Icebreaker a Mikoyan. The combat history of the icebreaker Anastas Mikoyan

Original taken from navy_chf in Forgotten Heroes (part two). Linear icebreaker Anastas Mikoyan.

Start: Forgotten Heroes (Part One).


A dark night fell on November 30th. The windlass began to work quietly, and the anchor-chain slowly crawled into the hawse, the icebreaker began to slowly move forward. As soon as the anchor broke off the ground, Sergeev gave a "slow move". In the night, the Mikoyan glided like a silent shadow away from the shore. Having entered the fairway, the commander gave "full speed". In order not to run into boats floating without any lights or any floating object in the dark, Sergeev ordered additional observers to be posted on the bow and on the sides. In the darkness, the smoke coming from the chimneys was not particularly noticeable. Moreover, the stokers tried their best - not a single spark flew out of the pipes. Luckily, it soon started to rain. Half an hour later, Istanbul was left behind.


CM. Sergeev, commander of the icebreaker "A. Mikoyan".

In total darkness, without lights, they passed the Sea of ​​Marmara and approached the gorge of the Dardanelles. The strait is winding and narrow, navigation is quite difficult in terms of navigation. Experienced pilots, even during the day, led ships here with great care. And the icebreaker was sailing without a pilot at all. In the middle of the strait, near Çanakkale, navigation conditions are extremely difficult, especially at night - here the strait sharply narrows to 7 cables and makes two sharp turns. In the most dangerous place, captain-mentor I.A.Boev took the helm and successfully navigated the icebreaker. We went further, adhering to the European coast.
Went out to the Aegean. "Mikoyan" rushed to the south at full speed. In the early morning, as close as the depth allowed, we stumbled upon the rocks of a small, deserted island in the Gulf of Edremit. The boilers were extinguished so that the smoke from the chimneys would not betray itself. From the icebreaker, the island of Lesbos was viewed with the Italian naval base of Mytilini located on it. The day passed in anxious anticipation, but no one appeared nearby, only the silhouettes of ships flashed by several times far on the horizon. Everything went well.
As soon as it got dark, "Mikoyan" set off. Ahead lay the islands of the Greek Archipelago. S.M. Sergeev immediately took the icebreaker off the once “knurled”, usual in peacetime route and led it along the route developed in Istanbul. We walked without running lights, trying to stay closer to the Turkish coast, winding between mountainous islets, every minute risking in the dark, on an unfamiliar fairway, to run into an underwater rock or a mine. Outside surveillance was strengthened: “lookouts” were on watch on the forecastle, signalmen were in the “crow’s nest”. We walked according to the reckoning, although the inclement weather helped to go unnoticed, but hid the landmarks. As soon as it began to get light, they hid in a wide crevice of a rocky island. Preparing for battle, craftsmen prepared weapons in the ship's workshop - they forged several dozen lances and other edged weapons. Radio operators constantly listened to the air: if the alarm had risen. Another day passed in suspense.
With the onset of darkness, the icebreaker continued its journey in the darkness of the night. Near the island of Samos, Mikoyan passed literally under the noses of Italian patrol ships, which illuminated the sea with searchlights. Only fresh weather, slanting rain and poor visibility helped our sailors. We safely passed only two miles from the enemy naval base. We stopped for a day, squeezed into a gap between the rocks of two deserted islands. There was no doubt that the enemy was looking for the missing icebreaker, the sailors were preparing for the worst.
On previous nights, our sailors were lucky, the weather was inclement, and the Italians, not the Germans, controlled the Aegean, and there were no locators. Therefore, the icebreaker, not surprisingly, remained undetected. But on the third night in the evening, surprisingly clear weather set in, the full moon shone in the night sky. And ahead was the island of Rhodes, which was the main naval base of the Italians in this area of ​​the Mediterranean Sea. German aviation was also based here, bombing the Suez Canal and British bases and ports. It was the most dangerous place.
On December 3, the icebreaker carefully emerged from its hiding place and rushed to the breakthrough at full speed. Hostile Rhodes was approaching. "A. Mikoyan" entered the strait between the Turkish coast and the island of Rhodes and headed for the small island of Kastellorizo, beyond which the expanses of the Mediterranean Sea opened.
First, a small schooner appeared, and for some time walked not far, and then turned aside and disappeared. Soon a reconnaissance aircraft appeared, circled the icebreaker several times and flew over it, the pilot apparently looked out and determined whether there was weapons, and flew away towards the island.
It became clear that the Mikoyan had been found and identified. From the bridge, all posts received an order from the commander: - if the Nazis try to capture the icebreaker and try to climb to the upper deck, beat them with crowbars, pikes, axes, hooks, beat them until at least one of the team is alive. Kingstons open at the very last moment, when there will be nothing and no one to defend. An alarming expectation was established on the Mikoyan. Time seemed to slow down. The sailors peered into the expanses of the sea and the heavenly heights until the pain in their eyes. The tense silence was broken by the loud cry of the signalman from the crow's nest.
I see two dots!
On the bridge and on the deck, everyone began to look in the indicated direction.
"Two torpedo boats coming at us!" the signalman shouted again.
"Italian," said senior assistant Kholin.
The alarm signal sounded and everyone ran to their places. The huge, slow and unarmed icebreaker had not the slightest chance of getting away from two high-speed boats, each of which had two torpedoes.
The boats were approaching. The chief boatswain, midshipman Groysman, just in case, hung out the Turkish flag. But it was not possible to cheat. There were no such ships, let alone an icebreaker, in Turkey. The boats approached at a distance of less than a cable and lay down on a parallel course. From one of them they asked through a megaphone in broken Russian.
- Whose ship?
By order of Sergeev, the boiler mechanic, the Crimean Tatar Khamidulin, who knew Turkish, shouted an answer into the mouthpiece in the direction of the boat.
- Turkish ship, we are going to Smyrna! What do you want?
In response, a machine-gun burst thundered for warning, but Khamidulin managed to hide. A command sounded from the boat.
- Immediately proceed to Rhodes under our escort!
On Mikoyan, no one thought to follow the orders of the enemy, and he continued to go his own way. Then the boats began to prepare for torpedo attacks. The fact that the icebreaker was absolutely unarmed, the Italians knew and acted fearlessly. The first boat, clearly counting on success, rushed into the attack, as at a training ground. And it was here that the commander came in handy with the extraordinary maneuverability of the icebreaker and the experience gained in battles of evading enemy attacks. As soon as the boat reached the calculated firing point, a second before the volley, the command of the commander was heard: “Rudder on board!” When the boat fired two torpedoes, the icebreaker was already turning almost on the spot towards the deadly cigars, and they passed along the sides. Leaving the attack, the boat fired at the icebreaker with a machine gun. Then the second boat went on the attack. But he acted differently - first he fired one torpedo. At the time of the salvo, all three cars worked out "Full back". The icebreaker almost stopped, and the torpedo passed close to the bow. And on the bridge the engine telegraph had already rang: "Full speed ahead." The second torpedo, fired at intervals, passed by, almost hitting the stern.
The boats did not lag behind, opened fire from all machine guns and small-caliber guns. The boats were getting closer and closer to both sides. The commander of the on-board broadcast ordered: “Prepare the ship for sinking!” But the boats soon stopped firing and moved aside. The sailors were delighted with this, but, as it turned out, prematurely. Three torpedo bombers appeared, radioed by the failed boats. The first immediately lay down on a combat course, a torpedo was visible under its fuselage. The situation seemed hopeless. And then the unexpected happened. Senior bilge officer Methodiev rushed to the hydromonitor and turned it on. A powerful wall of water, shining in the moonlight like silver, like an explosion, unexpectedly splashed out towards the plane. The pilot abruptly turned away and, gaining altitude, dropped a torpedo, which fell far from the icebreaker. In the same way, the second torpedo bomber was knocked off course. A third dropped a swirling torpedo by parachute, which began to describe a death spiral. But with a quick maneuver, Sergeev managed to evade her as well. Turned the ship in the opposite direction, and then turned sharply to the side. The torpedo passed.
Unsuccessful torpedo attacks infuriated the enemy. Now they could not sink the icebreaker, but they did not dare to board. Firing from all machine guns and small-caliber cannons, boats and planes attacked the icebreaker. But his body was invulnerable to bullets and small-caliber projectiles. On boats and planes, they realized this and concentrated fire on the bridge and the wheelhouse, trying to disrupt control. Ruzakov, the helmsman, who was wounded, was taken to the infirmary, and the helmsman Molochinskiy took his place. The wounded signalman, foreman of the 2nd article, Poleshchuk, gasped and fell onto the deck. The senior political instructor M. Novikov was wounded ...
Having used up their ammunition, the planes flew away, but the boats continued to conduct a fierce shelling. On the Mikoyan, fires began to break out in different places. Sailors of fire-fighting groups under the leadership of the senior assistant commander, captain-lieutenant Kholin, ignoring the shelling, extinguished the fires. But it was half the trouble. Due to numerous holes in the pipes, the draft in the furnaces of the boilers fell. Despite all the efforts of the stokers, the steam pressure in the boilers began to fall, and the speed gradually began to decrease. A serious danger loomed over the icebreaker.
For several hours, evading continuous attacks, Mikoyan stubbornly walked towards its goal. Fortunately, the weather began to deteriorate, clouds hung over the sea, the wind rose, waves appeared (obviously, the weather did not allow the planes to take off again). But the enemy did not let up, from his next turn, a rescue boat caught fire, in the tanks of which there were almost two tons of gasoline, the explosion of which could have serious consequences. Noticing the high flames and thick smoke covering the icebreaker, the Italians decided that it was all over with him. But they were wrong. The sailors rushed to the burning boat, chopped off the fasteners. The boat was thrown overboard before it exploded, sending up a column of fire and debris. And at that moment, a downpour of unimaginable force began. Under its veil, and managed to break away from the enemy. Taking the explosion of the boat for the death of the icebreaker, the Italians raised several pieces of debris, a lifebuoy with the inscription "Mikoyan" and left for Rhodes.
When the danger had passed, they began to put the icebreaker in order and repair the damage. First of all, they began to close up holes in the pipes in order to create traction in the boiler furnaces and increase the speed. Hastily made wooden plugs began to be hammered into the holes, everything that came to hand. But all this quickly burned out in the heat of hot gases. I had to start all over again. And at the boilers, exhausted, the stokers worked, throwing coal into the insatiable furnaces. "Mikoyan" survived, having received about 150 different holes, continued to go to his goal.
As soon as the coast of Cyprus appeared on the morning of December 4, English destroyers with pointed guns rushed towards them. Senior Lieutenant Hanson radioed his ships and soon everything was cleared up. It turned out that the radio stations in Berlin and Rome had already managed to inform the whole world about the destruction of a large Soviet icebreaker. Believing this message, the British mistook the icebreaker for an enemy ship. The British did not doubt for a minute that the Soviet adventure with a breakthrough would end in the inevitable death of all four ships. Therefore, they did not expect to see an icebreaker. Accompanied by destroyers, Mikoyan, having traveled more than 800 miles, arrived in Famagusta. The icebreaker was scary to look at. The tall chimneys were scorched, and smoke billowed from numerous hastily patched holes. The navigation bridge and superstructures are riddled with holes. The sides are stained with pockmarks of hits. The upper deck, covered with teak wood, littered with fumes and soot, was almost black. The task of the GKO to break through to Cyprus was completed. What through London was reported to Moscow.

