The last days and death of the transport “Armenia” November 7, 1941
Destroyer "Sposobny"
Chapter 6.
The last days of “Armenia”, starting from 03.11.41
There is no separate file on the motor ship “Armenia” in the state archives! Therefore, grains of information had to be found by studying hundreds and hundreds of storage files.
I, completely far from archival work, came across an interesting phenomenon, probably akin to drug euphoria - when you touch a document, most often handwritten, reading it becomes addictive, you lose the sense of time, hunger, thirst. An indescribable feeling fills you with the realization that you are sometimes the first to read what a person wrote decades ago (an insert is attached to each case, where you can see who got acquainted with this case and when). You touch the written information with your fingers, and there is a frightening feeling of the presence of the author of these lines.
Of course I wanted to illuminate history of the motor ship "Armenia" starting from July 22, 1941. But the time allotted in life for one person is too little. I was able to devote only my 12 years to this. Therefore below...
Events directly related to the last days of the motor ship “Armenia” are presented in tabular form for better understanding.
Photocopies of archival files of the German Federal Military Archives in the city of Freiburg.
Case 15 SKL A27 “Overview of combat operations by area.”
As of 07.11.1941/8/000. Eastern front. Combat operations against enemy transport. In the Black Sea south of Yalta, a steamship of 10–000 tons was sunk using a torpedo attack.
Case RL 29_14 “Journal of the Luftwaffe Naval Emergency Service Headquarters.”
As of November 07.11.1941, XNUMX.
09:35 – Radio report from Balchik: 08.15 HE-111, T5+XH took off. Landing 13.00 in Konstanz.
10:45 – SI reports: departure at 07.08–07.21 of the 1st HE-111 1.KG/28 and 1st HE-111 6.KG. 26 for torpedo reconnaissance.
15:55 – Report from HE-111, T5+XH from Balchik: South and East of Crimea from 9.15 to 11.30 hours. At 9.40 30 km south of Yalta there is 1 speed boat. 11.50 40 km south of Sevastopol 2 ships 4–000 reg. tons Course 6°. Weather: southeast, cloud limit 000 m, visibility 290 km. Landed in Balchik at 400 hours.
Afterword
According to Resolution of the State Defense Committee No. 187 of July 17.07.41, XNUMX, the third departments of military units and the third departments of the fronts are transformed into special departments subordinate to the Directorate of Special Departments of the NKVD (with the inclusion of the institute of political workers as the supervisory body of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in the divisions and units of the Red Army, the Navy).
A special department of the Black Sea Fleet is conducting an investigation into the death of the Armenia transport to establish the causes and those responsible.
The result of this investigation was two documents (available at the time of writing), dated November 8:
Special message the head of the 3rd department of the 62nd air brigade, whose planes covered “Armenia”, battalion commissar Martynenko addressed to the head of the 3rd department of the Black Sea Fleet, brigade commissar Kudryavtsev; And
Report senior commissioner of the 2nd department of the 3rd department of the Black Sea Fleet, political instructor Lezhnev, addressed to the head of the 2nd department of the 3rd department of the Black Sea Fleet, battalion commissar Kuznetsov.
I believe that everyone interested in the truth can correlate the above factual data from the combat logs, weather conditions, tactics of using weapons, descriptions of the operational situation in the city of Yalta with the conclusions made during the investigation by employees of 3 departments.
To be continued ...
Information