Pamjat Asova
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| Builder: | Baltic works |
| Keel laying: | July 12, 1886 |
| Launch: | May 20, 1888 |
| Commissioning: | 1890 |
| Period of service: | 1890-1925 |
| Displacement: | 6674 t |
| Length: | 117 m |
| Width: | 17.2 m |
| Draft: | 8.2 m |
| Drive: | 2 standing three-cylinder triple composite steam engines 6 cylinder boilers 2 screws 8,500 HP |
| Speed: | 16 kn |
| Range: | |
| Crew: | 640 |
| Armament: | Guns:
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| Armor: |
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Pamjat Asowa (Russian: Память Азова) was the name of an armored frigate of the Imperial Russian Navy . The ship was named in memory of the Russian ship of the line Azov (Russian: Азов), which distinguished itself at the Battle of Navarino . The St. George's flag, with which the Azov was awarded for the achievements shown in the battle, was transferred to the Pamjat Asowa . The St. George's Flag, donated in 1819, was the highest honor that could be bestowed on a ship whose crew had shown exemplary courage and bravery.
The ship was laid down in 1886, the launch took place in 1888 and the commissioning two years later in 1890. The ship was assigned to the guard units of the fleet. After an eventful history, the ship was decommissioned in 1925. In the fleet lists of the Russian fleet, the ship was listed as a cruiser 1st rank. Due to the design of the armor, the ship is also referred to in Russian literature as a half-armored frigate (полуброненосный фрегат).
construction
The initiator of the construction was Vice Admiral Ivan Alexejewitsch Tschastjakow, who was entrusted with the management of the Russian Naval Ministry. The project of an ocean cruiser with a water displacement of 6000 t was completed in October 1885 by the Baltic Works in St. Petersburg. According to the design, which was worked out under the direction of engineer NE Titow, the length of the ship between the perpendiculars was 340 feet and 10 inches, in the construction waterline 377 feet and 4 inches. The width of the ship was estimated at 50 feet, the draft at the stern of 25 feet.
On December 9, 1885, the intended armament and armor were specified in the shipbuilding department of the ministry. The two 8-inch guns with a length of 35 calibers were estimated to weigh 2798 poods (approximately 47 tons), and the fourteen 6-inch guns (35 caliber length) 9660 poods. The ammunition for the 8-inch guns had a weight of 2500 poods, which corresponded to 125 rounds, that for the 6-inch guns of 8846 poods. The total weight for armaments and ammunition was 23,805 poods or 391 t. At the request of the Naval Technical Commission, the armor was only planned for a 179-foot section of the hull. The belt armor was closed by armored transverse bulkheads below the waterline, which enabled the weight of the armor to be reduced from the original 733 t to 714 t.
In mid-February 1886, the planned armor was revised: The belt armor now extended over the entire waterline. The height of the tank was increased to 6 feet. The armored deck was 37 mm thick, which was reduced to 25.4 mm at the bow and stern.
On June 27, 1886, the ship was named Pamjat Asowa . The official laying of the keel took place on July 12, 1886 in the presence of the Russian Emperor Alexander III. , Empress Maria Fedorovna , Queen Olga Konstantinovna of Greece and Admiral General Alexej Alexandrovich . Construction of the hull began on March 4, 1886. The construction technology had already been tested on the cruisers Admiral Nakhimov and Vladimir Monomakh .
The launch took place on May 20, 1888 in the presence of the Russian Emperor Alexander III. instead of. Exactly 200 years earlier to the day , the boat built by Russian Emperor Peter I had been launched. The crew of the ship was assigned to the 2nd crew of Her Highness the Queen of the Hellenes. This more or less symbolic assignment of the queen to the ship corresponds roughly to that of a regiment owner or honorary colonel in an army regiment and was widespread in European countries at the time.