The British met the Mikoyan unfriendly, they were not allowed to enter the port, they ordered to anchor behind booms. Captain Sergeev demanded an immediate explanation. At any moment, the ship could be attacked by an enemy submarine or aircraft. A representative of the British naval command arrived on board. He looked at the holes received and informed the commander that the Mikoyan should immediately weigh anchor and, under the escort of the corvette, go to Beirut. The ship, which had endured an unequal hard fight with the enemy, was not given the opportunity to patch holes and repair damage. We reached Beirut calmly. But even here they received an order: without delay, continue moving to Haifa. This surprised the commander of the Mikoyan, he knew that Haifa was subjected to frequent German air raids. In Haifa, they said goodbye to the captain-mentor I.A.Boev. Having completed his task, he returned to his homeland.
Here "Mikoyan" was moored for repairs. But two days had not passed before the port authorities demanded to change the parking place. A week later I had to move to another place. For 17 days the ship was rearranged 7 times. It became clear to everyone: the British were using a Soviet ship to check for magnetic mines in the port.
Repairs were in full swing when a disaster occurred in the port. Many warships, transports and tankers have accumulated in Haifa. On December 20, a powerful explosion suddenly thundered in the port and a powerful blow shook the Mikoyan. Almost simultaneously, the ship's bells rang out loudly, announcing an "emergency alarm". The sailors who ran out onto the deck of the icebreaker saw a terrible picture - the Phoenix tanker, as it was established later, was blown up by a bottom mine. Above him rose fire and clouds of thick smoke. There was a second explosion that broke the hull of the tanker into two parts, and it went into the water, slowly drifting towards the Mikoyan. From the broken hull, thousands of tons of burning oil poured onto the surface of the water, which began to envelop the icebreaker in a ring of fire. The stern of the Phoenix was on fire, and the surviving sailors crowded and screamed on the bow, some jumped into the water, swam, trying to escape to the shore or to the Mikoyan.
The icebreaker could not move - of the three machines, two onboard were under repair and were dismantled, and the stern machine was in a "cold" state. There was only one boiler in operation. The slightest delay threatened imminent death. The sailors rushed to the hydromonitors and powerful jets of water began to drive away the burning oil, knocking down the flames. Gave away the moorings. The stokers rushed to the boiler rooms - to urgently breed steam in the boilers; machinists - to the engine room to prepare the car to start.
For three days a huge fire raged in Haifa. Our sailors were surprised that neither the British command nor the local authorities even tried to fight the fire. As soon as the fire went out on its own, the senior naval commander in Haifa sent the commander of the Mikoyan, Captain 2nd Rank Sergeev, a “Gratitude Letter”, in which he expressed admiration for courage and dashing. Manifested by the crew in a particularly dangerous situation. In newspapers published in Haifa and Port Said, the British government expressed its deep gratitude to Soviet sailors for rescuing British soldiers. When the consequences of the unprecedented conflagration were more or less eliminated, repairs continued on the icebreaker.
On January 6, Mikoyan left Haifa and headed for Port Said, where a caravan of ships was formed to cross the Suez Canal. On January 7, the icebreaker, taking a pilot on board, moved further south. We went out to the Red Sea and anchored in the roadstead of the port. Here, by agreement with the British, guns and machine guns were to be installed on the Mikoyan. But the British did not fulfill this important condition of the agreement, they only installed an old 45-mm cannon, suitable only for salute, from which they conducted training firing. Then, in order to give the icebreaker the appearance of a well-armed vessel, our sailors went to the trick. Logs were obtained from local Arabs. And the boatswain's team made a semblance of powerful artillery installations from these logs and tarps on the deck. Of course, these sham cannons will not bring any benefit, but when they meet with an enemy ship, they can catch up with fear.
After stopping in Suez, the icebreaker went on, passed the Red Sea and arrived in Aden. But by this time the situation in the world had changed for the worse. When they left Batumi, there was peace in the Far East. On December 7, 1941, Japan suddenly attacked the naval bases of Great Britain and the United States, and the war also engulfed these areas. The sailors became aware that on December 8, the Japanese government declared the La Perouse, Korea and Sangar Straits to be its "marine defense zones", put the Sea of ​​Japan and all exits from it under its control. Japanese ships sank and captured Soviet merchant ships. Thus, the shortest route to the Far East for "A. Mikoyan" became almost impossible. Under these conditions, it was decided to go south, to Cape Town, and further west, to their native shores. And then the allies once again rendered a “service” - they refused to include the Mikoyan in their convoy, citing the fact that the icebreaker was slow and smoked too much.
On February 1, 1942, in spite of everything, the Mikoyan left Aden and went south alone, heading for the Kenyan port of Mombasa. One day ships appeared on the horizon. An alarming half an hour passed before the situation cleared up. On the opposite course was an English reinforced convoy of thirty pennants. It consisted of cruisers, destroyers and other warships escorting transports. Two cruisers separated from the convoy, turned their guns towards the Mikoyan, and asked for call signs. Apparently, the British accepted the models of guns as real ones.
“Give call signs,” Sergeyev ordered.
The cruisers approached a few more cables. One of them was attached to the wake. The lead cruiser demanded to stop the cars.
- Stop the car! Sergeyev ordered.
At that moment, the lead cruiser fired a salvo from the forward turret. The shells landed at the nose of the Mikoyan. Requests rained down from the cruiser: "Show the name of the ship", "Give the name of the captain." "Who sent you from Aden." Having understood, the British were allowed to follow their course. Further navigation to the port of Mombasa passed without incident. During the stay in the port replenished stocks and, first of all, coal.
We went further, going along the Indian Ocean along the east coast of Africa. The tropical heat exhausted the crew. It was especially difficult to keep watch in the boiler rooms and engine rooms, where the heat rose to 65 degrees. Stokers and machinists doused themselves with water, but this did little to help. March 19 came to Cape Town. We replenished the stocks, loaded more than 3,000 tons of coal in excess of any norms. Mikoyan was ready to move on. The British command informed S.M. Sergeev of the situation in the Atlantic Ocean. German submarines operate on the Cape Town-New York line. Since the beginning of the year, they have shifted their operations from the shores of Europe, first to the east coast of the United States, and then to the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, the Antilles and Bermuda. The German raiders "Mishel" and "Stire" are supposedly operating in the South Atlantic. The path to the Panama Canal was extremely dangerous.
And then Sergeev decided to deceive the German intelligence, which, as he believed, was operating here. To this end, he informed local reporters that the Mikoyan was on its way to New York. This message was published in all local newspapers and broadcast on the radio.
On the night of March 26, having silently weighed anchor, the icebreaker left Cape Town. Just in case, they really went for some time, as it were, to New York. But in the desert region of the Atlantic they changed course. Sergeev chose another, longer route - to go around South America, and go to the Far East with the eastern part of the Pacific Ocean. The icebreaker went to the shores of South America. Caught in severe storms. The pitching reached 56 degrees, the ship was thrown like a chip. Sometimes the ocean calmed down to collapse with renewed vigor. The bow superstructure was damaged, heavy steel doors were torn off and carried into the ocean. These were the infamous "Roaring Forties" to sailors. This went on for seventeen days. In constant violent storms they crossed the Atlantic Ocean and entered the Gulf of La Plata. The sailors breathed a sigh of relief.
We passed the rusted superstructures of the German heavy cruiser Admiral Graf Spee, which died here in December 1939. We approached the Uruguayan port of Montevideo. Sergeev requested permission to enter the port. But in response, he was informed that the authorities did not allow warships and armed vessels to visit the port, the fake “guns” of the icebreaker looked so impressive. I had to call a special representative to convince the port authorities that the "armament" was not real. Only after that they received permission to enter the port.
In Montevideo, they replenished supplies, carried out the necessary repairs, and after a rest they set off. And in order to deceive German intelligence, they defiantly headed north. With the onset of darkness, they turned around and rushed south at full speed. Cape Horn was in great danger of being attacked by German raiders or submarines. Therefore, we went to the Strait of Magellan, quite difficult and dangerous for navigation. In frequent fogs, past Tierra del Fuego, with a call at the port of Pointe Arenas, they passed the strait, entered the Pacific Ocean and headed north. In dashes, with short calls to the ports of Coronel and Lota, they arrived at the Chilean port of Valparaiso, replenished supplies, audited boilers, machines and mechanisms. After a short rest, we continued north, heading for the Peruvian port of Callao. We replenished our supplies and went to the Panamanian port of Bilbao. We replenished our supplies again, and went to San Francisco.
The icebreaker arrived in San Francisco, and then moved to Seattle for repairs and weapons. The Americans quickly and efficiently repaired the ship. The English cannon was dismantled and thoroughly armed: four 76.2-mm guns, ten 20-mm anti-aircraft guns, four 12.7-mm and four 7.62-mm machine guns were installed.
From Seattle, the Mikoyan headed for the port of Kodiak in Alaska. From Kodiak I went to the port of Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands. Leaving Dutch Harbor, the Mikoyan rounded the Aleutian Islands to the north and headed for their native shores. Finally, the outlines of distant shores appeared in the haze. A deserted shore appeared - the Chukchi Cape. August 9, 1942 "Mikoyan" entered the Gulf of Anadyr.
The rest of the crew was short. Almost immediately received a new combat mission. In Providence Bay, 19 (nineteen) were waiting for his arrival! transports with weapons, ammunition and other military cargo, and warships of the Pacific Fleet: the leader "Baku", the destroyers "Reasonable" and "Furious". "A. Mikoyan" was appointed as a regular icebreaker EON-18. In essence, this was the task to which the ship went this way from Batumi.
Back in June 1942, the State Defense Committee decided to transfer several warships from the Far East along the Northern Sea Route in support of the Northern Fleet. On June 8, by order of the People's Commissar of the Navy No. 0192, a special-purpose expedition - 18 (EON-18) was formed. Captain 1st rank V.I. Obukhov was appointed commander. On July 22, warships arrived in Provideniya Bay, where there were already 19 Soviet transports that arrived from the United States with military supplies. Ahead was the Northern Sea Route.
On August 13, "A. Mikoyan" and 6 transports left Providence Bay, and the next day warships. The expedition gathered in Emma Bay in Chukotka and continued on its way. We passed the Bering Strait in thick fog. They rounded Cape Dezhnev and entered the Chukchi Sea. On August 15 at 16 o'clock they passed Cape Uelen and entered finely broken ice with a density of 7 points. With every mile, the ice conditions became more difficult. It was foggy, the ships continued to move with difficulty. On August 16, we were forced to stop until the situation improved, among the 9-10 point old ice drifting to the southeast. By the morning of August 17, the ships were scattered from each other by the movement of ice.
The destroyer "Reasonable", which was next to the leader "Baku", was carried away from him by 50-60 cables. In the most difficult situation was "Furious". He was jammed with ice, and he began to drift towards the shore. The expedition management feared that the ship might end up in shallow water, inaccessible to the icebreaker. Attempts by "A. Mikoyan" to rescue the "Furious" from ice captivity were not successful. On the contrary, the work of the icebreaker increased the pressure of ice on the destroyer's hull, which had dents in the skins of both sides. It became clear that "A. Mikoyan" alone could not cope with the wiring of such a number of warships and transports. I had to fight with 9-10 ice fields, either to rescue the destroyers, or to rush to the aid of transports. To help "A. Mikoyan" from the Bay of Providence came the icebreaker "L. Kaganovich", which approached on August 19. Bypassing the ice massif from the north, the EON-18 ships joined the caravan of transports in the area of ​​Cape Serdtse Kamen. Further advancement took place along the coastline in rarefied ice. On August 22, behind Cape Dzhekretlan, the ice became lighter, and there was already clear water on the approach to Kolyuchinskaya Bay. With separately floating ice floes. We approached the Lok-Batan tanker, which was at anchor, and began to receive fuel. At the same time, they received food from the Volga transport.


On August 25, having passed Cape Vankarem in heavy ice, the EON-18 ships drifted until dawn. At night, a strong wind caused the ice to move, ships and transports were squeezed by hummocks. How difficult the conditions turned out to be can be judged by the fact that even the L. Kaganovich icebreaker turned out to have a 15-degree rudder stock.
Only five days later, the icebreakers managed to bring the leader "Baku" and the destroyer "Furious" out of heavy ice to clean water. Both ships were damaged (the screw fittings were torn off, dents were received in the sides, tanks were damaged). Having made their way through the heavy ice, they replenished fuel supplies from the Lok-Batan tanker, without waiting for the "Reasonable", the leader of the "Baku" and the destroyer "Furious" went under their own power through clear water along the edge of the fast ice. Due to the shallow depths (5-5.6 m), the progress was very slow: a boat depth measurement was carried out ahead of the ships.
Icebreaker "L. Kaganovich" stuck in heavy ice. But the destroyer Razumny was in the most difficult situation, sandwiched between two large hummocks of multi-year ice. The ice floes squeezed the hull from the sides, the screws jammed. The personnel were exhausted, fighting for the release of the ship from ice captivity. Day and night, special teams blew up the ice with ammonal, pricked with ice picks. They laid a steam pipeline and tried to cut the ice with a jet of steam. It turned out that the screws were tightly frozen into the ice field. It was possible to free them only with the help of divers: a steam pipeline was brought in and the ice around the propellers was cut off with steam. When the situation became more complicated, the ship's commander allowed the use of depth charges to destroy the ice. Explosions destroyed the ice to its full thickness, started ice anchors and pulled up to them. During the day it was possible to walk 30-40 meters. The icebreaker "A. Mikoyan" repeatedly approached the ship, took it in tow, but had no success. He could not break the ice around the destroyer. This was dangerous, as ice accumulated between the icebreaker and the ship's hull, and the icebreaker's pressure could lead to a hole in the hull.
On August 31, the icebreaker I. Stalin came from the west to help A. Mikoyan. Two icebreakers broke up thick ice in short raids, each time advancing 2-2.5 meters. Work continued from August 31 to September 8. Two channels were punched in the ice to Razumny, but it was not possible to tow the destroyer, since the icebreakers themselves could not move along these channels due to ice compression.

On September 8, the ice situation in the Razumny drift area changed dramatically. The wind changed direction, the ice began to move, separate leads appeared, and the compression of the ship's hull decreased. "A. Mikoyan" took the destroyer in tow and began to slowly bring to clean water. "I. Stalin" went ahead, breaking the ice fields, clearing the way for "A. Mikoyan" and "Reasonable". By 14 o'clock on September 9, they reached clean water. The destroyer took fuel from the Locke-Batan tanker, together with everyone headed west along the edge of the fast ice. In the area of ​​Cape Two pilots, they met a heavy ice barrier and stopped, waiting for the L. Kaganovich icebreaker, which led the destroyer to Ambarchik Bay.
On September 17, EON-18 ships joined in Tiksi Bay. Here the expedition was ordered to linger. In the Kara Sea, rounding Novaya Zemlya from the north, German ships penetrated - the heavy cruiser "Admiral Scheer" and submarines. Having learned from the Japanese about the expedition, the Germans decided to conduct Operation Wunderland (Wonderland) in order to intercept and destroy transports, warships and all Soviet icebreakers near the Vilkitsky Strait. At the eastern entrance to the strait, EON-18 and a caravan of ships from Arkhangelsk, escorted by the Krasin icebreaker, were supposed to meet.

