As in most matters concerning the Soviet Union, detailed information on the Red Navy’s operations in World War II is difficult to obtain and even more difficult to verify. While there is general agreement on the size and composition of Soviet naval forces in 1941, what they accomplished during the war—and at what cost—are more controversial matters. In the accompanying photographs, however, we have graphic evidence of the type, operations, and fate of a number of Soviet vessels. In order to make these photographs more meaningful, an attempt will be made in this running commentary to summarize what is known about the Soviet Fleet in World War II. One word of caution is necessary. Due to the scarcity of reliable sources, some assertions may be subject to qualification or rebuttal. It is hoped, therefore, that readers of the Proceedings will be able to contribute further to our knowledge of World War II Soviet warships and their activities.
Geography posed major problems for Russian naval operations. The Soviet Union’s coastal areas are widely separated, and her naval organization at the start of the war reflected this fact. There were four Soviet Fleets: the Northern Fleet in the White Sea and the Barents Sea, the Baltic Fleet, the Black Sea Fleet, and the Pacific Fleet. In addition, there were several river flotillas.
Since the Russians were put on the defensive in 1941 by the German attack and since their fleets were widely separated, it is not surprising that the Red Navy was regarded primarily as a force to support the Red Army. In January, 1938, however, Molotov had told the Supreme Council of the U.S.S.R. that the country had to have a “sea and ocean navy adequate for its interests and worthy of our great cause.” Progress toward this objective had not been impressive by the time the Soviet Union found itself at war with Germany.
During the early Five Year Plans, the Soviets had modernized or completed ships laid down during the Tsarist regime. They had inherited four Italian-designed battleships of 23,000 tons each, but one of them, the Mihail Frunze was apparently scrapped in the early thirties. In 1941, the Marat and the Oktiabrskaya Revolutia (October Revolution) were in the Baltic, and the Sevastopol (ex-Paris Commune) was in the Black Sea.
When the war started there were two 35,000 ton battleships under construction. One of them, building at Nikolayev on the Black Sea, was captured by the Germans in August, 1941. The other one, under construction at Leningrad, was presumably destroyed before the Nazi attack on that city in the same month.
Both battleships of the Baltic Fleet were bombed by the Germans at Kronstadt in the autumn of 1941, and both were damaged. Nevertheless, they saw service against the German forces at Leningrad and shelled the enemy’s positions intermittently until the siege of that city was lifted in 1944.
During the course of the war, the Soviet Union’s western allies added to the Red Fleet. The British provided the battleship Royal Sovereign, which became the Archangelsk, and the United States contributed the cruiser Milwaukee, renamed the Murmansk. The British supplied some submarines and subchasers, while we furnished several hundred combatant craft between 1941 and 1945. At least eight of our overage destroyers, originally turned over to the British, also ended up in Soviet hands. In addition, Russian naval strength was swelled by captured craft.
The Russians apparently entered the German war with eight cruisers. Three of them dated back to the World War I period, but four modern 8,000-ton cruisers of the Kirov class had been completed by 1941. Two of these ships lacked full armament at that time. Another cruiser (ex-Lützow) obtained from Germany in 1940 lay unfinished at Leningrad and participated in the defense of that city before it was destroyed by air attack. A ninth cruiser, the Kaganovich, was destroyed at Nikolayev in August, 1941. Other than shelling German positions on the Gulf of Finland and in the Crimea, the cruisers do not appear to have taken an active part in the war. One of them (the M. Gorki?) was badly damaged in the Baltic in the summer of 1941, and a relic of Tsarist days, the Tchervonaya Ucraina, was bombed and sunk at Sevastopol in February, 1942.
The Russians had one flotilla leader in the White Sea, two in the Baltic, and three in the Black Sea. One of the latter ships was the torpedo-cruiser Tashkent. Originally intended for Far East service, she was built in Italy by the firm of Otero-Terni-Orlando. The Tashkent made at least forty trips between beleaguered Sevastopol and Caucasus ports, transporting food, ammunition, and troops. In July, 1942, however, she was damaged by bombs and scuttled at Novorossiysk. The other two flotilla leaders of the Black Sea Fleet were also reportedly lost in different actions.
In 1941 the Russians had fifteen 2,900-ton destroyers of the Leningrad-class and thirty-five 1,800-ton, Italian-designed destroyers of the Stremitelni-class. In addition, the Red Navy had some destroyers of pre-World War I vintage.
Figures on Russian destroyer losses are conjectural, but the following estimates have been made. Of eighteen modern and seven old destroyers stationed in the Baltic, sixteen were casualties before the end of 1941. In the White Sea there were five modern destroyers and three old ones. Four of these ships were lost to aerial bombs and to mines, and one was destroyed in December, 1941, in the only German-Russian destroyer engagement of the war. In the Black Sea there were about fourteen modern destroyers and five old ones. Six were lost during 1941, seven during 1942, and two in 1943. All were victims of mines or bombs.
At the outbreak of the German war, the Soviet Union apparently had about two hundred submarines. Those in the Baltic were fairly successful in sinking enemy shipping, but about forty of the underseas craft were supposedly lost in that area. In the Arctic and in the Black Sea, the submarines were less successful and suffered extensive losses. Again, however, accurate information on submarine activities is unavailable. The greatest naval “victory” claimed for these boats is Soviet Admiral of the Fleet Isakov’s assertion that a Russian submarine severely damaged the Admiral Tirpitz in July, 1942.
Since the early thirties the Russians had concentrated on the building of 700-ton torpedo boats, and they had more than twenty of them at the start of the war. These vessels were chiefly engaged in escorting convoys, and at least four of them were lost.
The Soviet Union also had numerous minesweepers, which were sometimes used as gunboats and to support landing operations. They were especially active in the Gulf of Finland, 1942–1944.