The equipment of the ship was accelerated, since the Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich was supposed to conduct an educational trip on it. For this voyage, the ship was particularly luxuriously equipped. Furniture and the frames of the mirrors were made of mahogany , the stars of the dinghies were gilded. In this context, the living deck, cabins and officers' mess were also equipped with tiles and a floor covering made of stone asphalt. This equipment increased the weight of the ship by around 70 t.
commitment
Maiden voyage
On August 23, 1890, the Pamjat Asowa ran under the command of Captain 1st Rank NN Lomen on her maiden voyage. The journey led across the Baltic and North Seas, the English Channel and the Bay of Biscay around the Iberian Peninsula into the Mediterranean. From there the journey was to go over the Dardanelles into the Black Sea to Sevastopol , in order to take the heir to the throne on board. During the voyage, the ship got into a severe storm on the leg from Plymouth to Malta . The captain of the ship commented:
"Вообще фрегат оказался крепок и обладает довольно хорошими мореходными качествами в полном грузу, но всё-таки короток для форсирования большой океанской волны."
"Overall the frigate was strong and was sufficiently seaworthy even when fully loaded, but it is still too short to cut through large ocean waves"
Since Turkey refused to allow the ship to pass through the Dardanelles, the heir to the throne in Trieste had to be taken on board. On October 19, the ship left Trieste to reach the island of Ceylon via the Suez Canal, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean . On the way, a stopover was made in Bombay , which the heir to the throne used for a short, 42-day recreational stay. The brother of the heir to the throne, Georgi Alexandrowitsch , who served as ensign on the Pamjat Asowa , fell ill with tuberculosis during his stay and returned to Russia on January 23, 1891 on the Admiral Nakhimov . The Pamjat Asowa ran out of Bombay on January 31, 1891, heading for Ceylon. Vladivostok was reached on May 16 via Singapore , Batavia , Bangkok , Saigon , Hong Kong and Nagasaki . During his stay in Japan, the Ōtsu incident occurred when the Japanese policeman Tsuda Sanzō attempted an unsuccessful assassination attempt on the heir to the throne. A few days later, the Japanese Emperor Meiji visited the Pamjat Asowa.
Immediately after entering Vladivostok, the captain 1st rank S. F. Bayer was given command of the ship. On the occasion of the successful voyage, the well-known St. Petersburg jeweler Carl Peter Fabergé made two Fabergé eggs , which contained a miniature replica of the ship.
The following year the ship spent in Far Eastern waters. Several foreign ports were visited. On May 5, 1892, the ship returned to Vladivostok, on the same day the command was transferred to the captain 1st rank G. P. Tschuchnin. This led the ship back to Europe in the summer of 1892. On October 16, 1892, the Pamjat Asowa landed again in Kronstadt after a journey of more than two years .
Mediterranean Sea
In the winter of 1892/93, work on the ship to remove the overloading of the ship, from which the ship has suffered since its commissioning, continued. Contrary to Tschuchnin's demands, the Naval Technical Commission did not agree to the exchange of the sails for a lighter rig .
On August 23, 1893, the cruiser left Kronstadt to join the Russian Mediterranean Squadron. At the end of September, the cruiser Admiral Nakhimov, who had just joined the squadron, rammed the Pamjat Asowa when he wanted to take his place at the end of the keel line. Thanks to the decisive and correct action of the cruiser Pamjat Asowa , however, there was only a slight contact with insignificant damage.
The squadron was stationed in the Greek port of Piraeus . Visiting trips to various Mediterranean ports were made from there. Combat training was carried out and training maneuvers were carried out between trips. The service in the Mediterranean lasted until the end of 1894.
Still ocean
Towards the end of the year the ship was parked for service in the Pacific. The Pamjat Asowa left Piraeus on November 22, 1894. The transfer was so sudden that the ship had to celebrate the holiday of St. George on November 26th at sea. Since the St. George's flag had passed from the Azov to the Pamjat Asowa , this day was also the ship's holiday. On the way to the Pacific, the ship towed the two newly built torpedo cruisers Vsadnik (Всадник) and Gaidamak (Гайдамак).
