol boat, which dropped seven depth charges on it. On the night of September 8, S-13 completed crossing the Gulf of Finland, and in the evening of the next day it entered the Åland Sea. On the afternoon of September 11, the submarine was in the Gulf of Bothnia, in which the enemy did not expect Soviet submarines to operate in the area. At the end of the current day, C-13 discovered the Finnish steamer "Gera" with a cargo of coal for Finland. The first torpedo passed by, and then the submarine opened artillery fire (thirteen 100 mm shells were fired). The transport stalled and, having received another torpedo, sank. Three hours later, the submarine sank the Finnish transport Ussi X, which was transporting piece cargo to Königsberg. Of the 22 crew members of the ship, only one sailor survived. While patrolling in a given area, the S-13 had several chances to sink enemy ships, but the attacks were thwarted due to personnel errors, and on the morning of September 17, when trying to attack the S-13, it was thrown into shallow water by a wave.

On the evening of September 17, S-13 fired a torpedo at the Dutch motor-sailing schooner Anna B, but the torpedo missed the target, and the ship dodged the second torpedo. The submarine's 100 mm gun fired 24 shells. After the transport caught fire, another torpedo was fired, passing under the bow of the ship. The burning schooner drifted to the shore, where six days later it was discovered completely burned out by the Finns, and was eventually dismantled. Five people on board the ship were killed in the attack by a submarine. Continuing patrols, C-13 repeatedly detected both single ships and enemy convoys, but the attacks were frustrated for various reasons. On October 4, the submarine launched a torpedo attack on the convoy, but was unsuccessful. On the evening of October 10, C-13 began returning to base. Off Vaindlo Island on October 15, the submarine was attacked by Finnish patrol boats VMV13 and VMV15. The submarine received damage from close explosions of depth charges: the gyrocompass and echo sounder were out of order, the vertical rudder was jammed at 28° to the left, several battery tanks were cracked, and sea water began to flow into the submarine through a knocked-out fitting on the depth gauge. S-13 lay down on the ground, where it carried out repairs for six hours at a depth of 60 meters.

It was never possible to put the rudder into operation, and the submarine had to travel the remaining part of its journey, controlled by electric motors. On the evening of October 17, towed by the boat MO-124 and minesweeper No. 34, the submarine was brought to Lavensari. On October 19, S-13 arrived safely in Kronstadt. On October 22, the submarine moved to Leningrad for repairs and wintering. For the successful combat campaign, ten people, including the commander and commander of the Division, were awarded the Order of Lenin, sixteen people - the Red Banner, eighteen - the Red Star and two submariners - the medal "For Courage".

On April 19, 1943, during artillery exercises, the closing of the fender cover of the first shots accidentally hit the capsule of one of the shells. The gunpowder in the cartridge exploded, killing one Red Navy man. The result of the incident "for negligent performance of official duties" responsibilities", was the removal of the S-13 commander P.P. Malanchenko from his position. Captain 3rd Rank A.I. Marinesko, who previously commanded the submarine M-96, was appointed commander of the submarine S-13.

On October 1, 1944, S-13 left Kronstadt and on the morning of October 8 took up a position north of the Hel Peninsula. The next morning, 25 miles northeast of the Riksfest lighthouse, the coaster Zigfrid was discovered, which, due to an unsuccessful torpedo attack, was damaged by artillery (thirty-nine 100-mm and fifteen 45-mm shells were fired) and washed up on a sandbank near the Hel Spit. On October 13, the submarine received orders to redeploy to Cape Brewsteror. On October 11, 15 and 21, the S-13 acoustician recorded the noise of enemy ships three times, but it did not lead to attacks.

On October 21, S-13 moved to Vindava, but four days later an order was received during daylight hours to be on the southwestern approaches to Lyu Bay (Saaremaa Island) - in the area from where Krigsmarine heavy ships bombed Soviet units on October 24 Syrve Peninsula. A.I. Marinesko remained in the bay even in the dark. Taking into account the fact that at this moment the situation on the island had temporarily stabilized, and the enemy cruisers did not appear, not a single target for attack could be found. On November 11, 1944, S-13 moored at the Hanko piers, in early December she was docked in Helsinki, after which she was at Hanko from December 22. Noting the courage of A.I. Marinesko, shown during the Zigfrid artillery attack, the commander of the Submarine Brigade, Verkhovsky, was still dissatisfied with the passivity in detecting noises and improper organization of the search, so he gave only a satisfactory rating for the campaign. A.I. Marinesko was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

Soon, due to the behavior of the commander of S-13, the question of bringing him before a military tribunal arose. The political report stated: “...twice, without the permission of the Division commander, I went to the city of Hanko, where I drank and had relationships with Finnish women...”.

The matter reached the commander of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet, who decided to hold a trial after returning from the next campaign.

