The coastal defense battleship Admiral Ushakov in the Tsushima battle
Twenty-five years have passed since the day of the Tsushima battle. Much lived, much experienced. The past years, and especially the events of the last fifteen years (war and revolution), have partly crossed out, and partly have smoothed out much of what was well known to the participants in this battle that eyewitnesses had heard and heard.
Based on this, I could not take the liberty to give not only a more or less detailed description of the Tsushima battle in general, but even in particular to describe in detail the actions of the coastal defense battleship Admiral Ushakov in this battle, and therefore I will limit myself to presenting some related episodes describing the understanding of military duty and the personal valor of the commander, officers and sailors of the battleship coastal defense Admiral Ushakov.
"Admiral Ushakov", walking the end ship of the wake column of battleships, at the very beginning of the battle on the fourteenth of May, due to a malfunction of one of the main machines, had to go in tow of the steamer "Svir". Having eliminated the fault and having given up the tug, they began to catch up with the squadron that had gone far ahead and was fighting.
The commander of the battleship captain 1 of rank Vladimir Nikolaevich Mikluha-Maclay, having seen ahead too, the leaning, burning, burning, showered with Japanese shells battleship Navarin, going to his left traverse, as if covering "Navarin", ordered to lock machines and open intensive fire on the enemy .
The commander of Navarin, the captain of 1 rank Baron Fitinghoff, coping with the heel and fire, shouted to our commander in a megaphone: “Thank you, Vladimir Nikolaevich! Go forth with God! "
At night, after the mine attacks of the Japanese destroyers, continuing to go according to the last signal of Admiral Rozhestvensky "Course NO 23 ° Vladivostok", "Admiral Ushakov", due to the short stroke, reduced to seven knots due to the strong trim on the nose from the holes received in the day battle, found himself at sea alone, behind the wake column consisting of the battleships Emperor Nicholas I (flag Admiral Nebogatov), Oryol, General Admiral Apraksin and Admiral Senyavin.
Early in the morning, May 15, preparations were made for the burial of those killed in the day battle. The dead were laid on shkantsy, prepared canvas to wrap them and ballastina for cargo. Gathered officers and team. The requiem service began, but when on the horizon behind the stern the silhouettes of the four fast-moving Japanese cruisers, Matsushima, Itsukushima, Hashidate and Niytaka, appeared, the commander asked the priest, Hieromonk, Fr. Jonah hastened and shortened the funeral, since he did not doubt the inevitability of battle.
When the Japanese cruisers approached the distance of our fire, the commander ordered us to betray the dead to the sea and break through the battle alarm, to the sound of which, while singing: “Eternal memory” of the bodies of the dead, with tied ballastins were lowered into the sea.
Continuing to follow the same course, the Japanese cruisers marched northward without opening fire, which surprised us a lot, since, having a great advantage in strength, they, without a doubt, could very quickly do away with our battered battleship. Already on the Japanese Yakumo cruiser as prisoners, we found out from Japanese officers the reason for this unintelligible case: we were shown a map showing several courses diverging to the north from the Tsushima Strait, according to which the Japanese ships were to seek and pursue the remnants of the Russian squadron in case of its defeat. “You still could not go anywhere, we knew in what condition you were; those cruisers went to join the main forces, ”the Japanese officers told us.
At about 10 in the morning, the smoke of many ships was visible on the left, and a brief artillery cannonade was heard. Only after it became known to us that this was the surrender of vessels by Admiral Nebogatov.
Continuing to follow the course “NO 23 °” whenever possible, while dodging away from every smoke seen on the horizon, for about an hour or two in the afternoon, we saw about twenty Japanese ships on the horizon in front of us. It became clear that a breakthrough was impossible, and battle and death were inevitable. The commander turned from the enemy, from which two ships separated in pursuit of us. They began to prepare for the last battle: the projectiles of small rapid-fire guns left over from the reflection of nighttime mine attacks on the upper deck and on the bridge were thrown, rafts were made from logs to tie the wounded to them, rescue belts and berths were carried around the ship; the team and many officers changed into everything clean and new; one of the officers, the commander, coming out of his cabin, said: “He changed his clothes, even shaved, now you can die”.