Epilogue.
Recently there was material about the feat of the icebreaker "Dezhnev", the heroism of the Dezhnev people made it possible to save ships and ships of oncoming convoys. It would seem, where is the Black Sea and where is the Arctic Ocean? But the idea of ​​the State Defense Committee and the courage, perseverance, and sense of duty of the Soviet sailors brought the heroism of Dezhnev and Mikoyan to one point on the map of a great war. The fate of the vessels and ships mentioned in the article developed in different ways.
The tanker Varlaam Avanesov left Istanbul on December 19, following A. Mikoyan. The time was calculated so that the Dardanelles would pass before dark and enter the Aegean Sea at night. At 21:30, Varlaam Avanesov passed the strait and lay down on the main course. On the left side floated the high gloomy cape Babakale with a fortress on top. Suddenly, a searchlight flashed in the fortress, the beam fell on the black water, slid along it and rested on the tanker. Illuminated it for about five minutes, then went out. But not for long, after a few minutes everything happened again. And then there was an explosion near the shore. Another fifteen minutes passed. Little by little, the unsettling feeling caused first by the light of searchlights, and then by an unknown explosion, began to pass. Suddenly, the tanker was thrown up sharply, a high column of fire, smoke, and foaming water flew up from under the stern. It became clear to whom the tanker was shown by a searchlight. The German submarine "U-652", having missed the first torpedo, sent the second right on target. The boats with the crew, one after another, departed from the side of the sinking tanker, heading for the nearby Turkish coast. The captain made the last entry in the ship's log: “22.20. The stern plunged into the sea along the bridge. Everyone left the ship. One person died. On December 23, 1941, the crew of the tanker arrived in Istanbul, and from there to their homeland.
The continuation of the operation now seemed outright madness, but the State Defense Committee was not going to cancel the order. On January 4, 1942, Tuapse left Istanbul. He, like the Mikoyan, moved in short dashes, walked only at night, and hid among the islands during the day. And a week later he reached Famagusta, neither the Germans nor the Italians found him at all!
On January 7, the Sakhalin went on a campaign. And, surprising as it may seem, he repeated the success of Tuapse. Nobody found him at all. On January 21, he also reached Cyprus, spending two weeks on the transition, which under normal conditions takes no more than two days.
Such a result, of course, could be considered a miracle. All Soviet ships were obviously doomed. They passed through the waters belonging to the enemy, having neither weapons nor guards, while the enemy was aware of the time of the exit and knew the target to which the ships were following. However, out of four ships, three reached Cyprus, while two were not found at all and, accordingly, did not even have loss of life or damage. However, the fate of the Mikoyan, which withstood daily attacks, but survived (and even none of the sailors did not die) seems to be a real miracle.
On the way from Haifa to Cape Town. Sakhalin and Tuapse made an unexpected contribution to the overall victory of the anti-Hitler coalition. They delivered 15,000 tons of oil products to South Africa, with which the British ships that participated in the capture of Madagascar refueled.
In Cape Town, the captain of the Tuapse Shcherbachev and the captain of the Sakhalin Pomerants had disagreements about the further route. Shcherbachev, in order to save time, decided to lead the Tuapse through the Panama Canal. Savings do not always lead to a good result, sometimes it turns into a tragedy. On July 4, 1942, when the Tuapse reached the Caribbean Sea and was at Cape San Antonio (Cuba), it was attacked by the German boat U-129. Four torpedoes hit the ship at short intervals. Ten people from the team died, but most escaped.
Pomerants led his Sakhalin along the same route as A. Mikoyan. Having withstood the strongest storms, "Sakhalin" on December 9, 1942 came to his native Vladivostok.
The leader "Baku" became the Red Banner ship, the destroyer "Furious" on January 23, 1945 was torpedoed by the German submarine U-293. The destroyer's stern was torn off and until the middle of 1946 it stood under repair. The destroyer Razumny went through the entire war, repeatedly participated in the escort of convoys, and took part in the Petsamo-Kirkenes operation.

· Forgotten Heroes·

We are celebrating the seventieth anniversary of the Great Victory, everyone is familiar with the famous battles that decided the outcome of the war. But there were also less significant episodes in our war; without these small details, the overall picture of our Victory would not have formed. Some events eventually influenced the course of hostilities and allowed other participants in the war to become heroes.

Indeed, it is difficult to find a ship that is more peaceful and less adapted to military operations than an icebreaker! Simple fishing trawlers and seiners in wartime become guards and hunters for submarines. Even simple pleasure yachts "found themselves" in the war. Suffice it to recall the "hooligan fleet" (or "hooligan patrol"), which included about 170 sailing and motor yachts, often with a single person on board (!) Participated in the search for German submarines in 1942-43 along almost the entire Atlantic coast of the United States. One of them was the yacht "Pilar" and its owner, "someone" Ernest Hemingway ...

However, at the time of the publication of the article, the thought appeared not at the outskirts of consciousness: “But there was something like that, I read something like that in my youth!”. No, of course, the history of the icebreaker Sibiryakov is widely known, as well as the participation of the Dezhnev in the battle with the German heavy cruiser.

But that's not what we're talking about. The reader is offered information about a much less (especially in detail) known fact. For the entire time of the combat biography of the Soviet fleet, it was the icebreaker who made the longest (and if anyone disputes this, then the longest for sure!) military campaign. It was the Anastas Mikoyan linear icebreaker, the transition lasted 13 months, from November 25, 1941 to December 29, 1942, four oceans, 17 seas, 16 straits, 30,000 nautical miles were passed, of which about 2,000 miles were in ice.

Linear icebreaker "A. Mikoyan"

Laid down in Nikolaev at the plant named after A. Marty in November 1935 under the name "O. Yu. Schmidt". Launched in 1938, renamed "A. Mikoyan" the following year. Entered service in August 1941.

Total displacement 11,242 tons, maximum length 106.7 m, beam 23.2 m, maximum draft 9.0 m bow and 9.15 m stern. The hull has four decks and ten watertight bulkheads; unsinkability is maintained when any two compartments are flooded. The power plant consists of three triple expansion steam engines with a capacity of 3300 hp each. s., steam is produced by 9 fire-tube boilers of the Scottish type. The coal reserve (2900 tons) provides a cruising range of 6000 miles. The maximum speed is 15.5 knots. Crew - 138 people (according to the peacetime staff).

"BUT. Mikoyan" was one of a series of linear icebreakers, which was the development of Makarov's idea, which he laid down in the famous icebreaker "Ermak" and developed in the most powerful icebreaker of pre-revolutionary Russia "Svyatogor" (since 1927 - "Krasin").

The series included 4 units:

1. "I. Stalin "(since 1958 -" Siberia "). Laid down on 10/23/1935, launched on 04/29/1937 (ordzhonikidze plant, Leningrad), commissioned in 1938. Decommissioned in 1972 and subsequently cut into metal.

2. "L. Kaganovich" (since 1958 - "Admiral Lazarev"). Laid down in 1935 (Z-d. named after Marty, Nikolaev), the name at the laying of "Otto Schmidt", launched on 08/14/1937, entered service on 01/11/1939. In the 1960s, it was decommissioned and subsequently handed over for cutting into metal.

3. "V. Molotov "(since 1958 -" Admiral Makarov "). Laid down on 12/17/1938 (ordzhonikidze plant, Leningrad), launched on 04/24/1941. As of 06/22/1941, technical readiness was 79%. It was put into operation under a reduced program and on 08/08/1941 was enrolled in the KBF as an auxiliary cruiser. In 1966 transferred to the GDR. In 1967, it was dismantled for metal.

4. "A. Mikoyan "(until 1939 -" O.Yu. Schmidt "). Laid down in November 1935 (Marty plant, Nikolaev), launched in 1938. Mobilized on 06/28/1941 at the stage of acceptance tests, armed and on 08/26/1941 became part of the Black Sea Fleet as an auxiliary cruiser.

When creating icebreakers, Soviet designers made the most of the experience of Arctic navigation. To ensure the required strength, the cases are made of high quality steel grades. Frames were delivered twice as much as was usually used. The sides were made of 13 parallel belts, with 9 lower ones consisting of double skin with a total thickness of up to 42 mm (in the bow). The hulls of icebreakers of the Ermak type were given an egg-shaped shape to protect them from damage during compression in the ice. Along the entire length there was a double bottom and 12 watertight emergency bulkheads. Separate compartments were interconnected by clinket doors controlled from the wheelhouse. Each ship was equipped with three steam engines with a capacity of 3300 liters. with "working on three aft four-bladed propellers with removable blades. The icebreakers had nine fire-tube boilers with coal heating and several power plants. Rescue equipment included eight lifeboats and motor boats. Ship workshops had milling, turning, drilling and other machines, workbenches and tools that made it possible to carry out complex repair work. Three powerful radio stations (longwave, shortwave and emergency) had a huge range. Yes, "I. Stalin" during tests in the Gulf of Finland kept in touch with the "Ermak", which worked in the Arctic, and with the icebreaker "L. Kaganovich", located on the Black Sea.

"BUT. Mikoyan was built longer than other icebreakers. In June 1941, the icebreaker was tested by the commissioning team of the plant. After that, there should have been State tests and acceptance by the State Commission. Introduction "A. Mikoyan" was planned to be put into operation in the fourth quarter of 1941, after which he was supposed to move to the Far East.

The war that began on June 22 confused all peace plans. By decision of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, mobilization began in the country from 00.00. June 28 was mobilized and "A. Mikoyan. Out of any plans, the plant began re-equipping it into an auxiliary cruiser. It was planned to use it for operations on communications and coastal defense from enemy landings. At the same time, adjustment work and testing continued. The pre-war plans had to be forgotten. Captain 2nd rank Sergei Mikhailovich Sergeev was appointed commander of the ship.

CM. Sergeev

The crew, formed from the Red Navy and foremen, voluntarily included workers from the factory commissioning team, who wished to beat the enemy "on their own ship."

It was equipped with seven 130-mm, four 76-mm and six 45-mm guns, as well as four 12.7-mm DShK anti-aircraft machine guns.
In terms of the power of artillery weapons, the icebreaker was not inferior to domestic destroyers. Its 130mm guns could fire their nearly 34kg rounds at a range of 25.5km. The rate of fire in this case was 7 - 10 rounds per minute.

"BUT. Mikoyan" in the guise of an auxiliary cruiser

At the beginning of September 1941, the re-equipment of the icebreaker was completed, and “A. Mikoyan, by order of the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, was included in the detachment of ships of the northwestern region of the Chernov Sea, which, consisting of the cruiser Komintern, the destroyers Nezamozhnik and Shaumyan, a division of gunboats and other ships, was intended to provide fire support to the defenders of Odessa.

September 13 at 11.40 "Mikoyan" anchored and in storage of two small hunters and two MBR-2 aircraft and headed for Odessa, where he arrived safely early in the morning on September 14. Having prepared for battle, Mikoyan weighed anchor. At 12 hours 40 minutes the ship lay down on a combat course. The gunners wrote on the shells: "Hitler - personally." At 12 hours 45 minutes they fired the first sighting shot. Having received the data of the spotters, they switched to defeat. The enemy noticed the appearance of the Mikoyan in the sea, and it was successively attacked by three torpedo bombers. But observers noticed them in time. With a skillful maneuver, the commander dodged the torpedoes. The artillerymen continued to fire on the enemy. Operating near Odessa, artillerymen suppressed firing points, helped the defenders repel the attacks of enemy tanks and infantry. Several firings were carried out per day, firing up to 100 shells at the enemy. In the first five firings alone, 466 shells of the main caliber were fired at the enemy. Anti-aircraft gunners repelled numerous attacks by enemy aircraft.

When the situation near Odessa was especially difficult, the cruisers "Red Caucasus", "Red Crimea". “Chervona Ukraine and the Mikoyan auxiliary cruiser carried out 66 firing and fired 8,500 shells at the enemy. The ships fired mainly at invisible targets at a distance of 10 to 14 cables.

The commander of the Mikoyan and the crew were able to fully master the new, unusual maneuvering capabilities of the ship. All the days of operation near Odessa, the ship was constantly attacked by enemy aircraft. Special maneuverability helped to quickly get out of the shelling, evade the bombs of enemy aircraft attacking a heavy, wide ship, clearly visible to the pilots, which seemed to them an easy prey. In one of the raids, Mikoyan was attacked by three Junkers at once. One of them was hit by anti-aircraft fire, caught fire and began to fall on the ship. "Mikoyan" maneuvered, the enemy plane crashed into the water.

attack "JU-88a"

Operating near Odessa, "Mikoyan", with its low speed - 12 knots, unlike cruisers, leaders and destroyers, did not receive direct hits from bombs and shells, and did not lose a single person. But from frequent forcing and changing moves, shaking close breaks, six of the nine boilers received damage to the hot water tubes. This is where the high skill of sailors, former factory specialists, came in handy. They proposed, without leaving the combat position, one by one removing the damaged boilers from action, to eliminate the malfunctions. First, in an asbestos suit, the engineer-captain F.Kh. entered the furnace of the first boiler at a temperature of 270 degrees. Khamidulin. In a short time, working at night, in asbestos suits and kapok vests moistened with water, the boiler machinists (stokers) eliminated the malfunction - they minted all the pipes.

In these hot days, a front-line correspondent for the Pravda newspaper, a seascape writer, Captain 2nd Rank Leonid Sobolev, was on Mikoyan. On the pages of the newspapers "Pravda" and "Red Fleet" he talked about the military affairs of the Black Sea.

Supporting the Maritime Army with fire, the Mikoyan auxiliary cruiser received gratitude from the command of the Odessa defensive region. And only having used up all the ammunition, on the night of September 19 he left for Sevastopol.

September 22 "Mikoyan" took part in the landing at Grigorievka. "Mikoyan" had a large draft and a lower full speed than warships. Therefore, he was included in the artillery support detachment. Together with the gunboats "Dniester" and "Red Georgia" supported the paratroopers of the 3rd Marine Regiment.

Later, the crew found out: with their fire they suppressed 2 enemy batteries. In the area of ​​​​the village of Dofinovka, anti-aircraft gunners shot down two enemy Yu-88 aircraft. Before dawn, the Mikoyan, which had a low speed, headed for Sevastopol. By the way, gunners “A. Mikoyan” for the first time in the fleet, with the fire of their main caliber, they began to repel enemy air raids. At the suggestion of the commander of the BC-5, senior engineer-lieutenant Jozef Zlotnik, the embrasures in the gun shields were increased, the elevation angle of the guns became larger. Autogen, however, did not take armor steel. Then the former shipbuilder Nikolai Nazaratiy cut through the loopholes with the help of an electric welding unit.

Prior to receiving the order to evacuate the Odessa defensive region, Mikoyan, being continuously under air attacks and fire from coastal batteries, together with the ships of the fleet continued to fire at enemy positions. Then he moved to Sevastopol, where the damaged boilers and mechanisms were qualitatively repaired at plant No. 201.

In October, "Mikoyan" received an order to move to Novorossiysk. In Sevastopol, a military unit, 36 barrels of long-range naval guns and ammunition were loaded onto it. The guns were very heavy, and only Mikoyan could transport them. Having repulsed the attack of enemy aircraft at the crossing, on October 15 the ship arrived in Novorossiysk.

The auxiliary cruiser also took part in the defense of Sevastopol, systematically making flights from Novorossiysk. Delivering reinforcements, military supplies to the besieged city, he took out the wounded and the civilian population. On it, the personnel and weapons of the 2nd brigade of torpedo boats were evacuated, and the dismantled artistic and historical value - “Panorama of the Defense of Sevastopol. In October, more than 1,000 wounded were evacuated on it. In early November, the headquarters of the fleet moved to Novorossiysk on the Mikoyan. The ship also fired at enemy positions near Sevastopol.

Then "Mikoyan" moved to Poti. November 5 received an unexpected order - to completely remove weapons. The Red Navy, foremen, officers, helping the workers of the local factory to disarm the ship, were dissatisfied with this and openly spoke out against sitting in the rear when, at this difficult time, their comrades were fighting to the death with the enemy. They did not know, and should not have known, that preparations for a covert operation had begun. In five days, all the guns were dismantled. Auxiliary cruiser A. Mikoyan” again became a linear icebreaker. The personnel of the artillery combat unit was decommissioned ashore. Was decommissioned ashore and part of the command staff. Soon they demanded to hand over machine guns, rifles and pistols. Captain 2nd rank S.M. Sergeev with great difficulty managed to leave 9 pistols for the officers. Of the weapons on board was also a hunting rifle.

