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voor de liefhebbers van WO2 en russische duikboten :)

Legendary Soviet Submarine Fleet
from 1930 on
1 pdf
Russian
90Mb

In a year, on the 23d of February 1930, on the Day of the Soviet Army the foundations of the submarine “Sch-304” were laid, it was named “Komsomolets”/”Member of the Komsomol”. Thus, the tradition to build submarines with “komsomol” names started. 

It is interesting that during these years a former English submarine “L-55” was adopted in the Red Banner Baltic Sea Fleet. 

During the Civil war, this submarine participated in the English intervention against our country. On 4 June, 1919, near Kronshtadt, “L-55” was wrecked by cannonade of the minelayer “Gavriil”. In the end of 1929, specialists of Epron (Divers Organization of special purposes) managed to refloat and restore it, and after that the submarine started its service time under the red Banner. “The Englishwoman”, as our seamen used to jokingly call it, reserved to itself its former number “L-55”. It was done according to the old marine tradition. As far back as Peter’s time, the captured ships were allowed to keep their former names after their adoption in the Russian Fleet. And in this case as well, the “Englishwoman” was meant to remind our enemies of the fact that Russian Navy was always on alert and ready to protect the borders of the Soviet Union. 

After 1940, the former ships of the bourgeois Estonia (“Lembit”, “Kalev”) and Latvia (“Ronis”, “Spidola”), which were named in honour of the ancient epic heroes of the Baltic countries, were adopted in the USSR Navy. 

Among the Soviet submarines, which had personal names, there were three submarines of “P” type. They were named after the central newspapers of the Bolshevik Party such as “Pravda’, “Zvezda”, “Iskra” (initially they wanted to name them “Pravdist”, “Chekist”, “Iskrovets’). 

However, not all the Soviet submarines had personal names; lots of them used to serve bearing different numbers on their boards. They used to call them “numbered”. While the seamen tenderly called them “Maluytka”/”Little one” (submarines of “M” type), “Katyusha” (“K”-type), “Eski” or “Stalinist” (“S”-type) and “Leninist” (“L”-type). Each of those submarines has a unique service history and is stamped in the people’s memory. On the whole, by 22 June, 1941 there were 212 submarines in the Soviet Navy. 

Our Motherland has undergone a terrible ordeal and that was the Great Patriotic War. It made it absolutely clear that the importance of the underwater fleet just could not be overestimated as well as heroism, valour and patriotism of the Soviet submariners. Despite all the difficulties, trials and tribulations of the war times, the construction and modernization of the ships never stopped. 

During those rough war times, the Naval General Headquarters had to cancel their decision on ship-naming prohibition of 1938. It was done due to the following events. 

In the end of 1942, the widow of L.M. Lobodenko, a naval political worker, made a proposal for the government to address the seamen’ wives to collect money for the construction of a submarine which was to be named the “Revenge”. 

18 June, 1943, a submarine with the above-mentioned name was put into service. Patriotic movement, which was initiated at the Northern Fleet, became very popular with the Soviet people, and it gave a powerful spur to the enhancement of the nation activity. Soon the Fleet received new submarines built on the financial support of the working people: the “Donbass Fisherman” (M-202), the “Heroic Sebastopol” (C-14), the “Irkutsk Fisherman” (M-203), “Kolkhoznitsa” (C-15), the “Soviet Svanetia” (C-17), the “Hero of the USSR Nurseitov” (C-16). 

Thanks to Iron Coffin :)