Swetlana (ship)
|
|
|---|---|
 The Swetlana |
|
| Overview | |
| Type | Protected cruiser |
| Shipyard |
Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée (FCM), |
| Keel laying | December 8, 1895 |
| Launch | October 7, 1896 |
| Commissioning | April 3, 1898 |
| Whereabouts | sunk at Tsushima on May 28, 1905 |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
3,862 t |
| length |
101.0 m |
| width |
13.0 m |
| Draft |
5.7 m |
| crew |
401 men |
| drive |
18 Belleville boiler |
| speed |
21 kn |
| Range |
3500 nm at 10 Kn |
| Armament | |
| Armor | |
| Armored deck |
25-50 mm |
| Command post |
100 mm |
The Swetlana ( Russian Светлана ) was a French- built armored cruiser of the Imperial Russian Navy . In peacetime she served as the yacht of the Commander in Chief of the Navy, Grand Duke Alexei .
In 1904 she marched from the Baltic Sea to the Far East with the 2nd Pacific Squadron in the Russo-Japanese War . It was sunk by Japanese cruisers on the second day of the Tsushima Sea Battle . 169 men of the crew lost their lives in battle and in the sinking of the Swetlana .
Building history
The cruiser Swetlana was created at the request of Grand Duke Alexei to have his own yacht. The brother of Tsar Alexander III. became Chief of the Russian Navy and General Admiral after his inauguration and remained in this position until 1905 during the reign of his nephew Nicholas II . In addition to sailing yachts for the princes of the Romanov family , large imperial yachts were also procured by the Russian Navy. Under the father of the Grand Duke, Tsar Alexander II , paddle steamers capable of high seas were mainly used, such as the Derschawa of 3,114 t and 94.8 m length in the Baltic Sea from 1871 to 1898, which was then used as the training ship Dwina until 1905 . The first Livadija deployed in the Black Sea was similar, only smaller, measuring 1965 t and 81.2 m in length. This was used as an auxiliary cruiser during the Russo-Turkish War and was lost after the war.
The replacement building Liwadija II was a particularly unusual ship of 4500 t with a hull in the shape of a flatfish with superstructures of extreme width that allowed generous spaces. However, this unusual ship was rarely used, and its parts were gradually used to equip other ships.
Alexander III and his brother Alexei commissioned two particularly large yachts. Only at the Baltic shipyard in St. Petersburg did the Poljarnaja Zvezda (Polarstern) of 3950 t, 106.5 m length, 13.8 m width, 5.2 m draft and 17 kn with four 47 mm Hotchkiss cannons, 349 men crew and 50 servants, which was a kind of floating palace. The originally planned six 10 cm cannons were replaced by four salute guns. It was deployed every summer on the Baltic Sea and served as a meeting point for important political discussions. In addition, there was the standard from the Burmeister & Wain shipyard in Copenhagen , which was only completed under Nicholas II, and weighed 5560 t, 112.8 m length, 15.8 m width, 6.0 m draft, 21.18 kn, 355 crew and eight 47 mm Hotchkiss cannons. Nicholas II usually spent the summer holidays with his family on this yacht.
Since the two aforementioned large state yachts were just completed or under construction, no further yacht could actually be financially enforced for the imperial family. The construction was therefore advertised internationally as a cruiser. The contract was awarded to the Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée (FCM) branch in Graville near Le Havre , France, with the design of a three-chimney cruiser with a pronounced ram post similar to the 2nd class cruisers of the French Friant class and their follow-up structures. With six 152 mm cannons, the ship received a relatively strong cruiser armament, although the French half-sisters were more heavily armored. The Russian ship was luxuriously equipped for a warship, had representative wooden decks and special rooms for the Grand Duke in the middle of the ship, such as a hall and a lounge as well as an apartment with living room, study and bedroom as well as a large bathroom. Additional rooms were also available for the staff and the care of the Admiral General.
In 1903 in Russia at the Baltic shipyard, the Almas was another large armed yacht for Yevgeny Ivanovich Alexejew (1843-1917), the governor of the Russian Far East region (Manchuria and Guandong) and illegitimate half-brother of the Grand Duke, who resided in Port Arthur and Vladivostok Alexei, done.