The Japanese cruisers Iwate and Yakumo, going in a big way, converging course, were moving closer.
On the head of them was raised a long signal. On the battleship struck alarm. When the Japanese cruisers, being behind our right beam, were within the range of our guns (cable 63), the commander ordered a salvo. Cruisers did not respond to our fire. To our surprise, on the foremast of the lead cruiser "Iwate" we saw a large Russian commercial flag and that was all. then, after seeing the pennant of negotiations on the international code, we understood that the signal applies to us. When the commander was informed of the disassembled part of the signal: “I advise you to return your ship ...” and that there is also a continuation of the signal, the commander said: “Well, we don’t need to know the continuation of the signal,” ordered not to raise the response “to the spot” I see, ”so that, continuing to converge, the cruisers would come even closer. When the distance decreased to the possible reality of our fire, the commander ordered to raise the answer "to the spot", and with the descent it again open fire. The Japanese cruisers, taking advantage of their great advantage in the course and longer range of their guns, having gone beyond the reach of our shells, opened fire on the battleship. So began our last unequal battle.
Soon the battleship began to hit, holes appeared, fires broke out. Our shells lay hopelessly far from the enemy. A roll formed from the holes, which could not be leveled due to the broken pipes of the drain system. The list on the right side increased more and more, and because of the roll, the range of our projectiles decreased more and more; this circumstance was used by the Japanese cruisers, coming closer and closer to the battleship. Finally, as a consequence of the bank, conjuring both towers. One of the two 120-mm starboard guns was broken; lit projectiles gazebos on the upper deck. There was only one remaining 120-mm gun to encourage the team and ... "for fear of the enemy." The Japanese cruisers, seeing that our fire had almost completely ceased, coming very close, shot the battleship at close range with all their guns (on both cruisers eight 8 "and thirty 6"). Then the commander ordered the Kingston to be opened and the pipes of the circulating pumps blow up, and, without giving up “release”, allowed the team to escape “by ability”, rushing into the sea. All boats were broken or burned.
A mine officer, Lieutenant Boris Konstantinovich Zhdanov, helped the ship's doctor, Doctor Bodyansky, to tie the wounded to the rafts and berths behind the stern tower and lower them into the sea. When the doctor asked him: “And what do you have neither a belt nor a circle?”, Zhdanov replied: “I always told everyone that I would never be a captive!” Removing his cap, as if saying goodbye to everyone near , he went downstairs. After it was told that the sentry who was standing at the cash drawer, almost at the last moment taken from his post, heard a revolver shot from the Zhdanov cabin.
When several minutes later several shells hit the battleship at the same time, one of which blew up, hitting the nose tower, part of the sailors standing behind the tower rushed overboard and accidentally pushed the officer who was standing at the board. The signalman Agafonov, seeing that the officer who gave him his life preserver fell into the sea without any life-saving equipment with a revolver and binoculars around his neck, without hesitation, rushed from the upper bridge, from a height of 42 feet, overboard to help the dying officer.
"Admiral Ushakov", turning over, went to the bottom; one of the floating sailors shouted: “Hurray for Ushakov!” - with the flag goes to the bottom! ”All who were in the water responded with a loud long“ Hurray ”, and indeed: until the last moment the flag of St. Andrew fluttered. He was shot down several times during the battle, but Prokopovich, who stood under the flag of the drill commander-in-chief (the drill non-commissioned officer), again raised the flag. When it was allowed to flee, the senior artillery officer, Lieutenant Nikolai Nikolayevich Dmitriev shouted from the bridge to Prokopovich in a megaphone that he could leave his post without waiting for the guard chief or the guard, but Prokopovich, standing on a spardek near the stern tower, probably deaf for Two days the battle of the rumble of shots and did not hear the orders given to him. When the messenger was sent to him, he was already killed by a shell exploding near the shell.