A special counterintelligence department of the fleet began to work on the ship. Each sailor was checked in the most thorough way. After such a check, some people were missing in the cockpits. To replace arrived new, proven. Documents, letters and photographs of relatives and friends were taken away from everyone.

The crew was ordered to destroy, burn the military uniform. In return, they gave out a variety of civilian clothes from the warehouses. Everyone was photographed and soon issued nautical books (passports) of civilian sailors. The naval flag was lowered and the State flag was raised. The team was lost in conjecture about all these actions. But no one gave an explanation.

These oddities were connected with the fact that in the fall of 1941 the USSR State Defense Committee made a very peculiar decision - to overtake three large tankers from the Black Sea to the North and the Far East ("Sakhalin", "Varlaam Avanesov", "Stanislav Kossior" - was renamed in Tuapse) and the linear icebreaker A. Mikoyan.

"Varlaam Avanesov"

This was due to an acute shortage of tonnage for the transport of goods (domestic and lend-lease). On the Black Sea, these ships had nothing to do, and in the North and the Far East they were desperately needed. That is, the decision itself would be quite correct, if not for one geographical circumstance.

The ships were too large to be transferred along the inland waterways (Volga-Don and Volga-Balta), in addition, the Germans had already disabled the Volga-Balt. Consequently, it was necessary to go through the Sea of ​​​​Marmara to the Mediterranean, then by no means around Europe (it was a guaranteed death either from German submarines or from their own bombers), but through the Suez Canal to the Indian Ocean, then across the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean to the Soviet Far East (from there "Mikoyan" was supposed to continue sailing along the Northern Sea Route to Murmansk). Thus, an almost round-the-world trip was coming, and it had to be carried out in war conditions. The most interesting thing awaited the Soviet ships at the beginning of the journey.

During the war, almost all merchant ships of all warring countries received at least some weapons (1-2 cannons, several machine guns). Of course, it was purely symbolic, but in some situations (against single aircraft, boats, auxiliary cruisers) it could help. In addition, whenever possible, merchant ships were accompanied by warships. Alas, for the Soviet four, all these options were excluded.

The fact is that from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, the path lay through the Bosphorus, the Sea of ​​​​Marmara and the Dardanelles, belonging to Turkey. And she, observing neutrality, did not let the warships of the warring countries through the straits. Moreover, she also did not let the armed transports through. Accordingly, our ships could not even have a symbolic pair of guns. But it was still half the trouble. The trouble was that the Aegean Sea lying beyond the Dardanelles was completely controlled by the Germans and Italians, who captured both continental Greece and all the islands of the Greek archipelago, through which the Soviet ships had to go south.

The icebreaker arrived in Batumi. Following him, three tankers came here: "Sakhalin", "Tuapse" and "Varlaam Avanesov". All three are identical in terms of displacement, carrying capacity and with approximately the same full speed.

On November 25, 1941, at 3:45 a.m., a convoy consisting of an icebreaker, three tankers and escort ships put to sea under cover of night. For some time they walked towards Sevastopol, and then headed for the Bosphorus. The head was the leader "Tashkent" under the flag of Rear Admiral Vladimirsky. Behind him, in the wake - "Mikoyan" and tankers. To the right of the icebreaker was the destroyer "Able", to the left - the destroyer "Savvy". But warships could only accompany the caravan to Turkish territorial waters.

leader of “Tashkent”

The transition to the Bosphorus, 575 miles long, was planned to be completed in three days. The day was calm, the sky was covered with clouds. By evening it began to rain with sleet, the wind picked up, broke out into a nine-point storm. The sea was covered with dark, foamy shafts, pitching began. The wind grew stronger, pitch darkness swallowed the ships and guard ships. At night the storm reached 10 points. They were moving at a speed of about 10 knots - the tankers could no longer, and especially the Mikoyan with its coal-fired boilers, it was already lagging behind all the time. Tankers loaded to the neck held up well, only sometimes the waves covered them up to the navigation bridges. On the Mikoyan, with its egg-shaped hull, the pitching range reached 56 degrees. But his powerful body was not afraid of the blows of the waves.

Sometimes he burrowed his nose into the wave, then, turning over another huge shaft, exposed the propellers. Warships had a hard time. "Tashkent" heeled up to 47 degrees with a maximum roll of 52 degrees. From the impact of the waves, the deck in the bow sank and cracked on both sides in the midship area. Destroyers with a list of up to 50 degrees almost lay on board.

Correcting the damage received, went forward. At times, ships and vessels were hidden from view behind a curtain of rain and thick snow squalls.

The storm sometimes subsided during the night. Suddenly, the commander of the "Savvy" reported that the silhouettes of unknown ships were found. The guard ships prepared for battle. "Savvy", on the orders of Vladimirsky, approached unknown ships. It turned out that these were three Turkish transports. In order not to make a tragic mistake, they stopped the course and illuminated the large images of the national flag painted on the sides with searchlights. Dispersing, the convoy continued on its way.

Three days later, the storm began to subside, delaying the arrival of ships in Istanbul for a day. On the morning of November 29, the Turkish shores appeared. 10 miles from the Bosporus, the guard ships raised the flag signal "We wish you a happy voyage" and turned back.

In the Turkish territorial waters, we met patrol ships, which for some time walked side by side, looking for weapons on the decks of ships.

Soon the caravan anchored in the roads of Istanbul. The representatives of the Turkish port authorities who arrived at the Mikoyan were not too interested in the cargo and did not look into the hold. We walked along the upper deck, in the cabin of Captain 2nd Rank Sergeev, we filled out the necessary documents in such cases, drank a glass of Russian vodka and left the ship.

The Soviet naval attaché in Turkey, captain of the 2nd rank Rodionov, and with him the assistant to the English naval attache, captain-lieutenant Rogers, climbed the Mikoyan. A meeting of ship captains took place in Sergeyev's cabin. Rodionov announced the decision of the State Defense Committee, in which the captains were given the task of breaking through to the port of Famagusta on the island of Cyprus, to the allies. The tankers were ordered to temporarily go to the disposal of the allied command, and the icebreaker to go to the Far East.

According to an agreement between the Soviet government and the government of Great Britain, from the Dardanelles to Cyprus, ships were to accompany British warships. But no protection, although they promised, they could not give. The English Mediterranean fleet suffered heavy losses in the battles. The British did not consider it possible to risk their ships for the sake of protecting the Soviet icebreaker and tankers. This was reported to the captain of the Mikoyan by the British representative. The situation was further complicated by the fact that Turkey, which on June 25 declared its neutrality in the war between Germany and the USSR, occupied a pro-German orientation. Istanbul was the most spy city of all time. The intelligence services of many countries, including German and Soviet, operated here. Abwehr agents reported to Berlin information about who and when passed through the Bosphorus. As soon as our ships anchored, a lot of all kinds of boats, boats and steamers with curious people surrounded the tankers and especially the icebreaker, examining the unusual vessel. Among them were dozens of hostile eyes. The German naval attache defiantly walked around the ships on his boat.

Under such conditions, the passage through hostile waters, without any weapons and guards, was possible only one by one, and even then purely theoretically. It was this variant of action that was proposed by the Soviet and British attachés. The Mikoyan was to go first, and the tankers were to unload oil products (obviously, it was Soviet oil that became the most serious argument for the Turks). Lieutenant Commander Rogers said that Lieutenant Sir Edward Hanson, a radio operator and two signalmen were sent to the icebreaker to communicate with the British naval command. There was nothing else the Allies could do to help.

In a special instruction handed by Rodionov to Captain 2nd Rank Sergeev, it was categorically ordered: "... Do not surrender the ship in any case, drown it with an explosion, do not surrender to the crew."

A dark night fell on November 30th. The windlass began to work quietly, and the anchor-chain slowly crawled into the hawse, the icebreaker began to slowly move forward. As soon as the anchor broke off the ground, Sergeev gave a "slow move". In the night, the Mikoyan glided like a silent shadow away from the shore. Having entered the fairway, the commander gave "full speed". In order not to run into boats floating without any lights or any floating object in the dark, Sergeev ordered additional observers to be posted on the bow and on the sides. In the darkness, the smoke coming from the chimneys was not particularly noticeable. Moreover, the stokers tried their best - not a single spark flew out of the pipes. Luckily, it soon started to rain. Half an hour later, Istanbul was left behind.

In total darkness, without lights, they passed the Sea of ​​Marmara and approached the gorge of the Dardanelles. The strait is winding and narrow, navigation is quite difficult in terms of navigation. Experienced pilots, even during the day, led ships here with great care. And the icebreaker was sailing without a pilot at all. In the middle of the strait, near Canakkale, the navigation conditions are extremely difficult, especially at night - here the strait sharply narrows to 7 cable lengths and makes two sharp turns. In the most dangerous place, captain-mentor I.A. took the helm. Fighting and successfully conducted the icebreaker. We went further, adhering to the European coast.

Went out to the Aegean. "Mikoyan" rushed to the south at full speed. In the early morning, as close as the depth allowed, we stumbled upon the rocks of a small, deserted island in the Gulf of Edremit. The boilers were extinguished so that the smoke from the chimneys would not betray itself. From the icebreaker, the island of Lesbos was viewed with the Italian naval base of Mytilini located on it. The day passed in anxious anticipation, but no one appeared nearby, only the silhouettes of ships flashed by several times far on the horizon. Everything went well.

As soon as it got dark, "Mikoyan" set off. Ahead lay the islands of the Greek Archipelago. CM. Sergeev immediately took the icebreaker off the once “knurled”, normal in peacetime route and led it along the route developed in Istanbul. We walked without running lights, trying to stay closer to the Turkish coast, winding between mountainous islets, every minute risking in the dark, on an unfamiliar fairway, to run into an underwater rock or a mine. Outside surveillance was strengthened: “lookouts” were on watch on the forecastle, signalmen were in the “crow’s nest”. We walked according to the reckoning, although the inclement weather helped to go unnoticed, but hid the landmarks. As soon as it began to get light, they hid in a wide crevice of a rocky island. Preparing for battle, craftsmen prepared weapons in the ship's workshop - they forged several dozen lances and other edged weapons. Radio operators constantly listened to the air: if the alarm had risen. Another day passed in suspense.

With the onset of darkness, the icebreaker continued its journey in the darkness of the night. Near the island of Samos, Mikoyan passed literally under the noses of Italian patrol ships, which illuminated the sea with searchlights. Only fresh weather, slanting rain and poor visibility helped our sailors. We safely passed only two miles from the enemy naval base. We stopped for a day, squeezed into a gap between the rocks of two deserted islands. There was no doubt that the enemy was looking for the missing icebreaker. The sailors prepared for the worst.

On previous nights, our sailors were lucky, the weather was inclement, and the Italians, not the Germans, controlled the Aegean, and there were no locators. Therefore, the icebreaker, not surprisingly, remained undetected. But on the third night in the evening, surprisingly clear weather set in, the full moon shone in the night sky. And ahead was the island of Rhodes, which was the main naval base of the Italians in this area of ​​the Mediterranean Sea. German aviation was also based here, bombing the Suez Canal and British bases and ports. It was the most dangerous place.

On December 3, the icebreaker carefully emerged from its hiding place and rushed to the breakthrough at full speed. Hostile Rhodes was approaching. "BUT. Mikoyan "entered the strait between the Turkish coast and the island of Rhodes and headed for the small island of Kastellorizo, behind which the expanses of the Mediterranean Sea opened.

First, a small schooner appeared, and for some time walked not far, and then turned aside and disappeared. Soon a reconnaissance aircraft appeared, circled the icebreaker several times and flew over it, the pilot apparently looked out and determined whether there was weapons, and flew away towards the island.

It became clear that the Mikoyan had been found and identified. From the bridge, all posts received an order from the commander: - if the Nazis try to capture the icebreaker and try to climb to the upper deck, beat them with crowbars, pikes, axes, hooks, beat them until at least one of the team is alive. Kingstons open at the very last moment, when there will be nothing and no one to defend. An alarming expectation was established on the Mikoyan. Time seemed to slow down. The sailors peered into the expanses of the sea and the heavenly heights until the pain in their eyes. The tense silence was broken by the loud cry of the signalman from the crow's nest.

I see two dots!

On the bridge and on the deck, everyone began to look in the indicated direction.

Two torpedo boats are coming at us! The signalman shouted again.

Italian. - Identified senior assistant Kholin.

torpedo boat

The alarm signal sounded and everyone ran to their places. The huge, slow and unarmed icebreaker had not the slightest chance of getting away from two high-speed boats, each of which had two torpedoes.

The boats were approaching. The chief boatswain, midshipman Groysman, just in case, hung out the Turkish flag. But it was not possible to cheat. There were no such ships, let alone an icebreaker, in Turkey. The boats approached at a distance of less than a cable and lay down on a parallel course. From one of them they asked through a megaphone in broken Russian.

Whose ship?

By order of Sergeev, the boiler mechanic, the Crimean Tatar Khamidulin, who knew Turkish, shouted an answer into the mouthpiece in the direction of the boat.

Turkish ship, we follow to Smyrna! What do you want?

In response, for warning, a machine-gun burst thundered, but Khamidulin managed to hide. A command sounded from the boat.

Immediately proceed to Rhodes under our escort!

On Mikoyan, no one thought to follow the orders of the enemy, and he continued to go his own way. Then the boats began to prepare for torpedo attacks. The fact that the icebreaker was absolutely unarmed, the Italians knew and acted fearlessly. The first boat, clearly counting on success, rushed into the attack, as at a training ground. And it was here that the commander came in handy with the extraordinary maneuverability of the icebreaker and the experience gained in battles of evading enemy attacks. As soon as the boat reached the calculated firing point, a second before the volley, the command of the commander was heard: “Steering wheel on board!”. When the boat fired two torpedoes, the icebreaker was already turning almost on the spot towards the deadly cigars, and they passed along the sides. Leaving the attack, the boat fired at the icebreaker with a machine gun. Then the second boat went on the attack. But he acted differently - first he fired one torpedo. At the time of the salvo, all three cars worked out "Full back". The icebreaker almost stopped, and the torpedo passed close to the bow. And on the bridge the engine telegraph had already rang: - "Full speed ahead." The second torpedo, fired at intervals, passed by, almost hitting the stern.