The subsequent political report wrote: “...the decision to provide Captain 3rd Rank A.I. Marinesko with the opportunity to go to sea before his case was examined in court, as the result of the Combat Campaign shows, justified itself. The commander of the S-13 submarine at the position acted boldly, calmly, decisively, looked for the enemy boldly and competently.”

The S-13 set out on its third combat mission on January 11, 1945 and was in position between the Riksheft lighthouse and Kolberg from the evening of January 13th. By this time, the enemy had managed to establish anti-submarine defense of their communications, but the activity shown by A.I. Marinesko should have led to success. After several unsuccessful attempts to attack convoys, which failed due to the danger of collision with escort ships or stormy weather. On the evening of January 30, in the area of ​​​​the Hela lighthouse, a meeting took place with a large liner - “Vilgelm Gustlov”. Acoustic foreman 2 articles I.M. Shpantsev caught the noise of the propellers and reported to the central post: “To the left 160 degrees - the noise of the propellers of a large ship!” A.I. Marinesko got his bearings instantly: he assessed the situation and turned the S-13 towards the enemy. Soon the acoustician reported: “The bearing is quickly changing to the bow!” - the target was moving to the west, and quickly; it was impossible to keep up with it in a submerged position.

At the Central Post the commander’s command was heard: “To ascend!” A.I. Marinesko decided to attack the enemy from the surface and from the shore. Pressing close to the shore, S-13 took the same course as the enemy and went after the liner. In addition to the commander of the submarine, the commander of the navigational combat unit, captain-lieutenant N.Ya. Redkoborodov, and senior Red Navy man A.Ya. Vinogradov were on the bridge.

In cold weather and in pitch darkness, the pursuit lasted about 2 hours. There were times when the S-13 reached speeds of more than 16 knots. The commander of the electromechanical combat unit, Lieutenant Commander Ya.S. Kovalenko and his subordinates at these moments squeezed everything out of the main engine, but the distance to the target did not decrease. Then A.I. Marinesko called the commander of the warhead 5 upstairs and ordered to develop an accelerated speed at least for a while. And only when the speed reached 19 knots did the distance begin to shorten.

The incoming snow charges at times obscured the target. Having caught up with her, the S-13 made a sharp turn to the right and entered the Combat Course. The command followed down: “The first, second, third and fourth torpedo tubes - “Go!”, and at 23 hours 8 minutes the command followed: “Fire!”; there were only five cables to the target. Less than a minute later, three powerful explosions were heard. From the bridge we saw one torpedo explode in the area of ​​the foremast, another in the middle part of the ship, and the third under the mainmast. The fourth torpedo did not exit the apparatus. The liner "Wilhelm Gustlow" with a displacement of more than 25,000 tons, with a trim on the bow and a large list to the left side, began to sink, and a few minutes later sank. Half an hour later, four German patrol ships, a destroyer and two minesweepers appeared and began to rescue the passengers. Two patrol boats and a minesweeper began searching for the submarine; their searchlights, probing the darkness, searched for the S-13. Soon depth charges began to explode. A.I. Marinesko, instead of going out to sea to great depths, turned to the shore and lay down on the ground.

The progress of the attack in the ship's documents is reflected as follows:

The only escort of the liner, the destroyer “Leve,” at the time of the pursuit and attack, was far behind the stern of the liner and immediately began rescuing passengers; the destroyer T-36, which joined later, dropped twelve depth charges to prevent the S-13 from going on the attack again.

Until recently, it was believed that 406 of the 918 sailors and officers of the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Submarine Training Division, 91 of the 173 crew members, 246 of the 373 Grigsmarine women and about 4,600 of the 5,100 refugees and wounded, but after 1997, the leading German researcher of the death of the Vilgelm Gustlov, H. Schön, who was a passenger assistant to the captain of the liner in 1945, once again changed the number of deaths. Referring to the sworn testimony of the former sanitary chief V. Terres, he stated that the liner took not just over 5,000 refugees, as previously thought, but about 9,000, which increases the number of those killed along with the ship from approximately 6,000 to 9,300 , and officially today the Germans provide exactly this data.

S-13 continued cruising and on February 3, while attempting to attack, she was attacked by an enemy patrol boat. On February 6, the C-13 was fired upon by a German submarine.
On February 10, 45 miles north of the Yaroslavets lighthouse, A.I. Marinesko discovered the large transport “General Shtoiben”, which was escorting a destroyer and a torpedo boat with its running lights extinguished.

Its escort consisted of the T-196 destroyer and TF-10 torpedo boats. For four hours, A.I. Marinesko maneuvered, knowing about the presence of the enemy thanks to the acoustic station, and observed him only for the last forty minutes. It was necessary to pursue “General Steuben” at speeds from 12 to 18 knots. Due to interference from the guards, the salvo was fired from a distance of 12 cables from the stern torpedo tubes, and, nevertheless, both torpedoes hit the target.