Nagasaki was reached on February 6, 1895. The ship became the flagship of the commanding officer of the Pacific Squadron Vice Admiral Pavel Petrovich Tyrtow. In accordance with the regulations issued by the Japanese government, the squadron was distributed to various Japanese ports. The Pamjat Asowa and the Vladimir Monomakh remained in Nagasaki . They were joined on April 6, 1895 by the flagship of the Mediterranean squadron, the battleship Imperator Nikolai I under the command of Rear Admiral Stepan Ossipowitsch Makarov .
At the end of April 1895, the squadron moved to Zhifu . After the announcement of the possibility of the opening of combat operations by Japan, the ships were made ready for combat. For the first time in the Russian fleet, the ships were ordered to be painted in a camouflaging light gray shade. The commanders of the ships use this order to choose the camouflage colors that they think are most favorable. The Pamjat Asowa was painted in a pink-gray shade. As a result, the ship merged with the water not only at night, but also in the evening and early morning and was difficult to make out visually. Squadron trips were ordered at the same time. The Pamjat Asowa led the squadron on the right keel line, which continued to include the cruisers Admiral Kornilov and Rynda (Рында).
On May 13, 1895, the mine cruiser Wsadnik rammed the Pamjat Asowa amidships with the stem . The copper fittings and the wooden planking below the waterline were damaged. The damage was repaired within seventeen days by an on-board command and divers.
After a short time Japan gave up its claims to the Liaodong Peninsula for the time being. Since the danger of the immediate outbreak of fighting was averted, the ships were withdrawn from China and transferred to Vladivostok, where the Pamjat Asowa arrived on June 29th.
From November 3rd to 20th, 1896, the ship was docked in Nagasaki to free the underwater part of vegetation and to repair small damage. In the meantime the vegetation had become so strong that the ship lost two knots of speed. The complete and dense vegetation visible in the picture puzzled the specialists. No other ship was infested with vegetation to this extent and with such speed. In addition to the copper planking, all bronze parts such as bearing blades, stern tubes, propellers and the stems were also affected. After replacing part of the copper planking, the ship was lowered into the water again. Only a year later, on September 20, 1897, the Emperor Nikolai II examined the underwater part of the ship again in the dry dock in Vladivostok. It was found that the vegetation was less strong and distributed unevenly. The copper fittings replaced in Nagasaki were completely free from vegetation. The commander of the ship, Captain 1st rank A. A. Virusius then suggested a different chemical composition for the hardware. The emaciation of the copper sheets was also striking, with the edges of the sheets becoming thin and brittle.
On April 10, 1898, the masts of the ship were lightened with the consent of the commander of the Pacific Squadron. However, the most important event in 1898 was the participation of the Pamjat Asova in the transfer of the port of Port Arthur to the Russian fleet. After the main forces of the squadron were assembled in Port Arthur, Grand Duke Kyrill Vladimirovich hoisted the flag with the St. Andrew's Cross on the Golden Mountains. The ship remained in the new base during the spring and summer in order to then provide station service in other ports.
At the end of 1899, cruisers in the Pacific were replaced by battleships. The Pamjat Asowa left Vladivostok on November 28th and reached Kronstadt in the spring of the following year. From 1894 to 1900, the Pamjat Asowa formed the main thrust of the Pacific squadron. During this time, the ship survived four squadron or fleet commanders and three commanders.
Baltic Sea
The Pamjat Asowa initially proved to be indispensable for the Russian fleet. In 1900 the armament of the ship was modernized, the boilers were replaced and the outdated, central pump system of the ship was expanded. Subsequently, in the summer of 1901, the ship was assigned as the flagship of the artillery training unit and took part in teaching demonstrations.