The boats did not lag behind, opened fire from all machine guns and small-caliber guns. The boats were getting closer and closer to both sides. The commander of the intra-ship broadcast ordered: - “Prepare the ship for flooding!”. But the boats soon stopped firing and moved aside. The sailors were delighted with this, but, as it turned out, prematurely. Three torpedo bombers appeared, radioed by the failed boats. The first immediately lay down on a combat course, a torpedo was visible under its fuselage. The situation seemed hopeless. And then the unexpected happened. Senior bilge officer Methodiev rushed to the hydromonitor and turned it on. A powerful wall of water, shining like silver in the sun, suddenly splashed out to meet the plane. The pilot turned away sharply, and, gaining altitude, dropped a torpedo that fell far from the icebreaker. The second torpedo bomber was also knocked off course in the same way. A third dropped a swirling torpedo by parachute, which began to describe a death spiral. But with a quick maneuver, Sergeev managed to evade her as well. Turned the ship in the opposite direction, and then turned sharply to the side. The torpedo passed.

Unsuccessful torpedo attacks infuriated the enemy. Now they could not sink the icebreaker, but they did not dare to board. Firing from all machine guns and small-caliber cannons, boats and planes attacked the icebreaker. But his body was invulnerable to bullets and small-caliber projectiles. On boats and planes, they realized this and concentrated fire on the bridge and the wheelhouse, trying to disrupt control. Ruzakov, the helmsman, who was wounded, was taken to the infirmary, and the helmsman Molochinskiy took his place. The wounded signalman, foreman of the 2nd article, Poleshchuk, gasped and fell onto the deck. The senior political instructor M. Novikov was wounded ...

Having used up their ammunition, the planes flew away, but the boats continued to conduct a fierce shelling. On the Mikoyan, fires began to break out in different places. Sailors of fire-fighting groups under the leadership of the senior assistant commander, captain-lieutenant Kholin, ignoring the shelling, extinguished the fires. But it was half the trouble. Due to numerous holes in the pipes, the draft in the furnaces of the boilers fell. Despite all the efforts of the stokers, the steam pressure in the boilers began to fall, and the speed gradually began to decrease. A serious danger loomed over the icebreaker.

For several hours, evading continuous attacks, Mikoyan stubbornly walked towards its goal. Fortunately, the weather began to deteriorate, clouds hung over the sea, the wind rose, waves appeared (obviously, the weather did not allow the planes to take off again). But the enemy did not let up, from his next turn, a rescue boat caught fire, in the tanks of which there were almost two tons of gasoline, the explosion of which could have serious consequences. Noticing the high flames and thick smoke covering the icebreaker, the Italians decided that everything was over with him. But they were wrong. The sailors rushed to the burning boat, chopped off the fasteners. The boat was thrown overboard before it exploded, sending up a column of fire and debris. And at that moment, a downpour of unimaginable force began. Under its veil, and managed to break away from the enemy. Taking the explosion of the boat for the death of the icebreaker, the Italians raised several pieces of debris, a lifebuoy with the inscription "Mikoyan" and left for Rhodes.

When the danger had passed, they began to put the icebreaker in order and repair the damage. First of all, they began to close up holes in the pipes in order to create traction in the boiler furnaces and increase the speed. Hastily made wooden plugs began to be hammered into the holes, everything that came to hand. But all this quickly burned out in the heat of hot gases. I had to start all over again. And at the boilers, exhausted, the stokers worked, throwing coal into the insatiable furnaces. "Mikoyan" survived, having received about 150 different holes, continued to go to his goal.

As soon as the coast of Cyprus appeared on the morning of December 4, English destroyers with pointed guns rushed towards them. Senior Lieutenant Hanson radioed his ships and soon everything was cleared up. It turned out that the radio stations in Berlin and Rome had already managed to inform the whole world about the destruction of a large Soviet icebreaker. Believing this message, the British mistook the icebreaker for an enemy ship. The British did not doubt for a minute that the Soviet adventure with a breakthrough would end in the inevitable death of all four ships. Therefore, they did not expect to see an icebreaker. Accompanied by destroyers, Mikoyan, having traveled more than 800 miles, arrived in Famagusta. The icebreaker was scary to look at. The tall chimneys were scorched, and smoke billowed from numerous hastily patched holes. The navigation bridge and superstructures are riddled with holes. The sides are stained with pockmarks of hits. The upper deck, covered with teak wood, littered with fumes and soot, was almost black. The task of the GKO to break through to Cyprus was completed. What through London was reported to Moscow.

The British met the Mikoyan unfriendly, they were not allowed to enter the port, they ordered to anchor behind booms. Captain Sergeev demanded an immediate explanation. At any moment, the ship could be attacked by an enemy submarine or aircraft. A representative of the British naval command arrived on board. He looked at the holes received and informed the commander that the Mikoyan should immediately weigh anchor and, under the escort of the corvette, go to Beirut. The ship, which had endured an unequal hard fight with the enemy, was not given the opportunity to patch holes and repair damage. We reached Beirut calmly. But even here they received an order: without delay, continue moving to Haifa. This surprised the commander of the Mikoyan, he knew that Haifa was subjected to frequent German air raids. In Haifa, they said goodbye to the captain-mentor I.A. Combat. Having completed his task, he returned to his homeland.

Here "Mikoyan" was moored for repairs. But two days had not passed before the port authorities demanded to change the parking place. A week later I had to move to another place. For 17 days the ship was rearranged 7 times. It became clear to everyone: the British were using a Soviet ship to check for magnetic mines in the port.

Repairs were in full swing when a disaster occurred in the port. Many warships, transports and tankers have accumulated in Haifa. On December 20, a powerful explosion suddenly thundered in the port and a powerful blow shook the Mikoyan. Almost simultaneously, the ship's bells rang out loudly, announcing an "emergency alarm". The sailors who ran out onto the deck of the icebreaker saw a terrible picture - the Phoenix tanker, as it was established later, was blown up by a bottom mine. Above him rose fire and clouds of thick smoke. There was a second explosion that broke the hull of the tanker into two parts, and it went into the water, slowly drifting towards the Mikoyan. From the broken hull, thousands of tons of burning oil poured onto the surface of the water, which began to envelop the icebreaker in a ring of fire. The stern of the Phoenix was on fire, and the surviving sailors crowded and screamed on the bow, some jumped into the water, swam, trying to escape to the shore or to the Mikoyan.

The icebreaker could not move - of the three machines, two onboard were under repair and were dismantled, and the stern machine was in a "cold" state. There was only one boiler in operation. Both anchors were dropped. The slightest delay threatened imminent death. The sailors rushed to the hydromonitors and powerful jets of water began to drive away the burning oil, knocking down the flames. Gave away the moorings. The stokers rushed to the boiler rooms - to urgently breed steam in the boilers; machinists - to the engine room to prepare the car to start.

For three days a huge fire raged in Haifa.

Our sailors were surprised that neither the British command nor the local authorities even tried to fight the fire. As soon as the fire went out on its own, the senior naval commander in Haifa sent the commander of the Mikoyan, Captain 2nd Rank Sergeev, a “Gratitude Letter”, in which he expressed admiration for courage and dashing. shown by the crew in a particularly dangerous situation. In newspapers published in Haifa and Port Said, the British government expressed its deep gratitude to Soviet sailors for rescuing British soldiers. When the consequences of the unprecedented conflagration were more or less eliminated, repairs continued on the icebreaker.

On January 6, Mikoyan left Haifa and headed for Port Said, where a caravan of ships was formed to cross the Suez Canal.

On January 7, the icebreaker, taking a pilot on board, moved further south. We went out to the Red Sea and anchored in the roadstead of the port. Here, by agreement with the British, guns and machine guns were to be installed on the Mikoyan. But the British did not fulfill this important condition of the agreement, they only installed an old 45-mm cannon, suitable only for salute, from which they conducted training firing. Then, in order to give the icebreaker the appearance of a well-armed vessel, our sailors went to the trick. Logs were obtained from local natives. And the boatswain's team made a semblance of powerful artillery installations from these logs and tarps on the deck. Of course, these sham cannons will not bring any benefit, but when they meet with an enemy ship, they can catch up with fear.

After stopping in Suez, the icebreaker went on, passed the Red Sea and arrived in Aden. But by this time the situation in the world had changed for the worse. When they left Batumi, there was peace in the Far East. On December 7, 1941, Japan suddenly attacked the naval bases of Great Britain and the United States, and the war also engulfed these areas. The sailors became aware that on December 8, the Japanese government declared the La Perouse, Korea and Sangar Straits to be its "marine defense zones", put the Sea of ​​Japan and all exits from it under its control. Japanese ships sank and captured Soviet merchant ships. Thus, the shortest route to the Far East for A. Mikoyan" became almost impossible. Under these conditions, it was decided to go south, to Cape Town, and further west, to their native shores. And then there's the allies once again rendered a "service" - they refused to include the Mikoyan in their convoy, citing the fact that the icebreaker was slow and smoked too much.

On February 1, 1942, in spite of everything, the Mikoyan left Aden and went south alone, heading for the Kenyan port of Mombasa. One day ships appeared on the horizon. An alarming half an hour passed before the situation cleared up. On the opposite course was an English reinforced convoy of thirty pennants. It consisted of cruisers, destroyers and other warships escorting transports.

Two cruisers separated from the convoy, turned their guns towards the Mikoyan, and asked for call signs. Apparently, the British accepted the models of guns as real ones.

Give calls. - Sergeev ordered.

The cruisers approached a few more cables. One of them was attached to the wake. The lead cruiser demanded to stop the cars.

Stop cars! - Sergeev ordered.

At that moment, the lead cruiser fired a salvo from the forward turret. The shells landed at the nose of the Mikoyan. Requests rained down from the cruiser: "Show the name of the ship", "Give the name of the captain." "Who sent you from Aden." Having understood, the British were allowed to follow their course. Further navigation to the port of Mombasa passed without incident. During the stay in the port replenished stocks and, first of all, coal.

We went further, going along the Indian Ocean along the east coast of Africa. The tropical heat exhausted the crew. It was especially difficult to keep watch in the boiler rooms and engine rooms, where the heat rose to 65 degrees. Stokers and machinists doused themselves with water, but this did little to help. March 19 came to Cape Town. We replenished the stocks, loaded more than 3,000 tons of coal in excess of any norms. Mikoyan was ready to move on. The British command informed S.M. Sergeev situation in the Atlantic Ocean. German submarines operate on the Cape Town - New York line. Since the beginning of the year, they have shifted their operations from the shores of Europe, first to the east coast of the United States, and then to the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, the Antilles and Bermuda. The German raiders "Mikhel" and "Stir" are supposedly operating in the South Atlantic. The path to the Panama Canal was extremely dangerous.

raider "Shtir"

And then Sergeev decided to deceive the German intelligence, which, as he believed, was operating here. To this end, he informed local reporters that the Mikoyan was on its way to New York. This message was published in all local newspapers and broadcast on the radio.

On the night of March 26, having silently weighed anchor, the icebreaker left Cape Town. Just in case, they really went for some time, as it were, to New York. But in the desert region of the Atlantic they changed course. Sergeev chose another, longer route - to go around South America, and go to the Far East with the eastern part of the Pacific Ocean. The icebreaker went to the shores of South America. Caught in severe storms. The pitching reached 56 degrees, the ship was thrown like a chip. Sometimes the ocean calmed down to collapse with renewed vigor. The bow superstructure was damaged, heavy steel doors were torn off and carried into the ocean. These were the infamous "Roaring Forties" to sailors. This went on for seventeen days. In constant violent storms they crossed the Atlantic Ocean and entered the Gulf of La Plata. The sailors breathed a sigh of relief.

We passed the rusted superstructures of the German heavy cruiser Admiral Graf Spee, which died here in December 1939. We approached the Uruguayan port of Montevideo. Sergeev requested permission to enter the port. But in response, he was informed that the authorities did not allow warships and armed vessels to visit the port, the fake “guns” of the icebreaker looked so impressive. I had to call a special representative to convince the port authorities that the "armament" was not real. Only after that they received permission to enter the port.

In Montevideo, they replenished supplies, carried out the necessary repairs, and after a rest they set off. And in order to deceive German intelligence, they defiantly headed north. With the onset of darkness, they turned around and rushed south at full speed. Cape Horn was in great danger of being attacked by German raiders or submarines. Therefore, we went to the Strait of Magellan, quite difficult and dangerous for navigation. In frequent fogs, past Tierra del Fuego, with a call at the port of Pointe Arenas, they passed the strait, entered the Pacific Ocean and headed north. In dashes, with short calls to the ports of Coronel and Lota, they arrived at the Chilean port of Valparaiso, replenished supplies, conducted an audit of boilers, machines and mechanisms. After a short rest, we continued north, heading for the Peruvian port of Callao. We replenished our supplies and went to the Panamanian port of Bilbao. We replenished our supplies again, and went to San Francisco.

The icebreaker arrived in San Francisco, and then moved to Seattle for repairs and weapons. The Americans quickly and efficiently repaired the ship. The English cannon was dismantled and thoroughly armed: four 76.2-mm guns, ten 20-mm anti-aircraft guns, four 12.7-mm and four 7.62-mm machine guns were installed.

Icebreaker "A. Mikoyan ”(as of 1942): 1 - stern flagpole, 2. 18 - bale strips, 3 - stern fender, 4 - bollard, 5 - 76 mm guns, 6 - platform for stern guns, 7 20 mm banknotes. 8- towing winch. 9- views for cables. 10 - life raft, 11 compasses, 12 - stern superstructure, 13 - machine guns, 14 - rangefinder, 15 - lifeboats, 16, 21, 22, 30 - manhole covers of coal pits, 17 engine room skylight, 18 - trash sleeve, 20 - superstructure of the engine room. 23— skylight of the boiler room. 24 rear chimney, 25 - superstructure of boiler rooms, 26 - side superstructure, 27 crane with a lifting capacity of 3 tons, 28 ventilation deflector, 29 - outboard ladder, 31 work boat, 32 - forward chimney, 33 - platform for scientific purposes, 34 davit , 35 - navigational direction finder, 36 - searchlight, 37 - den platform, 38 - bow superstructure, 39, 43 - cargo hatch covers, 40 - cargo boom, 41 - breakwater, 42 - windlass, 44 - anchor chain stopper, 45 - cargo boom for lifting anchors to the upper deck. 46 anchors, 47 - bow gun platform, 48 - foremast, 49 - "crow's nest", 50 radio direction finder, 51 radio antenna, 52 mainmast, 53 rescue hose prag, 54 four-bladed propeller, 55 rudder feather.

