Bogatyr (ship, 1901)
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The German-built Bogatyr was a Russian warship entered service in 1902 . She was one of three protected cruisers ordered abroad under the fleet building program in 1898 . The Bogatyr was rebuilt in Russian shipyards for the Baltic and Black Sea fleets even before it was completed .
Building history
After the Pallada class built in its own shipyards , the Russian Navy ordered three large protected cruisers (classified as 1st class cruisers) abroad as part of the fleet building program in 1898: the Varyag from William Cramp and Sons in Philadelphia , United States , and the Askold from the Krupp Germania shipyard in Kiel and the Bogatyr at the Stettiner Maschinenbau-AG Vulcan . The Vulcan design, which featured better armor and distribution of the 152 mm guns, was recreated at Russian shipyards. The Bogatyr was the lead ship of a class of four ships. A fifth ship, which was started second, was destroyed by a major fire at the shipyard and was not completed.
Use in East Asia
The Bogatyr moved in autumn 1902 / spring 1903 with the transport association of Rear Admiral E. A. Stackelberg to Port Arthur , where she arrived in May 1903. When the Russo-Japanese War broke out on 8/9 February 1904 the Bogatyr belonged to the cruiser squadron of Rear Admiral Karl Jessen stationed in Vladivostok , which also included the cruisers Gromoboi , Rossija and Rurik . The squadron was supposed to wage a trade war in the Sea of Japan and prevent or disrupt Japanese transports to Manchuria . Jessen attacked Japanese ships several times during the first months of the war, and in June he sank two troop carriers. Thereupon the Japanese naval command stationed eight armored cruisers and protected cruisers under Vice Admiral Kamimura Hikonojō in the Korea Strait to prevent further attacks.
The Bogatyr fell out for the warfare of the cruiser squadron in Vladivostok on May 15, 1904, when she ran on a rock in front of Vladivostok. It was so badly damaged that it could be brought in, but it was not completely repaired during the war. The Bogatyr therefore spent the Russo-Japanese War almost completely unavailable in the port. Press reports that the Russians had blown up the badly damaged ship did not apply. The repairs were pushed ahead, and after the peace agreement, the limited operational cruiser was relocated to the Baltic Sea.
Earthquake relief
On December 28, 1908, the Bogatyr was with a Russian training ship formation under Rear Admiral Vladimir Iwanowitsch Litvinow in Augusta (Sicily) when it came to a very severe earthquake in nearby Messina . The Bogatyr stayed in Augusta to secure communications, while the ships of the line Slava and Zessarewitsch as well as the armored cruiser Admiral Makarow immediately sailed to Messina at maximum speed. There the earth continued to shake, preventing the ships from dropping anchors, and the Russians put parts of their crews on land to look for people who had been buried. Russian sailors were also buried and killed in the aftershocks. The Russian gunboats Giljak and Korejez also came to support. We worked very closely with the British on the armored cruiser Sutlej . Of around 3,000 people rescued from the rubble, the Russians rescued around 1,800 people and brought some of them to Naples .
In 1912, the Bogatyr in Kronstadt was modernized.
Use in the Baltic Sea
During the First World War , the Bogatyr was part of the 1st Cruiser Brigade. Her first very successful mission came after the German small cruiser Magdeburg ran aground on the island of Odensholm , off the Estonian north coast, on August 26, 1914 . The Bogatyr appeared with the Pallada , and they shot at the Magdeburg and prevented attempts to tow her away. The German crew finally blew up their own ship. The torpedo boat V 26 and the small cruiser Amazone took over the survivors. The commandant , Korvettenkapitän habenicht, and his adjutant stayed on the ship and were taken prisoner by the Russians. More important than the loss of the ship was that the Russians managed to recover the signal book.
The Russian cruisers repeatedly secured mining companies that were to be relocated far into the western Baltic Sea not only defensively but also offensively. In November 1914 , the Bogatyr secured a company run by the mine-layer Amur with her sister ship Oleg and the armored cruiser Rurik , who laid 240 mines on the Stolpe Bank , and in December 1914 a similar operation by the mine-layer Yenisei , the Amur's sister ship . In January 1915, the Bogatyr and the Oleg were also used directly for mine-laying when they laid 196 mines east of Bornholm . Shortly afterwards, the German small cruiser Augsburg fell into this minefield and was out of action for three months due to a mine hit.
The Bogatyr and the Oleg took part in the formation of the 1st Cruiser Brigade, together with the two armored cruisers Admiral Makarow (flagship of Rear Admiral Michail Bachirew ) and Bayan , in the so-called Gotland Raid on July 2, 1915. In a battle with German cruisers, they drove the German mine cruiser Albatross onto the beach near Östergard, Gotland .