At the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War, the ship was assigned to the 3rd Pacific Squadron, but the technical condition did not allow it to be transferred to the Pacific or to take part in combat operations. In 1904 the ship underwent a general overhaul. In the Franco-Russian shipyard (Франко-Русский судостроительный завод) in St. Petersburg, the boilers were replaced by 18 steam boilers from the French Belville system. The three masts were removed and two new masts were put in place, and facilities for laying sea mines were installed. After the completion of the work in 1906, the cruiser was assigned to the mine training unit for the duration of the training.
mutiny
In 1906, the Pamjat Asowa served as the flagship of the artillery training unit under the head of the department, the wing adjutant, Captain 1st rank H. D. Dabitscha. During this time, a diffuse revolutionary mood had developed among the regular crew and the course participants. Some members of the regular crew led political agitations, distributed left-wing documents and proclamations of the Russian Social Democratic Party (RSDP).
On July 19, the Pamjat Asowa was lying in the Bay of Papovnik near Reval when the agitator Arsenii Koptjuch disguised as a sailor transferred from the torpedo cruiser Arbek (Абрек) to the ship unnoticed. Around 11 o'clock in the morning a meeting of the ship's committee was called, at which about 50 NCOs and sailors gathered. The committee received a telegram of the uprising in the Sveaborg fortress. It was debated whether the ship should join the uprising. At around two o'clock in the morning, the officer in charge was informed of the presence of a stranger on the ship. He then had Koptjuch arrested. The temporarily arrested Koptjuch behaved uncooperatively, instead of answering the commandant's questions, he lolled in a bathtub. The commandant then ordered Koptjuch's badge of rank and cap to be removed and to be carried on the torpedo cruiser Wojewoda (Воевода), which was to run to Reval the next morning to pick up provisions.
Under the leadership of Quartermaster Lobadin, the ship's crew then procured weapons. The first shot was fired at three forty. A shooting started on the upper deck. The officer in charge of the watch was killed and another staff officer was seriously wounded. On the orders of the commander, who remained below deck, two officers tried to take the upper deck in a flash. One of the officers was shot immediately, the other managed to jump into the Baltic Sea, he was shot by the mutineers in the water. The mutineers uncovered the hatches to the lower deck and shot out of cover through the openings, killing the ship's doctor who had taken up post in front of the detainee's chamber. The ship's captain was badly wounded, the senior ensign was killed, and the senior mechanic was beaten to death in his cabin.
Some of the officers managed to escape in a steam launch under the command of the commander, the other part and a number of the NCOs stayed behind on the ship. To pursue the fugitives, the mutineers used a steam cutter with a 37-mm cannon. The officers' launch received more than twenty hits, killing the commander and one ensign, and injuring others, including the head of the artillery training department. However, the mutineer's cutter ran aground and had to return to the Pamjat Asowa . The mutineers besieged the officers' mess, in which the officers and non-commissioned officers who remained on the ship were staying, but stopped the fire. At 4:30 a.m. all officers were arrested and locked in their cabins under strong guard.
At the suggestion of Koptjuch, a committee was elected for the ship's command. Quartermaster Lobadin was elected to be in command of the ship. After breakfast, the command to raise the anchor was given. At the same time, a signal was set that ordered the ships lying in the roadstead to follow the Pamjat Asowa . However, the torpedo cruisers Abrek and Vojewoda and the mine- layer Retiwy (Ретивый) refused to obey the order. Then ordered Lobadin, with the starboard guns the abrek to take and the minelayer under attack. However, the gun crew refused to open fire. Lobadin and his comrades fired two shots, but as they were not familiar with the operation of the guns, they failed. Thereupon the Pamjat Asowa ran into the open sea and set course for Reval.
At 5 p.m. the ship anchored in the Reval roadstead. The mutineers' mood began to decline. A non-commissioned officer tried to restore order to the ship, but was killed in the attempt. Thereupon Lobadin gave the order to shoot all remaining training NCOs. However, these were able to convince the crew not to carry out this order and instead to arrest the leaders of the mutiny. The arrested officers were released and the uprising declared over. Almost all the mutineers were rounded up on the forecastle and shot at by the crew. Some managed to jump overboard. Lobadin was fatally wounded, whereupon the remaining mutineers surrendered. The disarmed and arrested mutineers and most of the crew were brought ashore, only the ship's engine personnel remained on the ship. The following morning the last mutineer left on board surrendered, barricaded in a cabin.