Mission history
The first voyage of the new cruiser was with a crew of 388 from the shipyard to Toulon in the Mediterranean. They served as a machine test, as different numbers of boilers were operated on the trip in order to determine consumption and output values. The Swetlana went from Toulon to Lisbon to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Vasco da Gama 's discovery of the sea route to India from May 5th to 10th. As the yacht of an important member of the Russian ruling house, she was inspected in detail by the Portuguese royal couple . Then she went on to Le Havre to have some defects removed by the manufacturer. The ship was also inspected by German officers in Kiel . About Libau which reached Svetlana on 23 June 1898 for the first time its home port Kronstadt .
At the beginning of July, the General Admiral Grand Duke Alexei used his yacht for the first time to visit the Baltic Sea ports and the practicing naval units. With the imperial yacht Polarstern , the yacht then visited Copenhagen with Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrowitsch , the younger brother of Tsar Nicholas II and heir to the throne from 1899. On October 22, 1898, the Swetlana was taken out of service for the first time.
With the Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich and his entourage, the Svetlana left Kronstadt on May 22, 1899 in the direction of Trondheim , where the Russians set up a coal store for the return journey. The brother of the naval commander-in-chief was to inaugurate the new ice-free naval port of Jekaterinoport in Alexandrowsk (now Polyarny ), which was founded in 1896 on the Kola Bay. The journey then went on to Arkhangelsk , from where the Grand Duke traveled back overland to St. Petersburg. The Swetlana was sent to Bear Island near Spitsbergen to clear up German activities there.
On July 3rd, the Svetlana went back to sea from Arkhangelsk and discovered two German expeditions on the island that were looking for mineral resources and exploring the possibilities of a fishing station. The commander made it clear that the island was considered to be Russian territory, hoisted a Russian flag on land and put up an iron plaque emphasizing the claim to territory. The German government explained to the Russian Foreign Ministry that it had nothing to do with commercial expeditions by its subjects on Bear Island, which was only true with regard to the expedition led by Theodor Lerner . The second expedition with the old corvette Olga was sent by the German Reich Office of the Interior to set up a base for German fish steamers on Bear Island. The hydrographic and oceanographic research under the direction of the German Sea Fisheries Association (DSV) was just a pretext. On August 8, 1899, the Swetlana returned to Kronstadt and was reassigned to the reserve for the winter in September.
In 1900 the cruiser visited with Grand Duke Alexei Reval and at the end of June Warnemünde and with members of the imperial family Kiel and Copenhagen. At the end of the summer, Grand Duke Alexei rode her from Kronstadt to Libau in order to travel from there to Paris by train. The years 1901 to 1903 were also fulfilled with similar tasks, with the Swetlana in August and September 1901, together with the cruiser Varyag , which is on the way to East Asia , the imperial yacht Standart and the tsars on visits to Danzig , Kiel, Dunkirk and Cherbourg accompanied and visited Copenhagen again in August 1903.
East Asia deployment
After the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War , the Admiral General, Grand Duke Alexei, decided on March 15, 1904 that his yacht Svetlana should also go to East Asia with the Second Pacific Squadron for reinforcement. In May it received new rangefinders for the 152 mm and four newly installed 75 mm guns in Kronstadt. Only four 47mm guns remained on board. A new Telefunken radio system was also installed.
On October 15, 1904, she left Libau with the squadron and went with the Fölkersam Association , under the command of Captain Sergej Schein , through the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal into the Indian Ocean . There were 457 men on board the Swetlana ; the large reserves led to a considerably increased displacement and a reduction in the maximum speed to 18 knots.
During the march into the naval battle at Tsushima , the Swetlana marched at the head of the squadron and formed the reconnaissance group together with the yacht Almas and the auxiliary cruiser Ural (the former NDL high-speed steamer Empress Maria Theresia ex Spree ). When the battle opened, the three ships fell back on the auxiliary ships as planned in order to protect them. Around three in the afternoon, the Svetlana suffered a heavy hit that put the electrical systems out of action. The hit in the forecastle also quickly brought around 350 tons of water to the ship. The failure of the electricity meant that the weapons had to be aimed by hand and supplied with ammunition.