Icebreaker "A. Mikoyan" in 1942.

From Seattle, the Mikoyan headed for the port of Kodiak in Alaska. From Kodiak I went to the port of Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands. Leaving Dutch Harbor, the Mikoyan rounded the Aleutian Islands to the north and headed for their native shores. Finally, the outlines of distant shores appeared in the haze. A deserted coast appeared - the Chukchi Cape. August 9, 1942 "Mikoyan" entered the Gulf of Anadyr.

This campaign lasted eight and a half months. Behind the stern were three oceans and twelve seas, engulfed in war. Traveled 24759 miles.

Of the four ships that left Batumi on this deadly campaign, the Mikoyan under the command of Captain 2nd Rank Sergeev and the tanker Sakhalin, commanded by Prido Adovich Pomeranets, who arrived in Vladivostok on December 9, 1942, managed to reach their native shores.

Moskva-class tanker to which Sakhalin belonged

On December 19, 1941, the tanker Varlaam Avanesov was attacked by the German submarine U-652 while leaving the Dardanelles for the Aegean Sea. The torpedo hit the stern, the ship began to sink rapidly. 3 surviving boats were launched, first of all, the wounded were put in them, then the rest, including an English officer and two Turkish pilots, sat down. After making sure that no one was left on the ship, Captain Boris Pimenovich Ostashevsky was the last to leave the ship. The crew reached the Turkish coast and was soon returned to their homeland.

Tanker "Varlaam Avanesov"

The Tuapse tanker left Istanbul on January 4, 1942. A week later, undiscovered by anyone, ”arrived at the port of Famagusta on the island of Cyprus. Then he followed the path of the Mikoyan and arrived safely in Cape Town. Captain V.I. Shcherbachev decided to go to the Far East by the shortest route - through the Panama Canal. On July 4, 1942, off the coast of the island of Cuba, the tanker was attacked by the German submarine U-129. It was hit by 4 torpedoes and quickly sank. Ten sailors were killed, the rest, including the captain, escaped.

Tanker "Tuapse", although there may be an inaccuracy. This name was borne by several ships.

The Mikoyan auxiliary cruiser of the Black Sea Fleet was transferred to the Pacific Fleet. The crew said goodbye to their brave commander - Captain 2nd Rank S. M. Sergeev departed for Vladivostok. Captain 3rd rank Yuri Konstantinovich Khlebnikov took command of the Mikoyan.

The rest of the crew was short. Almost immediately received a new combat mission. In Providence Bay, 19 (nineteen) were waiting for his arrival! transports with weapons, ammunition and other military cargo, and warships of the Pacific Fleet: the leader "Baku", the destroyers "Reasonable" and "Furious". "BUT. Mikoyan "was appointed as a regular icebreaker EON-18. In essence, this was the task to which the ship went this way from Batumi.

June 8, 1942 People's Commissar of the Navy Admiral N.G. Kuznetsov signed order No. 0192 for the transition of the special purpose expedition - EON-18.

Mikhail Prokofievich Belousov

The famous polar explorer, Hero of the Soviet Union, Captain 2nd Rank M.P. Belousov, ice captains - well-known navigators of the icebreaker fleet, captain 3rd rank V.I. Voronin and senior lieutenant T.A. Kalinich.

Vladimir Ivanovich Voronin

Ice reconnaissance was assigned to the polar pilot I.I. Cherevichi.

Ivan Ivanovich Cherevichny


The detachment of warships included - the leader "Baku" (commander captain 3rd rank B.P. Belyaev), EM "Reasonable" (commander captain-lieutenant V.V. Fedorov), EM "Furious" (commander captain-lieutenant N.I. . Nikolsky) and EM "Zealous" (commander lieutenant commander G.T. Karuka). The commander of the BEM Pacific Fleet captain 1st rank B.I. was appointed commander of the expedition. Obukhov.


The commander of the EM "Furious" N.I. Nikolsky

The military commissar was appointed battalion commissar P.A. Samoilov, head of the marching headquarters - captain 2nd rank L.K. Bekrenev, flagship ship engineer - engineer captain 2nd rank A.I. Dubrovin (who also participated in the escort of the Stalin and Voikov EM by the Northern Sea Route), flagship engineer Captain 3rd Rank S.I. Samorukov.
The departure of the ships from Vladivostok was scheduled for July 15, 1942. The management of the EON-18 transition, which was supposed to be carried out in 3 stages, was assigned: from Vladivostok to Providence Bay (2877 miles) - to the command and headquarters of the Pacific Fleet. From Providence Bay to about. Dixon (2955 miles) - to the Main Headquarters of the Navy. From about. Dikson to Polyarny (1297 miles) - to the command and headquarters of the Northern Fleet. To facilitate the piloting of ships in the ice, supplying them with fuel and materials, 3 linear icebreakers, 3 tankers and 2 transports were involved. All preparations for the campaign, which took 1.5 months, took place in complete secrecy. The official legend of the purpose of preparing the ships was the relocation of the EM division to Kamchatka. A very limited circle of people knew about the true purpose of EON-18.

On August 13, “A. Mikoyan "and 6 transports, and the next day warships. The expedition gathered in Emma Bay in Chukotka and continued on its way. We passed the Bering Strait in thick fog. They rounded Cape Dezhnev and entered the Chukchi Sea. On August 15 at 16 o'clock they passed Cape Uelen and entered finely broken ice with a density of 7 points. With every mile, the ice conditions became more difficult. It was foggy, the ships continued to move with difficulty. On August 16, we were forced to stop until the situation improved, among the 9-10 point old ice drifting to the southeast. By the morning of August 17, the ships were scattered from each other by the movement of ice.

The destroyer "Reasonable", which was next to the leader "Baku", was carried away from him by 50-60 cables. In the most difficult situation was "Furious". He was jammed with ice, and he began to drift towards the shore. The expedition management feared that the ship might end up in shallow water, inaccessible to the icebreaker. Attempts A. Mikoyan" to rescue the "Furious" from ice captivity were not successful. On the contrary, the work of the icebreaker increased the pressure of ice on the destroyer's hull, which had dents in the skins of both sides. It became clear that A. Mikoyan alone cannot cope with the wiring of so many warships and transports. I had to fight with 9-10 ice fields, either to rescue the destroyers, or to rush to the aid of transports. Help A. Mikoyan” icebreaker “L. Kaganovich", which approached on August 19.

icebreaker “L. Kaganovich”

Bypassing the ice massif from the north, the EON-18 ships joined the caravan of transports in the area of ​​Cape Serdtse Kamen. Further advancement took place along the coastline in rarefied ice. On August 22, behind Cape Dzhekretlan, the ice became lighter, and there was already clear water on the approach to Kolyuchinskaya Bay. With separately floating ice floes. We approached the Lok-Batan tanker, which was at anchor, and began to receive fuel.

tanker “Lok Batan”

At the same time, they received food from the Volga transport.

transport "Volga"

On August 25, having passed Cape Vankarem in heavy ice, the EON-18 ships drifted until dawn. At night, a strong wind caused the ice to move, ships and transports were squeezed by hummocks. How difficult the conditions turned out to be can be judged by the fact that even the icebreaker L. Kaganovich "turned out to be the rudder stock turned 15 degrees.

Only five days later, the icebreakers managed to bring the leader "Baku" and the destroyer "Furious" out of heavy ice to clean water. Both ships were damaged (the screw fittings were torn off, dents were received in the sides, tanks were damaged). Having made their way through the heavy ice, they replenished fuel supplies from the Lok-Batan tanker, without waiting for the "Reasonable", the leader of the "Baku" and the destroyer "Furious" went under their own power through clear water along the edge of the fast ice.

leader of “Baku” in the ice

Due to the shallow depths (5-5.6 m), the progress was very slow: a boat depth measurement was carried out ahead of the ships.

Icebreaker "L. Kaganovich got stuck in heavy ice. But the destroyer Razumny was in the most difficult situation, sandwiched between two large hummocks of multi-year ice.

The ice floes squeezed the hull from the sides, the screws jammed. The personnel were exhausted, fighting for the release of the ship from ice captivity. Day and night, special teams blew up the ice with ammonal, pricked with ice picks. They laid a steam pipeline and tried to cut the ice with a jet of steam. It turned out that the screws were tightly frozen into the ice field. It was possible to free them only with the help of divers: a steam pipeline was brought in and the ice around the propellers was cut off with steam. When the situation became more complicated, the ship's commander allowed the use of depth charges to destroy the ice. Explosions destroyed the ice to its full thickness, started ice anchors and pulled up to them. During the day it was possible to walk 30-40 meters. Icebreaker "A. Mikoyan repeatedly approached the ship, took it in tow, but had no success. He could not break the ice around the destroyer. This was dangerous, as ice accumulated between the icebreaker and the ship's hull, and the icebreaker's pressure could lead to a hole in the hull.

August 31 to help "A. Mikoyan" came the icebreaker "I. Stalin."

linear icebreaker “I. Stalin”

Two icebreakers broke up thick ice in short raids, each time advancing by 2 - 2.5 meters. Work continued from August 31 to September 8. Two channels were punched in the ice to Razumny, but it was not possible to tow the destroyer, since the icebreakers themselves could not move along these channels due to ice compression.

On September 8, the ice situation in the drift area of ​​the Razumny cutting changed. The wind changed direction, the ice began to move, separate leads appeared, and the compression of the ship's hull decreased. "BUT. Mikoyan "took the destroyer in tow and began to slowly bring to clean water. "AND. Stalin" walked ahead, breaking the ice fields, clearing the way for "A. Mikoyan" and "Reasonable". By 14 o'clock on September 9, they reached clean water. The destroyer took fuel from the Locke-Batan tanker, together with everyone headed west along the edge of the fast ice. In the area of ​​Cape Two pilots, they met a heavy ice barrier and stopped, waiting for the icebreaker “L. Kaganovich", which led the destroyer to the Ambarchik Bay.

On September 17, EON-18 ships joined in Tiksi Bay. Here the expedition was ordered to linger. In the Kara Sea, rounding Novaya Zemlya from the north, German ships penetrated - the heavy cruiser "Admiral Scheer" and submarines.

heavy cruiser "Admiral Scheer"

Having learned from the Japanese about the expedition, the Germans decided to conduct Operation Wunderland (Wonderland) in order to intercept and destroy transports, warships and all Soviet icebreakers near the Vilkitsky Strait. At the eastern entrance to the strait, EON-18 and a caravan of ships from Arkhangelsk, escorted by the Krasin icebreaker, were supposed to meet. But "Sheer" met with the icebreaker "Sibiryakov" and he, shot by the raider's artillery, managed to report the appearance of an enemy ship in the Soviet Arctic. The Germans tried to pass the Vilkitsky Strait, overtake the Krasin caravan, and during its meeting with EON-18, destroy the transports and all icebreakers at once. But because of the heavy ice conditions, they abandoned this and headed to the port of Dikson. Having received a rebuff there, the raider hurried to get out of his base in Norway.

On September 19, having taken all measures of combat readiness, the expedition, escorted by the Krasin icebreaker, left Tiksi. Having passed the Vilkitsky Strait, she entered the Kara Sea. On September 24, the expedition arrived in Dikson, where they prepared for further sailing. On October 10, having passed the Yugorsky Shar Strait, EON-18 was brought to clean water and on October 14, 1942, safely arrived in the Kola Bay.

After spending EON-18 in the ice, “A. Mikoyan" together with the icebreakers "I. Stalin", "L. Kaganovich" and "Lenin", approached from the west, turned east and headed for transports coming from the USA with Lend-Lease cargo. Icebreakers made several more voyages from Provideniya Bay to the Kara Sea, leading transports with military cargo. Until the end of navigation along the Northern Sea Route, they conducted 4 convoys of 36 ships to Arkhangelsk and Molotovsk.

In the meantime, the Germans began to expand their minefields at the main traffic junctions of the Soviet Arctic communications. The heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper, destroyers, minelayer, submarines and aircraft took part in the minelaying. Between Kolguev Island and the Kanin Peninsula, four German destroyers laid 180 mines.

November 20, 1942 at the end of navigation along the Northern Sea Route, "Mikoyan", having led a caravan of ships from the Kara Sea to the Barents Sea, headed to Molotovsk (now Severodvinsk). The icebreaker "Lenin" joined him near the island of Vaygach, in winter these ships were to carry domestic and allied transports through the ice of the White Sea.

icebreaker "Lenin"

On November 24, they approached Kolguev Island, where they were joined by two English escort ships TJ-71 and TJ-83, which were supposed to escort to Molotovsk. The convoy headed for the White Sea, "Mikoyan" approached the 42nd meridian. In this polar geographic point, in fact, his circumnavigation ended. At this longitude, far to the south, was Batumi, from which he left a year ago.

The convoy was in anti-submarine escort and headed for the White Sea. The Mikoyan was leading, the Lenin was in the wake, the British ships were on the sides. The sea was stormy, sometimes there was a blizzard. On November 26, at 21:55, a strong explosion occurred under the Mikoyan's stern. He lost control and rolled to the right. The blast wave washed overboard two gunners on duty at the stern gun. On the "Lenin" they heard human screams from the starboard side. The ships could not stop and maneuver to search for people, since it was not clear whether they were in a minefield or the Mikoyan was torpedoed by a submarine.