The Russians are reported to have had about two hundred motor torpedo boats in 1941. These craft were gasoline-engine powered, fast and noisy, but they were more aggressive than most Soviet vessels. Despite the use of poor tactics, they were fought with courage and achieved some success against small German ships, especially in the Baltic.
Motor gunboats equipped with tank turrets were an important Russian development in small craft. They were especially well suited for use on Lake Lagoda and Lake Onega.
The Russians had several fleets of river gunboats. The strongest of these forces were on the Danube and the Dneiper, but they were both wiped out in 1941. The Danube Flotilla was reconstituted in 1944 and helped to drive the Germans from Belgrade and Budapest. There were also smaller flotillas on the Don, the Kuban, and the Amur.
As already mentioned, the Red Navy operated in close support of the Red Army. All types of small vessels were pressed into service to transport troops. A few of them are shown below.
Arctic conditions posed major problems for Soviet naval operations. The following pictures suggest the difficulties that had to be surmounted.
Estimates of what the Soviet Fleet accomplished during World War II vary greatly. Its role was obviously a defensive one, and it did apparently prevent the landing of hostile forces behind Red Army lines in the Baltic and Black Sea areas. Naval units were also very active in shore bombardment, amphibious operations, supply missions, and evacuation of troops. On many occasions sailors fought side by side with the Red Army.
As illustrated in the pictures presented here, the Russians suffered many losses. On the other hand, they claim to have exacted a heavy toll of enemy shipping. Admiral Isakov, for example, claims that in the first two years of the war, the Northern Fleet sank 1.5 million tons of shipping. (Significantly, he fails to mention specifically a single Soviet naval loss.) In the Baltic the Russians seem to have enjoyed considerable success, though the Germans maintain that between 1942 and 1944 no Soviet submarine was sighted outside the Gulf of Finland. The U.S.S.R., however, claims that during the course of the war more than 2 million tons of shipping were sent to the bottom of the Baltic by Soviet submarines and motor torpedo boats.
In the Black Sea the Fleet was most active at Sevastopol, Odessa, and in the Caucasus. Although these operations were essentially defensive in nature, the Russians typically claim to have destroyed two hundred enemy vessels carrying troops and war material during the battle of Sevastopol (April-May, 1944) alone. On the other hand, the Germans’ 3rd Minesweeping Flotilla, a make-shift collection of small craft, apparently gave the Russians a sound drubbing the preceding November during close combat in the Kerch Straits between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.
In all, the Red Navy claimed credit for destroying the following enemy vessels during the first three years of the war: 1 auxiliary cruiser, 2 ironclad coastal defense vessels, 37 destroyers, 50 submarines, and a number of smaller craft. Beyond reporting such claims and counter-claims, little can be said with confidence about specific achievements of the Red Navy during World War II. From this review of Soviet naval activity, however, certain points do stand out. First, there were no major surface engagements in volving Soviet warships, except possibly a destroyer clash in December, 1941. Second, Russian ships suffered heavily from mines and aerial bombing. Third, submarines and motor torpedo boats were the most active Russian naval units, but mines and aircraft were probably the most effective weapons used against German ships. Finally, naval activity was clearly subordinated to the needs of the Red Army. From the available evidence, then, it appears that the Soviet Navy’s accomplishments during World War II reflected its closed-sea, defensive strategy. Unfortunately the capabilities of the present Soviet Navy cannot be judged by that performance, but the pictures published here are probably the most concrete evidence we shall see of the Red Fleet’s activities in World War II.
★
SEABEE HAT TRICK
Contributed by CAPTAIN MARK H. JORDAN, (CEC) U. S. Navy
Since World War II the green utility uniform worn by the Seabees on field duty has included a similar “baseball-style” cap. This headgear enjoyed tremendous popularity among the men of a Seabee battalion stationed on Guam. The working uniform on Guam in 1952 was dungarees, and the Seabees were authorized to wear their greens only during combat exercises. With blue dungarees they were, of course, expected to wear the regulation white hat.
Being individualists, they did no such thing. The favorite working garb in the battalion was a combination of blue dungarees and green utility cap. The green cap is far superior to the white hat for wearing on a construction job in the tropics. It shades the face from the sun, it doesn’t show dirt, it doesn’t blow off when you ride in the back of a dump truck at forty miles an hour, it can be readily folded and stuffed under the belt or into a hip pocket. Also, worn with dungarees, it is extremely non-regulation.
The Commander Naval Forces was not unmindful of the latter fact. Consequently, every time the Admiral passed a construction job, the battalion commander and all the intermediaries in his chain of command were likely to hear about it. After each new admonition the battalion commander had the company commanders on the carpet, the company commanders called in the JO’s, the JO’s got after the chiefs, and so on down the line.
When this process had been repeated several times in the space of a few months, it dawned upon the battalion commander that the green cap was simply much better than the white hat as a working headpiece. He was squarely in the middle of the debate between U. S. Naval Uniform Regulations and cussed Seabee human nature.
The battalion commander issued an ultimatum to the effect that the next time he caught a man wearing one of those confounded caps the offender’s company commander would draw the task of composing a letter to BuPers, for the battalion commander’s signature, extolling the merits of the green cap and recommending the adoption of a similar cap for wear with blue dungarees.
Three or four days later two culprits from different companies were apprehended simultaneously. Their company commanders turned to and in due course a joint literary masterpiece was sent on its way. The individuals concerned finished their Seabee tours and went their separate ways. Years passed and all of them had forgotten the incident.
The wheels grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine. In July, 1955, the cap, blue, working, finally became part of the regulation Navy uniform. Seabee logic had done the trick.
(The Proceedings will pay $5.00 for each anecdote submitted to, and printed in, the Proceedings.)