When the Japanese stopped the fire in the evening, the Swetlana tried to keep up with the cruiser group under Admiral Enkwist with the Oleg and the Aurora , but could not follow their frequent changes of course and high speed. While the cruiser division ran south and was finally interned in Manila , the commander of the Svetlana tried to break through to the north at 14 to 15 knots. At an officers' meeting it was decided, in the event of a battle with Japanese ships, to defend the cruiser until the ammunition was used up, despite the damage it had already suffered.
After several evasive maneuvers, the destroyer Bystryi, also heading for Vladivostok , was encountered at dawn on a course relatively close to the Korean coast. The destroyer only had coal left for about two hours of maximum travel. A delivery of coal was not possible when the ships were discovered by Japanese cruisers. The Bystryi ran to the Korean coast and was set on the cliffs and blown up by the crew. The 82 men on board, including 10 men from the sunk Osljabja , were captured on the coast.
The end of Svetlana
The two light and new cruisers Niitaka (1902, 3420 t, 101.9 m, 20 kn, 6–152 mm cannons) and Otowa (1903, 3000 t, 97.9 m, 21 kn, 2–152 mm, 6–120 mm guns) of the 3rd Division of Admiral Dewa , who were looking for the scattered Russian ships of the battle, had discovered the Svetlana and her companion. Individually, they were not much stronger than the Russian cruiser trying to flee north from them.
The battle began at 9:30 a.m., although the shooting range was initially too great for the Japanese cruisers. However, they were able to catch up quickly with 18 knots and then scored hits on the Swetlana . At 10:35 it caught fire and had hardly any ammunition left. The Niitaka and the destroyer Murakumo who had joined them tried in vain to catch the Bystryi as well, while the Otowa continued to bombard the burning Svetlana , which began to sink at 10:50 after its crew had opened the flood valves. It sank to 37 ° 6 ′ N , 129 ° 50 ′ E. southwest of the island of Ulleungdo (Japanese Matsushima).
The Japanese cruisers expired as more Russian warships had been reported, but they turned out to be Norwegian whalers, and instructed the support ship Amerika Maru to rescue the Russian crew. The Amerika Maru arrived at the sinking site two hours later and rescued 290 sailors, 23 of whom were wounded. 169 Svetlana sailors died in or drowned after the battle. Some of the prisoners transported to Sasebo also died.
literature
- Julian S. Corbett: Maritime operations in the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-1905 . Naval Institute Press, (1994 reprint), ISBN 1-55750-129-7 .
- Robert Gardiner (Ed.): Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860-1905 . Mayflower Books, New York 1979, ISBN 0-8317-0302-4 .
- AL Larionov: Из истории императорских яхт Is istorii imperatorskikh yacht . In: Gangut magazine , no.22, 2001.
- Constantine Pleshakov : The Tsar's Last Armada , Basic Books, New York (2002), ISBN 0-465-05791-8 .
- AV Skvortsov: cruiser Svetlana . In: Gangut , No. 29, 2002, tsushima.su
- Anthony J. Watts: The Imperial Russian Navy . Arms and Armor, London 1990, ISBN 0-85368-912-1
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ classe Friant (+ Chasseloup Laubat , Bugeaud ), classe Descartes (+ Pascal ), classe D'Assas (+ Du Chayla , Cassard )
- ↑ classe Friant , D'Assas : 6 x 164 mm (L45-M1893), 4 x 100 mm (L50-QF) cannons; classe Descartes 4 × 164 mm (L45-M1893), 10 × 100 mm (L50-QF) cannons
- ↑ Klaus Barthelmess: Bäreninsel 1998 and 1899: How Theodor Lerner unknowingly thwarted a secret mission of the German Sea Fisheries Association to create a German Arctic colony . ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF) In: Polarforschung , 78, 2009, pp. 67–71.
- ↑ Быстрый , ex-Plotva ( Плотва ).