The powerful hull of the icebreaker withstood the explosion of an enemy mine, and it remained afloat, but was seriously damaged. The explosion mangled the stern part, the upper deck swelled up like a hillock, it began to flood the stern vehicle, artillery cellar No. 7, and a room for winterers. The steering gear, gyrocompass, radio station were out of order, the radio direction finder antenna was torn off. But the shaft lines and propellers survived. We switched to a manual steering drive, and water was pumped out of the engine room. Found out that there are no holes in the hull, but there are cracks. Despite the damage received, poorly managed, walking in the wake of the TJ-71, A. Mikoyan continued on his way. The icebreaker "Lenin" followed him and was ready to take him in tow. From the sea, the ships were covered by the TJ-83, which soon disappeared from view. On the morning of November 28, the tugboat Shkval approached, which was instructed to follow the wake of A. Mikoyan". In the middle of the day, the destroyer Uritsky approached and became part of the guard. Later, a guard ship approached. On the morning of November 29, the convoy arrived in Yokanga Bay. After a diving inspection of the Mikoyan, we weighed anchor and went to the White Sea. Having brought the icebreakers to the young ice, the guard ships turned back. November 30, 1942 "Mikoyan" arrived in Molotovsk and began to repair the wall of the plant number-402. 28,560 miles were covered, of which over 2,000 miles were covered in ice.

Thus ended this unprecedented, unique in audacity campaign. There is no such case in the history of navigation when an unarmed icebreaker, not adapted for ocean, and even more so round-the-world voyages, without any security, went through all combat zones, four oceans and twelve seas, practically making a trip around the globe.

This unique round-the-world trip in the history of the Soviet fleet (not counting nuclear submarines), surprising even by the standards of our time, turned out to be forgotten and was classified until the end of the fifties. For many years, few people knew about this campaign, except for its participants. But most of the brave sailors DID NOT RECEIVE the deserved ones. Among the few awarded were the foreman of the 2nd article Emelyan Gavrilovich Polishchuk and the senior sailor Semyon Petrovich Ruzakov.

At the factory, the icebreaker was repaired as best they could. But it needed a major overhaul. There was no dock capable of accommodating a vessel of this size. With the opening of navigation in 1943 "A. Mikoyan", in agreement with the allies, went for repairs in the United States, to the port of Seattle. The icebreaker passed the Northern Sea Route under its own power, and even led a caravan of ships. Then, now from north to south, a significant part of the Pacific Ocean passed. Upon returning from the repair "A. Mikoyan "was transferred to the Vladivostok Arctic Shipping Company, and included in the militarized ships of the Northern Basin. Provided ice assistance for allied and domestic convoys in the Barents, White, Kara Seas, along the Northern Sea Route, in the ice of the eastern part of the Arctic and the Far East. After the war A. Mikoyan was disarmed. For many years he drove ships in the ice of the Arctic and the Far East. In 1966, it was decommissioned and turned into a bunkering base for the Far Eastern Shipping Company. In 1968, it was dismantled for metal.

Icebreaker "A. Mikoyan. Photo taken in 1956.

unsinkable

Khramchikhin Alexander

In the fall of 1941, the USSR State Defense Committee made a very peculiar decision - to overtake three large tankers from the Black Sea to the North and the Far East (Sakhalin, Varlaam Avanesov, Tuapse) and the linear icebreaker A. Mikoyan. This was due to the acute shortage of tonnage for the transport of goods (domestic and lend-lease). On the Black Sea, these ships had nothing to do, and in the North and the Far East they were desperately needed. That is, the decision itself would be quite correct, if not for one geographical circumstance.
The ships were too large to be transferred along the inland waterways (Volga-Don and Volga-Balta), in addition, the Germans had already disabled the Volga-Balt. Consequently, it was necessary to go through the Sea of ​​​​Marmara to the Mediterranean, then by no means around Europe (it was a guaranteed death either from German submarines or from their own bombers), but through the Suez Canal to the Indian Ocean, then across the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean to the Soviet Far East (from there "Mikoyan" was supposed to continue sailing along the Northern Sea Route to Murmansk). Thus, an almost round-the-world trip was coming, and it had to be carried out in war conditions. The most interesting thing awaited Soviet ships at the beginning of the journey. During the war, almost all merchant ships of all warring countries received at least some weapons (1-2 cannons, several machine guns). Of course, it was purely symbolic, but in some situations (against single aircraft, boats, auxiliary cruisers) it could help. In addition, whenever possible, merchant ships were accompanied by warships. Alas, for the Soviet four, all these options were excluded.

The fact is that from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, the path lay through the Bosphorus, the Sea of ​​​​Marmara and the Dardanelles, belonging to Turkey. And she, observing neutrality, did not let the warships of the warring countries through the straits. Moreover, she also did not let the armed transports through. Accordingly, our ships could not even have a symbolic pair of guns. But it was still half the trouble. The trouble was that the Aegean Sea lying beyond the Dardanelles was completely controlled by the Germans and Italians, who captured both continental Greece and all the islands of the Greek archipelago, through which the Soviet ships had to go south.

Thus, the event was analogous to four soldiers of the rear services, dressed in uniform, but unarmed, sent through the territory occupied by the enemy. Although even such an analogy is lame, it is still easier for a soldier to take cover than for a ship, slow and huge.

The situation was further aggravated by the fact that Turkey remained neutral only because it was afraid of the invasion of Soviet and British troops from the Caucasus and the Middle East. Its leadership almost openly sympathized with Germany. Accordingly, German intelligence operated in Turkey completely freely. And she reported to Berlin who and when proceeded through the Bosphorus.

In general, the campaign of Soviet ships was, in fact, tantamount to their destruction. It seemed that it would be more humane to simply flood them in the roadstead of Batumi, from where the expedition started on the night of November 25-26 under the protection of the leader "Tashkent" and the destroyers "Able" and "Savvy".
On the morning of November 29, having passed through a severe storm, the ships entered the Bosphorus, saying goodbye to the Tashkent and destroyers (of this trio, only the Smart One survived to victory). Soon they stood on the roads of Istanbul. It was relatively safe here. Although all the sailors were well aware of how many attentive eyes were watching them from the shore.

A campaign through hostile waters without weapons and without escort was possible (theoretically) only one by one. It was this option that the Soviet and British military attaches in Istanbul advised. There was nothing more they could do to help. The goal of the first stage of the transition was Cyprus, which at that time belonged to the British. The British, of course, could not give any escort, their Mediterranean fleet already suffered heavy losses, and an attempt to guard Soviet ships would certainly mean the death of several more ships.

The first to start on the night of November 30 was the Mikoyan, commanded by Captain Sergei Sergeev. The hike through the Aegean took place exclusively at night. During the day, the icebreaker huddled in some crevice on one of the countless stone islands of the Greek archipelago and stood there until it got dark again.

Our sailors were lucky in the sense that control over the waters of the Aegean Sea was carried out mainly not by the Germans, but by the Italians, whose mess was completely ours, if not worse. In addition, the Italians at that time did not have radars, neither ground nor ship. Therefore, for several days, "Mikoyan" went south in short dashes, remaining, surprisingly, undetected. In the end, he approached the island of Rhodes, where the main base of the Italian Navy and Air Force was located.

As luck would have it, the night when it was necessary to pass by Rhodes turned out to be moonlit. And right at their base, the Italians nevertheless noticed the icebreaker. Soon three Italian torpedo boats approached him, from one of which Mikoyan was ordered to go to Rhodes.
Now our sailors had two options: to surrender or to be flooded. Because a huge slow-moving unarmed icebreaker had not the slightest chance of getting away from three small speedboats, each of which carried two torpedoes. One torpedo was quite enough to at least deprive the Mikoyan of its course, which in this case was tantamount to death or capture.

However, "Mikoyan" ignored the order to go to Rhodes, did not drown himself and continued to follow his own path. The boats began to attack. Since the icebreaker was not armed, the Italians had nothing to fear, they could attack from a minimum distance. And so they did. But "Mikoyan" managed to dodge all the torpedoes in an incomprehensible way. The boats opened fire on the icebreaker with automatic cannons, but their caliber was too small to cause serious damage to the icebreaker. In impotent anger, the boats left for Rhodes. They were replaced by torpedo bombers. "Mikoyan" dodged them too. Italian planes opened machine-gun fire on the icebreaker, wounded appeared on the ship, a rescue boat caught fire, the tanks of which were filled with gasoline. However, the sailors threw the boat overboard before it exploded.

Having received more than 500 holes during the attacks that lasted a whole day, Mikoyan, however, survived and continued on his way. When he appeared in front of the Cypriot port of Famagusta, English destroyers rushed towards him. The British decided that this was an Italian ship. They did not doubt for a second that the Soviet adventure would end with the immediate death of all four ships, so they did not expect to see an icebreaker. But it was him. The Allies sent the icebreaker to be repaired and armed (now there were no contraindications to this) to the relatively safe Haifa, once again marveling at the abilities of the Russians.

On December 16, after the success of the Mikoyan became known, the tanker Varlaam Avanesov left Istanbul. But here the Turks did not let their potential allies down, and the Germans decided, as was often the case during the war, that the Italians could not be entrusted with a serious matter. When leaving the Dardanelles, the tanker was illuminated by a Turkish coastal searchlight, after which torpedoes from a German submarine hit its side. "Avanesov" quickly sank to the bottom.

The continuation of the operation now seemed outright madness, but the State Defense Committee was not going to cancel the order. On January 4, 1942, Tuapse left Istanbul. He, like the Mikoyan, moved in short dashes, walked only at night, and hid among the islands during the day. And a week later he reached Famagusta, neither the Germans nor the Italians found him at all!

On January 7, the Sakhalin went on a campaign. And, surprising as it may seem, he repeated the success of Tuapse. Nobody found him at all. On January 21, he also reached Cyprus, spending two weeks on the transition, which under normal conditions takes no more than two days.

Such a result, of course, could be considered a miracle. All Soviet ships were obviously doomed. They passed through the waters belonging to the enemy, having neither weapons nor guards, while the enemy was aware of the time of the exit and knew the target to which the ships were following. However, out of four ships, three reached Cyprus, while two were not found at all and, accordingly, did not even have loss of life or damage. However, the fate of the Mikoyan, which withstood daily attacks, but survived (and even none of the sailors did not die) seems to be a real miracle.

Probably, if the Aegean was controlled not by the Italians, but by the Germans, the result for us would have been more deplorable. Nevertheless, no matter how badly the Italians fought, the breakthrough of three Soviet ships from the Black Sea to Cyprus did not cease to be a miracle.

Then the miracles ended, the usual heroism began: the journey to the Far East across the war-torn oceans. Moreover, when the ships left Batumi, there was no war in the Pacific yet, and when they arrived in Cyprus, it was already in full swing. Formally, we did not participate in it, but this did not mean at all that ships under the red flag could not be sunk. The Japanese gladly sank Soviet ships, and sometimes the brave American submariners, guided by the slogan of their commander Admiral Lockwood "Sink them all!", torpedoed the allies, mistaking them for the Japanese.

The British put symbolic cannons and machine guns on the Mikoyan, Tuapse and Sakhalin, and the ships moved further south. Through the Suez Canal, which was constantly attacked by German and Italian bombers. Through the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.

Here, two Soviet tankers made an unexpected contribution to the overall victory of the anti-Hitler coalition. They delivered 15,000 tons of oil products to South Africa, with which the British ships that participated in the capture of Madagascar refueled. This island was of exceptionally high strategic importance. And after the entry of Japan into the war on the side of Germany, there was a threat of its capture. The death of the battleship Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser Repulse in December 1941 near Singapore, the battle in the Java Sea in February and the raid of Admiral Nagumo's aircraft carriers into the Bay of Bengal in April 1942 showed that the British Eastern Fleet was not at that moment in able to fight the Japanese Navy. The French Vichy occupying Madagascar had obvious sympathies for the Axis countries and would have accepted the Japanese with open arms. The loss of Madagascar would mean a complete interruption of communications between Britain and its forces in the Middle East. In this case, Rommel would almost certainly have broken into Asia through the Suez Canal, captured British oil and made his way from the south to our (Baku) oil, which the Germans so fiercely sought from the north, eventually getting Stalingrad. In this case, the position of the USSR and Great Britain would become extremely difficult.

However, the British managed to land on Madagascar in May 1942, preventing such a development of events. Both Sakhalin and Tuapse became participants in this most important, although today almost forgotten victory even in the West.

After the Cape of Good Hope, the paths of the ships parted completely. "Tuapse" moved the shortest route, hoping to go to the Far East through the Atlantic, the Caribbean Sea and the Panama Canal. Alas, as is often the case, the shortest path was not the most optimal. Just at that moment, the German submarines were pushed back from the English shores (the British had already gained some experience in anti-submarine warfare) and moved to the American shores (the Yankees who had just entered the war had no experience yet), where they did what they wanted. On July 4, 1942, Tuapse received 4 torpedoes from one of the German boats off the coast of Cuba and quickly sank, killing 10 crew members.
"Sakhalin" and "Mikoyan" chose a longer and more difficult path in terms of natural and climatic terms - along the south of the Atlantic, around Cape Horn and further - across the entire Pacific Ocean to the north. This gigantic route turned out to be the most reliable.
Sakhalin arrived in Vladivostok on December 9, 1942. Thus, his epic took more than a year. After the war, the tanker returned to the Black Sea.

The Mikoyan, on the other hand, crossed the Pacific Ocean along the coasts of both Americas almost the entire planet from south to north, and on August 9, 1942, entered the Gulf of Anadyr in Chukotka. And immediately after this fantastic campaign he received a combat mission.

The icebreaker now had to ensure the passage along the Northern Sea Route of 19 transports with cargo and three Pacific warships (the leader of the "Baku", the destroyers "Reasonable" and "Furious"). Accordingly, the Mikoyan itself was supposed to be part of the Northern Fleet. Thus, he had to complete the circumnavigation of the world and be back at the front.

Already on August 14, the expedition (“Mikoyan” was helped by two more icebreakers: “Kaganovich” and “Krasin”) set off. The Germans knew about it from the Japanese. And they sent the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer to the Kara Sea in order to defeat it. This story is quite well known, the Sibiryakov steamer stood in the way of the Scheer, at the cost of its death announcing the appearance of a German ship in the Soviet Arctic. Therefore, the expedition settled in Tiksi. After the Sheer left, Mikoyan brought his wards to clean water, led several caravans in the Kara Sea to the east and west, and only in December moved to Severodvinsk.

On December 21, 1942, already in the Barents Sea, the Mikoyan was blown up by a mine laid in September by German ships. Just at that moment, he was almost exactly on the meridian of Batumi. Fortunately, the circumnavigation did not end tragically. The heavily damaged icebreaker managed to reach Severodvinsk. Here it was patched up, and for a full repair it was sent to America, to Seattle. "Mikoyan" again passed the Northern Sea Route (now to the east) and a significant part of the Pacific Ocean (now to the south).
And then for another quarter of a century, Mikoyan drove ships in the Arctic and the Far East.

