News of Russia today tells of massive military intervention in Syria to support the regime of Bashar al-Assad, providing assistance to the rebels for the continuing conflict in eastern Ukraine, the sale of an advanced air-defense system to Iran, and possible threats to Poland and the Baltic States. But there has been no mention of a ceremony in Crimea—the centennial celebration of the world’s oldest naval ship still in service.
In the years prior to World War I there were several Russian submarine casualties: On the night of 12 June 1909, during fleet maneuvers in the Black Sea, the submarine Kambala was cut in two by the battleship Rostislav while making a simulated attack against the larger ship; on 14 August 1909, gasoline explosions occurred in the submarine Drakon being refitted in St. Petersburg; the submarine Forel sank on 1 June 1910, off nearby Kronstadt Island through negligence while in tow; and the submarine Minoga sank on 6 April 1913, in shallow water during a test dive off Libau.
These accidents demonstrated to the Russian Admiralty the need for a specialized submarine-rescue ship. The Russians adopted the design of the recently built German submarine rescue/salvage ship Vulkan, launched in 1907 at Kiel and placed in service in March 1908. “Submarine rescue” in that period meant raising a disabled submarine before her crew perished.
The Russian ship was ordered at the end of 1911 from the newly established facility of the Putilov Works in St. Petersburg (later the Zhandov shipyard and today known as the Severnaya Verf, or Northern shipyard). The new Russian rescue/salvage ship (spasatelniy sudno) was named Volkhov, launched in 1913, and placed in commission on 14 July 1915—100 years ago.
The Volkhov was built as a twin-hull (catamaran) ship fitted with four 250-ton-capacity lifting rigs that straddled the hulls. The salvage concept was to lower cables, lift a stricken submarine between the hulls, and then transport her into port. The ship also was provided with salvage pumps, repair shops, and medical facilities. When not employed in the salvage/rescue role the Volkhov could support submarines, providing berthing for 60 crewmen. She carried 10 torpedoes and 50 tons of fuel for transfer to boats. In that role she serviced Russian and British submarines that operated in the Baltic during World War I, being based at Revel, now Tallinn, in Estonia.
In 1917, prior to the Great October Revolution, the Volkhov salvaged two submarines: The AG-15, a boat designed by American John Holland, and the Edinorog. (The AG—Amerikanskiy Golland, “American Holland”—submarines were prefabricated at the British Pacific Engineering and Construction Company plant at Barnet near Vancouver, British Columbia, and shipped across the Pacific to Russian Siberia.) The Volkhov continued to support submarines in the Baltic during the Russian Revolution and subsequent civil war.
On 31 December 1922, the ship was renamed theKommuna(commune). It was a popular revolutionary name in Bolshevik Russia that honored the Paris Commune—a radical socialist and revolutionary government that ruled Paris from 18 March to 28 May 1871.
Possibly her greatest accomplishment was the salvage of the British submarine L-55, which had just been commissioned in the Royal Navy on 19 December 1918, and was sunk on 4 June 1919 in the Bay of Kopor’ye (Gulf of Finalnd) following an action with Bolshevik ships. The L-55 was raised by the Kommuna from a depth of 200 feet on 11 August 1928. After being carefully examined by Russian engineers, she was refitted in the Baltic Shipyard in Leningrad (formerly St. Petersburg) and commissioned in the Soviet Navy in 1931. The submarine provided the Soviets with extensive data on Western submarine-construction practices, and contributed to the design of the Soviet Leninets/Series II-class submarines.
From the beginning of World War II in the Soviet Union in June 1941—called the Great Patriotic War—the Kommuna continued to serve as a support and salvage ship at Leningrad. The Germans almost completely encircled the city, with the so-called “ice road” across Lake Ladoga being Leningrad’s only supply route for many months. Scores of vehicles broke through the ice during the desperate supply effort, with the Kommuna being able to salvage some 40 vehicles from the lake bottom, including four KV heavy tanks. (The KV tank was named for Soviet defense commissar Kliment Voroshilov.)
Although damaged in the German bombing, the Kommuna continued to operate in her several roles during the 872-day siege of Leningrad, which took the lives of between 632,000 and 900,000 Russians—military and civilian. When it was over the ship’s crewmen all received the Medal for the Defense of Leningrad, as well as many individual awards and decorations.
From May 1950 to July 1953 the Kommuna was refitted with Dutch diesel engines and was extensively modernized at the De Schelde yard in Flushing, the Netherlands. Returning to her home port of Leningrad, she resumed service in the Baltic Fleet. In October 1957 she raised the Quebec/Project 615 submarine M-256, which had had suffered a devastating fire and sunk a month earlier.
A decade later the Kommuna sailed for the Black Sea and was based in Crimea. She was refitted to support research-and-rescue submersibles, and in 1974 she supported the dive by a Poisk-2 submersible to a record depth of 6,647 feet. In 1977 she again served as the floating base for the submersible searching for a downed Sukhoi Su-24 aircraft (NATO Fencer) that had crashed at sea in waters 5,600 feet deep.
The Kommuna was laid up in 1984 for transfer to the Soviet Academy of Sciences. The transfer was canceled, with the abandoned ship being stripped and looted. Again completely rehabilitated, she was returned to service with the Black Sea Fleet. In 2009 she was fitted to support more advanced rescue submersibles.
Now classified as a rescue ship (instead of salvage ship), the Kommuna remains operational, based at Sevastopol in the Crimea—100 years after she was commissioned.
The Kommuna today
Displacement: 2,450 tons full load
Length: 314 feet, 11 inches overall
Beam: 66 feet, 11 inches
Draft: 15 feet, 5 inches
Propulsion: 2 diesel engines; 1,200 brake horsepower; 2 shafts
Speed: 10.2 knots
Manning: approx. 250 for major operations
Mr. Polmar, a columnist for Proceedings and Naval History magazines, is coauthor of Cold War Submarines: The Design and Construction of U.S. and Soviet Submarines (Potomac Books, 2005).