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The Armenija or Armeniya ( Russian Армения for Armenia ) was a Soviet passenger ship that was launched in November 1928 in Leningrad at the Baltic shipyard. The ship was 112.15 meters long, 15.54 meters wide and measured 4,727 GRT. The draft was around 7.6 meters. Two six-cylinder diesel engines with a total of 4,000 WPS enabled the ship to reach a top speed of around 12.5 knots (approx. 23 km / h). Was designed to Armenija for a maximum of about 980 passengers and 1,500 tons of cargo. The ship served as a passenger ship in the Black Sea until the outbreak of war and later became known primarily for its sinking in November 1941, which resulted in a very high number of victims.
Contradictory sources
The facts about the incident, some of which have been presented, should be viewed with some caution. The exact course of the tragedy is not fully known, nor has it been clarified with any certainty - due to the long period of secrecy in the former Soviet Union - which status the ship actually had and whether the ship, although (probably) unofficially declared a hospital ship , was used as an irregular troop transport. In sources that are largely reliable and contain the disregard for hospital ships by enemy forces in war, there is, however, no entry about the fate of a Soviet hospital ship Armenia . It is also partly unclear what kind of people and how many people were exactly on board (although most of them were probably wounded).
History and previous missions of Armenia
In the period before the fateful day on which the ship sank, the Armenija was used as a troop transport. Among other things, the ship and five other steamers evacuated parts of the Soviet 157th Rifle Division from Odessa to Sevastopol between October 3 and 6, 1941, under the protection of warships . From October 9, 1941, the Armenia evacuated soldiers, material and workers from Odessa together with three other transports under the protection of the light cruiser Comintern as well as the destroyer Shoaman and three speedboats. Another major evacuation trip from Odessa took place between October 13 and October 21, 1941. During this time, the ship was under the protection of warships and transported soldiers as well as goods essential to the war effort. It wasn't marked as a hospital ship.
Course of doom
After the worsening military situation around and in Sevastopol , in early November 1941 the hospitals in the city were rushed to be evacuated. The Armenija took in this regard, on November 6, 1941 about 4,000 wounded and members of the medical staff of eleven hospitals in Sevastopol and ran towards Yalta , where the ship on the morning of November 7, 1941 arrived about 6:30 PM. There - probably - another 700 to 800 people were taken on board. The commandant of the Armenia , Captain Wladimir Plauschewski, ignored the order of the responsible naval offices in the city to wait for escort for reasons that are not exactly known. He left Yalta around 8 a.m. without an escort and headed for Gurzuf, only about 20 kilometers away . Why this happened and why Captain Plajschewski disregarded a direct order is not known. It is also unclear why the ship did not move near the coast, but rather arched over the high seas; possibly the captain tried to circumvent the mine barriers suspected near the coast. However, it can be considered reasonably certain that the ship had an estimated 4,700 to 4,800 people on board on its last voyage (regular). Unofficially, however, it could have been well over 5,000 people.
In this state, which was Armenija before Gursuf on 7 November, as against 11:25 of probably a single (again, the information is contradictory, possibly there were three machines) German Heinkel He-111 bombers in Seschtschinskaja stationed II Group of Kampfgeschwader 28 (Colonel Ernst-August Roth ) attacked. It is unclear whether it was a bombing attack or an attack with air torpedoes (the sources contradict each other here, although torpedo attacks are reported more often). The attack on Armenia is recorded in the war diary of Kampfgeschwader 28 , although again it is not a hospital ship but a troop transport. The ship received at least one hit, which hit the bow area and caused severe damage. In just four minutes, the van sank, dragging an estimated 4,700 to 4,800 people with it. Only eight people (according to other sources only three) survived the disaster.
Classification as a hospital ship
Various sources indicate that the Armenija was a hospital ship; the ship is said to have been declared a wounded transporter as early as August 1941. This may indicate that the Germans committed one of their many war crimes on the Eastern Front as part of the war of extermination and then disguised this with a misleading classification as a troop transport. If the ship was actually used as a troop and material transporter, it would have been a violation on the part of the Soviets of the international legal requirements for the use of hospital ships , since ambulance vehicles marked according to the Geneva Conventions are not allowed to be used for the transfer of troops and the transport of weapons and ammunition . Another problem is that the Soviet Union itself had not signed the Geneva Conventions of 1929, which also dealt with the status of hospital ships.
Conclusion
When the Armenija sank , an estimated 4,700 to 4,800 people died, mostly wounded, which is why this was one of the greatest maritime disasters . The number of over 7,000 victims given in some sources, however, is not confirmed by either Soviet or otherwise reliable publications. Whether and to what extent, however, a war crime was involved in this case and to what extent the status of a hospital ship existed or not (and to what extent this status was possibly also abused) is controversial and must be examined with caution (especially because German and Russian sources contradict each other here ).
Regardless of the legal assessment, the sinking remains a terrible tragedy with a very high number of victims and is in line with the sinking of German refugee ships in the Baltic Sea in 1945 or overcrowded Japanese transporters by Allied submarines.
Investigation of the wreck
A closer examination of the wreck, which lies at a depth of about 470 meters at the bottom of the Black Sea, has not yet taken place. In September 2008, the Armenia caused displeasure between Russia and the United States when the American hydrographic research vessel Pathfinder called at the Bay of Sevastopol and pretended to want to search for the wreck of the Armenia . The Russian side, however, suspected the Americans of espionage.
Memorial building
Chapel in Yalta.
The Temple Fire of St. Nicholas in Malorechenskoye, and the Water Disaster Museum.