91 crews and NCOs as well as four civilians were brought before a court martial. The trial began on July 31st and ended at 1am on August 4th. Koptjuch and seventeen mutineers were sentenced to death by hanging, twelve mutineers were sentenced to forced labor between the ages of six and twelve, 13 sailors were transferred to punitive battalions or sentenced to prison terms, 15 received disciplinary measures, and 34 sailors were acquitted. The cases of three civilians have been handed over to prosecutors. The head of the training department converted the death sentences to death by shooting by mercy. On August 5, the convicts were executed and buried at sea.
The mutiny was put down but led to the ship being renamed. On February 12, 1909, the Pamjat Asowa was renamed Dvina (Двина). The St. George's flag was withdrawn, the armament was reduced to four 47 mm cannons and the fuel supply was reduced to 650 tons.
Last years
In autumn 1915 the Dvina became a floating base for the English submarines operating in the Baltic Sea region. Instead of the dismantled equipment, storage rooms for spare parts and torpedoes were set up. Much of the ship was occupied with accommodation for the crews of the submarines and Russian auxiliary personnel.
On March 31, 1917, the Navy Ministry issued an order under pressure from the revolutionary masses
"О возвращении названий кораблям, отнятым у них за революционные выступления"
"About the return of names to ships from which it was taken because of revolutionary uprisings"
as a result, the Dvina was renamed again in Pamjat Asowa .
In the spring of 1918, the British blew up their ships in the Baltic Sea area and evacuated the crews. During the ice march of the Baltic Fleet (Russian: Ледовый поход Балтийского флота) the Pamjat Asowa was used as the flagship and left Helsingfors as one of the last ships on May 6th . The Pamjat Asowa was laid ashore in the Kronstadt Bay and partially preserved.
On the night of August 18, 1919, British forces carried out a combined operation to destroy the battleships of the Baltic Fleet. Six motor torpedo boats penetrated the Kronstadt Bay. The action was supported by a simultaneous diversionary attack by aircraft. One of the few victims of the attack was the Pamjat Asowa , who lay at the entrance to the Kronstadt Bay and offered her broadside to the attackers. The submarines, which were the actual target of the attack and which the Pamjat Asowa used as a floating base, moved to other berths that night and were not affected by the attack. This operation was the first and last battle in which the Pamjat Asowa took part. Hit by two torpedoes, the ship sank aground with a 60 ° list to port. For the next six years, the half-sunken ship remained in the entrance to the Kronstadt Bay. The salvage work started in 1921 turned out to be complicated and could only be completed in December 1923. On November 16, 1924, the ship was towed into the dock in Kronstadt and from April 16, 1925, after the expansion of even more useful equipment, it was used as a warehouse. On November 25, 1925, the ship was officially removed from the fleet list of the Red Workers 'and Peasants' Fleet and canceled from 1927 to 1929.
literature
- Р.М. Мельников: Полуброненосный фрегат "Память Азова" 1885–1925 гг.
Web links
- П. Веселов. Поверженный, но не побежденный (Russian)
- Sea trials of the Pamjat Asowa on the crossing from Plymouth to Malta, 1890 (computer simulation)
- 1st rank cruiser Pamjat Asowa in roadstead (photo)
- August 22, 1890, Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev visits his son Vladimir on board the Pamjat Asowa in Kronstadt (photo)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Кривко, В. А .: Морские флаги отечества , ДОСААФ СССР, 1984 (Russian)
- ↑ Р.М. Мельников: Полуброненосный фрегат «Память Азова» (Russian)
- ↑ Балтийский «Потемкин» (Potemkin of the Baltic Sea) (Russian)
- ↑ Kanalow, NA: Designation of ships of the revolutionary period and the civil war (based on materials from the Central Archives of the Naval War Fleet) (Russian) ( Memento of the original from February 20, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