In June 1916 the Russian fleet attempted attacks on the German Luleå convoys off the Swedish coast. In addition to the Bogatyr , her sister ship Oleg and the armored cruiser Rurik , a number of destroyers were also used. On June 14, the three new destroyers Nowik , Pobeditel and Grom met a German escort near the island of Gotland southeast of Oxelösund . The convoy leader ordered the ten ore steamers to enter Swedish territorial waters and had fog buoys thrown. As darkness fell, the Russian commander overestimated the strength of the German escort (three outpost boats, each with an 8.8 cm gun) and broke off the battle. No hits had been made on either side, and all torpedoes fired missed the ships. While turning, the destroyers encountered a supposed straggler: the ship H submarine trap , which was in its first mission. The converted steamship with its poorly trained crew had no chance against the three warships. After an hour of fighting and a torpedo shot by the destroyer Grom , the submarine trap sank with the loss of 29 men. The Nowik rescued seven castaways, the rest were taken up by the German ships.
After the landing of the German Baltic Sea Division on April 3, 1918 near Hangö and the conclusion of the Hangö Agreement between Rear Admiral Hugo Meurer and representatives of the ZENTROBALT (Central Committee of the Baltic Fleet), the longest-serving officer in the Baltic Fleet, Captain 1st rank, Alexei Schtschastny organized (Алексей Михайлович Щастный), the transfer of Russian units to Kronstadt . From April 6th, despite adverse weather conditions (−12 ° air temperature) and difficult ice conditions in the Gulf of Finland, around 170 ships were returned during the so-called ice march of the Baltic Fleet . This means that Russia and the Soviet Union have practically the entire Baltic fleet. The two icebreakers Yermak and Wolhynez conquered the 330 km to Kronstadt in five days. Four battleships , three older ships of the line , five armored cruisers , four cruisers - in addition to the Bogatyr, her sister ship Oleg , the Aurora and the Diana -, 57 destroyers , three gunboats , twelve submarines and three mine- layers were relocated to Kronstadt. Four convoys marched one after the other; the Bogatyr took part in the first with the battleships.
In November 1918, the Bogatyr and the Oleg were used for the Red Fleet when they supported the Red Army invasion of Estonia with two destroyers.
The sister ships
The second ship that was started was to be named Vitjas . Construction began in November 1900 in St. Petersburg at the Galerny shipyard. A major fire on June 13, 1901 destroyed the ship that had begun, and construction was abandoned.
The first Kagul was built at the Nikolaev shipyard. The keel was laid in September 1901, the launch on June 2, 1902 and completion in 1905. In March 1907 it was renamed Pamjat Merkuria . It was severely damaged by the withdrawing troops at the end of the Allied intervention in 1920. The Soviet Navy repaired the ship and made it operational again as the Comintern for the Black Sea Fleet. Parts of the Bogatyr machinery are said to have been used to overhaul the Comintern machinery . Damaged by German bombers in World War II on July 16, 1942, it was sunk as a breakwater off Poti , Georgia , on October 10, 1942 after the cannons had been brought ashore.
The second Kagul was built as Ochakov at the Sevastopol shipyard . The keel was laid in March 1901, the launch on October 4, 1902, the completion - significantly delayed by the Russian Revolution in 1905 - only in June 1909 as Kagul . It was renamed Ochakov in March 1917 and General Kornilov in September 1919 . As part of the "white" armed forces, she evacuated towards the end of the Russian Civil War as part of General Wrangel's Russian squadron from the Black Sea to Bizerta in what was then the French protectorate of Tunisia , where she was interned. In 1924 she was formally handed over to the Soviet Union, but no longer put into service. In 1933 it was sold for demolition.
The Oleg was built at the New Admiralty Shipyard in St. Petersburg . The keel was laid in 1902, the launch on August 27, 1903 and completion on October 25, 1904. She marched with the Baltic Fleet to East Asia and took part in the Battle of Tsushima . She escaped extermination and escaped to Manila, where she was interned. After the end of the Russo-Japanese War it remained in the Far East, but then moved back to the Baltic Sea. On June 17, 1919 she was sunk with a torpedo by the British speedboat CMB 4 during the British intervention in the Baltic Sea as a cruiser of the Red Fleet in the port of Kronstadt . The wreck was lifted and demolished in 1938.
Web links
- 1st class cruiser BOGATYR
- Bogatyr class, lots of pictures
- The Bogatyr Class: Burly Protected Cruisers (1898/1902)
Footnotes
- ↑ so NewYorkTimes on May 24th
- ↑ so New York Times on November 27, 1904
- ↑ Amur , cruiser-like two-chimney, 3200 t, 17 kn, 340 mines, five 120 mm and two 75 mm guns.