After the "Admiral Ushakov" disappeared under the water, the Japanese continued to shoot people swimming in the sea for some time. Much later, probably having received an order on the radio, they lowered the boats and proceeded to rescue the perishing. Rescued for a long time and in good faith; the latter was said to have been picked up under floodlights.
In describing the battle and the death of the battleship Ushakov in Japanese newspapers, it was printed that when a Japanese boat approached a battleship commander who sailed into the sea to save him, Mikluha-Maclay in English shouted to a Japanese officer: “Save the sailors, then the officers”. When the boat approached him a second time, he was swimming already dead on his belt. So died in the Tsushima battle 15 in May 1905, the battleship of coastal defense "Admiral Ushakov" and his commander, captain 1, rank VN Mikluha-Maklai, and with him the senior officer, captain 2, Musat, mine officer, lieutenant Zhdanov, senior mechanic, captain Yakovlev, Junior Mechanic Lieutenant Trubitsyn, Junior Navigator Ensign Zorich, Commissioner Mikheev and about a hundred Sailors. In the cabin of the battleship was a beautifully painted portrait of Admiral F. P. Ushakov. Often on the march the officers turned to the portrait and asked: “Well, what are we destined to?” And it seemed to them that in the portrait the face of the admiral changed his expression. It was decided that in the event of a battle, one of the officers who would be in the mess room should look at the portrait to find out if the Admiral was pleased with his ship. One of the officers, who was accidentally in the mess room shortly before the ship was destroyed, glanced at the portrait, and it seemed to him that "the Admiral is expressing his pleasure."
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Built shortly before the revolution and named after the commander of the battleship “Admiral Ushakov”, the destroyer destroyer Captain 1st Rank Miklukh-Maklay, the revolutionary proletariat (“rebellious slaves”, as Mr. Comrade Kerensky put it) was renamed “Spartak” in memory of the leader rebellious roman slaves. Under the "leadership" of Commissioner Raskolnikov (the "red midshipman" of the black midshipmen Ilyin), the Spartak and the destroyer Avtroil were handed over to the British in November 1918, with officers — not Bolsheviks — as their commanders. Transmitted by the British of Estonia, these two destroyers under the names "Vambola" and "Lennuk" are now listed in Estonian navy.
In 1912, I had the good fortune to command the destroyer in the Finnish skerries in the sea guard of E. I. Century Emperor. During the Supreme Review of His Majesty’s Destroyer, descending into the commander’s cabin and seeing a photograph of the battleship Admiral Ushakov hanging on the wall, they deigned to ask me: “Why do you have a photograph of Admiral Ushakov?” I replied: “I participated in it at Tsushima Battle ". “The gallant ship,” said the Emperor, to which I allowed myself to answer: “If ever your Imperial Majesty would be pleased to call the new ship named“ Admiral Ushakov ”, I’m happy to serve mail on it and, I hope, with great success. " “Why with great success?” Asked the Sovereign, emphasizing the word “great.” “Because then we were defeated on him,” I replied. “No, it was a victory of the spirit. One of the best ships will be named after "Admiral Ushakov", - graciously deigned to say His Majesty. Emperor words untold I was pleased. Tsar's word is strong: already during the war the cruiser “Admiral Ushakov” was laid down in Nikolaev, but unfinished before the revolution, not under this name, and not under the flag of St. Andrew, and it did not enter the Russian Imperial Fleet to protect the honor and integrity of Great Russia , but, completed under the communist power, under the red flag, as part of the Red Black Sea Soviet fleet, under some sort of nothing to the Russian heart and mind without saying a name like “Comintern”, “Profintern”, etc., or under the word "Comrade", serve III intern national to achieve the triumph of the crazy communist idea - the world social revolution.
But Great Russia will be revived, the Russian Navy will be revived under the glorious Andrew's flag, and in it - firmly believe - in honor of the once-awesome “Ushak-Pasha” for the Turks and in memory of the battleship who had bravely died in the Tsushima battle, with honor and pride will bear the name "Admiral Ushakov", and the other - the name of his valiant commander of the captain 1 rank Miklukhi-Maclay.
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