The progress of this attack is reflected in the documents as follows:

At the time of the torpedoing, the General Shtoiben was carrying 2,680 Wehrmacht troops, one hundred soldiers, about 900 refugees, 270 Krigsmarine medical personnel and 285 crew members (of which 125 were military personnel). 659 people were saved.

On February 15, the C-13 arrived in Turku. Five days later, the Red Banner Baltic Fleet command knew for sure about the sinking of the submarine Vilgelm Gustlov, since the description of the torpedoed liner exactly coincided with its photograph published in the Finnish newspaper. As a result of the successful conduct of two attacks, A.I. Marinesko became the most effective submariner of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Navy. In the conclusion drawn up on the Combat Campaign, the Division commander, Captain 1st Rank A.E. Orel, wrote: “1. In position he acted boldly, calmly and decisively, looking for the enemy actively and competently. 2. At 21.10. On January 30, he discovered a liner with a displacement of 18-20 thousand tons, attacked at 23.08 and sank it with a three-torpedo salvo. 3. On February 9 at 22.15, the ShP detected the noise of a large twin-screw ship. Skillfully using acoustics, he determined the enemy’s direction of movement and approached him at high speed. Having approached, I visually clearly established that a light cruiser of the Emden type was moving, guarding three destroyers in a night order. At 2.50 on February 10, he attacked astern, fired two torpedoes at intervals, and observed torpedo hits...” In his conclusions regarding the results of this campaign, the Division commander noted the following: “The submarine commander, Captain 3rd Rank Marinesko, for the sinking of the Vilgelm Gustlov liner with a large number of German submariners and the sinking of the Emden-class light cruiser deserves the highest government award - the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.”

But the command of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet demanded confirmation of the reconnaissance, and without it, the sinking of the liner and transport resulted in the following: captain 3rd rank A.I. Marinesko, captain-lieutenants L.P. Efremenkov, N.Ya. Redkoborodov, K.E. Vasilenko, engineer Lieutenant Ya.S. Kovalenko, midshipmen P.N. Nabolov and N.S. Toropov were awarded the Order of the Red Banner. The Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, was awarded to lieutenant engineer P.A. Kravtsov, midshipman V.I. Pospelov, foremen of the 2nd article A.N. Volkov, V.A. Kurochkin, A.G. Pikhur, Order of the Patriotic War 2nd degree - senior Red Navy men I.M. Antipov, A.Ya. Vinogradov. On April 20, 1945, the S-13 submarine became Red Banner.

The S-13 went on its last combat mission on April 20, 1945. It occupied a position south of Gotland, on the Libau-Swinemünde communication line, then north of Stolpemünde, and starting on the night of May 8, northwest of Libau. It was never possible to launch an attack; the S-13 itself became the target of attack by German submarines and aircraft four times.

On May 23, 1945, the S-13 returned to base. After the war, the submarine S-13 served in the Baltic. On September 7, 1954, the S-13 was withdrawn from combat service, disarmed and converted into a floating Combat Training Room of the 2nd Higher Naval School (October 6, 1954 it received the name “KBP-38”). On March 23, 1956, KBP-38 was transferred to the group of floating craft of the Navy Research Institute No. 11.

On December 17, 1956, the submarine S-13 was excluded from the lists of ships of the USSR Navy and was handed over for dismantling. The S-13 submarine made 4 combat cruises: 09/02/1942 – 10/19/1942; 01.10.1944 – 11.11.1944; 01/11/1945 – 02/15/1945; 04/20/1945 – 05/23/1945. Sank 5 transports (44,138 GRT), damaged 1 (563 GRT): 09/11/1942 TR "Gera" (1,379 GRT); 09/11/1942 TR “Ussi X” (2.325 GRT); 09/17/1942 TR “Anna B” (290 GRT); 01/30/1945 TR “Vilgelm Gustlov” (25.484 GRT) 02/10/1945; TR "General Shtoiben" (14.660 GRT), damaged the trawler "Zigfrid" (563 GRT).

Tactiko -TtechnicalDdata

submarine

WITH-13 :

Displacement: surface/underwater - 837/1084.5 tons. Dimensions: length 77.7 meters, width 6.4 meters, draft 4.35 meters. Speed: surface/underwater - 19.8/8.9 knots. Cruising range: above water 8170 miles at 9.7 knots, under water 140 miles at 2.9 knots. Powerplant: 2 diesel engines of 2000 hp each, 2 electric motors of 550 hp each. Armament: 4 bow + 2 stern 533 mm torpedo tubes (12 torpedoes), one 100 mm, one 45 mm gun. Immersion depth: up to 100 meters. Crew: 46 people.