The combat history of this icebreaker is still shrouded in secrets and mysteries, historians have bypassed the feat accomplished by the crew members of this icebreaker. There are several versions that differ in details, but these differences do not affect the main thing in any way: “Mikoyan” did the impossible and came out of all the troubles as a true hero!

Icebreaker "A. Mikoyan was the fourth in a series of linear icebreakers of the I. Stalin" and was built longer than their counterparts. In June 1941, the icebreaker was tested by the commissioning team of the plant. After that, there should have been State tests and acceptance by the State Commission. Introduction "A. Mikoyan" was planned to be put into operation in the fourth quarter of 1941, after which he was supposed to move to the Far East.

The war that began on June 22 confused all peace plans. At the plant, the conversion of the ship into an auxiliary cruiser began. It was planned to use it for operations on communications and coastal defense from enemy landings. At the same time, adjustment work and testing continued. The pre-war plans had to be forgotten. Captain 2nd rank Sergei Mikhailovich Sergeev was appointed commander of the ship. The crew, formed from the Red Navy and foremen, voluntarily included workers from the factory commissioning team, who wished to beat the enemy "on their own ship."

It was equipped with seven 130-mm, four 76-mm and six 45-mm guns, as well as four 12.7-mm DShK anti-aircraft machine guns.

In terms of the power of artillery weapons, the icebreaker was not inferior to domestic destroyers. Its 130mm guns could fire their nearly 34kg rounds at a range of 25.5km. The rate of fire in this case was 7 - 10 rounds per minute.

At the beginning of September 1941, the re-equipment of the icebreaker was completed, and “A. Mikoyan, by order of the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, was included in the detachment of ships of the northwestern region of the Black Sea, which, as part of the cruiser Komintern, destroyers Nezamozhnik and Shaumyan, a division of gunboats and other ships, was intended to provide fire support to the defenders of Odessa.

September 13 at 11.40 "Mikoyan" anchored and guarded by two small hunters and two MBR-2 aircraft and headed for Odessa, where he arrived safely early in the morning on September 14. Having prepared for battle, Mikoyan weighed anchor. At 12 hours 40 minutes the ship lay down on a combat course. The gunners wrote on the shells: "Hitler - personally." At 12 hours 45 minutes they fired the first sighting shot. Having received the data of the spotters, they switched to defeat. The enemy noticed the appearance of the Mikoyan in the sea, and it was successively attacked by three torpedo bombers. But observers noticed them in time. With a skillful maneuver, the commander dodged the torpedoes. The artillerymen continued to fire on the enemy. Operating near Odessa, artillerymen suppressed firing points, helped the defenders repel the attacks of enemy tanks and infantry. Several firings were carried out per day, firing up to 100 shells at the enemy. In the first five firings alone, 466 shells of the main caliber were fired at the enemy. Anti-aircraft gunners repelled numerous attacks by enemy aircraft.

When the situation near Odessa was especially difficult, the cruisers "Red Caucasus", "Red Crimea". "Chervona Ukraine" and the auxiliary cruiser "Mikoyan" carried out 66 firing and brought down 8500 shells on the enemy. The ships fired mainly at invisible targets at a distance of 10 to 14 cables.

The commander of the Mikoyan and the crew were able to fully master the new, unusual maneuvering capabilities of the ship. All the days of operation near Odessa, the ship was constantly attacked by enemy aircraft. Special maneuverability helped to quickly get out of the shelling, evade the bombs of enemy aircraft attacking a heavy, wide ship, clearly visible to the pilots, which seemed to them an easy prey. In one of the raids, Mikoyan was attacked by three Junkers at once. One of them was hit by anti-aircraft fire, caught fire and began to fall on the ship. "Mikoyan" maneuvered, the enemy plane crashed into the water.

Operating near Odessa, Mikoyan, with its low speed of 12 knots (unlike cruisers, leaders and destroyers), did not receive direct hits from bombs and shells and did not lose a single person. But from frequent forcing and changing moves, shaking close breaks, six of the nine boilers received damage to the hot water tubes. This is where the high skill of sailors, former factory specialists, came in handy. They proposed, without leaving the combat position, one by one removing the damaged boilers from action, to eliminate the malfunctions. First, in an asbestos suit, the engineer-captain F.Kh. entered the furnace of the first boiler at a temperature of 270 degrees. Khamidulin. In a short time, working at night, in asbestos suits and kapok vests moistened with water, the boiler machinists (stokers) eliminated the malfunction - they minted all the pipes.

Supporting the Maritime Army with fire, the Mikoyan auxiliary cruiser received gratitude from the command of the Odessa defensive region. And only having used up all the ammunition, on the night of September 19 he left for Sevastopol.

September 22 "Mikoyan" took part in the landing at Grigorievka. "Mikoyan" had a large draft and a lower full speed than warships. Therefore, he was included in the artillery support detachment. Together with the gunboats "Dniester" and "Red Georgia" supported the paratroopers of the 3rd Marine Regiment. Later, the crew found out: with their fire they suppressed 2 enemy batteries. In the area of ​​​​the village of Dofinovka, anti-aircraft gunners shot down two enemy Yu-88 aircraft. Before dawn, the Mikoyan, which had a low speed, headed for Sevastopol. By the way, gunners “A. Mikoyan” for the first time in the fleet, with the fire of their main caliber, they began to repel enemy air raids. At the suggestion of the commander of the BC-5, senior engineer-Lieutenant Jozef Zlotnik, the embrasures in the gun shields were increased, the elevation angle of the guns became larger. Autogen, however, did not take armor steel. Then the former shipbuilder Nikolai Nazaratiy cut through the loopholes with the help of an electric welding unit.


Prior to receiving the order to evacuate the Odessa defensive region, Mikoyan, being continuously under air attacks and fire from coastal batteries, together with the ships of the fleet continued to fire at enemy positions. Then he moved to Sevastopol, where the damaged boilers and mechanisms were qualitatively repaired at plant No. 201.

In October, "Mikoyan" received an order to move to Novorossiysk. In Sevastopol, a military unit, 36 barrels of long-range naval guns and ammunition were loaded onto it. The guns were very heavy, and only Mikoyan could transport them. Having repulsed the attack of enemy aircraft at the crossing, on October 15 the ship arrived in Novorossiysk.

The auxiliary cruiser also took part in the defense of Sevastopol, systematically making flights from Novorossiysk. Delivering reinforcements, military supplies to the besieged city, he took out the wounded and the civilian population. On it, the personnel and weapons of the 2nd brigade of torpedo boats were evacuated, they began to take out the dismantled artistic and historical value - “Panorama of the Defense of Sevastopol. In October, more than 1,000 wounded were evacuated on it. In early November, the headquarters of the fleet moved to Novorossiysk on the Mikoyan. The ship also fired at enemy positions near Sevastopol.

Then "Mikoyan" moved to Poti. On November 5, they received an unexpected order to completely remove weapons. The Red Navy, foremen, officers, helping the workers of the local factory to disarm the ship, were dissatisfied with this and openly spoke out against sitting in the rear when, at this difficult time, their comrades were fighting to the death with the enemy. They did not know, and should not have known, that preparations for a covert operation had begun. In five days, all the guns were dismantled. Auxiliary cruiser A. Mikoyan” again became a linear icebreaker. The personnel of the artillery combat unit was decommissioned ashore. Was decommissioned ashore and part of the command staff. Soon they demanded to hand over machine guns, rifles and pistols. Captain 2nd rank S.M. Sergeev with great difficulty managed to leave 9 pistols for officers. Of the weapons on board was also a hunting rifle.

A special counterintelligence department of the fleet began to work on the ship. Each sailor was checked in the most thorough way. After such a check, some people were missing in the cockpits. To replace arrived new, proven. Documents, letters and photographs of relatives and friends were taken away from everyone.

The crew was ordered to destroy, burn the military uniform. In return, they gave out a variety of civilian clothes from the warehouses. Everyone was photographed and soon issued nautical books (passports) of civilian sailors. The naval flag was lowered and the state flag raised. The team was lost in conjecture about all these actions. But no one gave an explanation.

These oddities were connected with the fact that in the fall of 1941 the USSR State Defense Committee made a very peculiar decision - to overtake three large tankers (Sakhalin, Varlaam Avanesov, Tuapse) and a linear icebreaker from the Black Sea to the North and the Far East "BUT. Mikoyan. This was due to an acute shortage of tonnage for the transport of goods (domestic and lend-lease). On the Black Sea, these ships had nothing to do, and in the North and the Far East they were desperately needed. That is, the decision itself would be quite correct, if not for one geographical circumstance. It was necessary to go through the Sea of ​​​​Marmara to the Mediterranean, then by no means around Europe (it was a guaranteed death either from German submarines or from their own bombers), but through the Suez Canal to the Indian Ocean, then across the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean to the Soviet Far East ( from there, Mikoyan was to continue sailing along the Northern Sea Route to Murmansk). Thus, an almost round-the-world trip was coming, and it had to be carried out in war conditions. The most interesting thing awaited the Soviet ships at the beginning of the journey. During the war, almost all merchant ships of all warring countries received at least some weapons (1-2 cannons, several machine guns). Of course, it was purely symbolic, but in some situations (against single aircraft, boats, auxiliary cruisers) it could help. In addition, whenever possible, merchant ships were accompanied by warships. Alas, for the Soviet four, all these options were excluded.

The fact is that from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, the path lay through the Bosphorus, the Sea of ​​​​Marmara and the Dardanelles, belonging to Turkey. And she, observing neutrality, did not let the warships of the warring countries through the straits. Moreover, she also did not let the armed transports through. Accordingly, our ships could not even have a symbolic pair of guns. But it was still half the trouble. The trouble was that the Aegean Sea lying beyond the Dardanelles was completely controlled by the Germans and Italians, who captured both continental Greece and all the islands of the Greek archipelago, through which the Soviet ships had to go south.

The icebreaker arrived in Batumi. Following him, three tankers came here: "Sakhalin", "Tuapse" and "Varlaam Avanesov". All three are identical in terms of displacement, carrying capacity and with approximately the same full speed.


On November 25, 1941, at 3:45 a.m., a convoy consisting of an icebreaker, three tankers and escort ships put to sea under cover of night. For some time they walked towards Sevastopol, and then headed for the Bosphorus. The head was the leader "Tashkent" under the flag of Rear Admiral Vladimirsky Behind him, in the wake - "Mikoyan" and tankers. To the right of the icebreaker was the destroyer "Able", to the left - the destroyer "Savvy". But warships could only accompany the caravan to Turkish territorial waters.

The transition to the Bosphorus, 575 miles long, was planned to be completed in three days. On the morning of November 29, the Turkish shores appeared. 10 miles from the Bosporus, the guard ships raised the flag signal "We wish you a happy voyage" and turned back. In the Turkish territorial waters, we met patrol ships, which for some time walked side by side, looking for weapons on the decks of ships.

Soon the caravan anchored in the roads of Istanbul. The representatives of the Turkish port authorities who arrived at the Mikoyan were not too interested in the cargo and did not look into the hold. We walked along the upper deck, in the cabin of Captain 2nd Rank Sergeev, we filled out the necessary documents in such cases, drank a glass of Russian vodka and left the ship.

The Soviet naval attaché in Turkey, captain of the 2nd rank Rodionov, and with him the assistant to the English naval attache, captain-lieutenant Rogers, climbed the Mikoyan. A meeting of ship captains took place in Sergeyev's cabin. Rodionov announced the decision of the State Defense Committee, in which the captains were given the task of breaking through to the port of Famagusta on the island of Cyprus, to the allies. The tankers were ordered to temporarily go to the disposal of the allied command, and the icebreaker to go to the Far East.

According to an agreement between the Soviet government and the government of Great Britain, from the Dardanelles to Cyprus, ships were to accompany British warships. But no protection, although they promised, they could not give. The English Mediterranean fleet suffered heavy losses in the battles. The British did not consider it possible to risk their ships for the sake of protecting the Soviet icebreaker and tankers. This was reported to the captain of the Mikoyan by the British representative. After a short exchange of opinions, we decided that it was time to carry out the plan: each ship should go to the Far East separately, at indefinite intervals, with different coordinates of the routes laid out on navigational charts ...

In a special instruction handed by Rodionov to Captain 2nd Rank Sergeev, it was categorically ordered: “Do not surrender the ship in any case, drown it with an explosion, do not surrender to the crew.”


CM. Sergeev, commander of the icebreaker "A. Mikoyan"

A dark night fell on November 30th. The windlass began to work quietly, and the anchor-chain slowly crawled into the hawse, the icebreaker began to slowly move forward. As soon as the anchor broke off the ground, Sergeev gave a "slow move". In the night, the Mikoyan glided like a silent shadow away from the shore. Having entered the fairway, the commander gave "full speed". In order not to run into boats floating without any lights or any floating object in the dark, Sergeev ordered additional observers to be posted on the bow and on the sides. In the darkness, the smoke coming from the chimneys was not particularly noticeable. Moreover, the stokers tried their best - not a single spark flew out of the pipes. Luckily, it soon started to rain. Half an hour later, Istanbul was left behind.

In total darkness, without lights, they passed the Sea of ​​Marmara and approached the gorge of the Dardanelles. The strait is winding and narrow, navigation is quite difficult in terms of navigation. Experienced pilots, even during the day, led ships here with great care. And the icebreaker was sailing without a pilot at all. In the middle of the strait, near Çanakkale, navigation conditions are extremely difficult, especially at night - here the strait sharply narrows to 7 cables and makes two sharp turns. In the most dangerous place, captain-mentor I.A.Boev took the helm and successfully navigated the icebreaker. We went further, adhering to the European coast.

Went out to the Aegean. "Mikoyan" rushed to the south at full speed. In the early morning, as close as the depth allowed, we stumbled upon the rocks of a small, deserted island in the Gulf of Edremit. The boilers were extinguished so that the smoke from the chimneys would not betray itself. From the icebreaker, the island of Lesbos was viewed with the Italian naval base of Mytilini located on it. The day passed in anxious anticipation, but no one appeared nearby, only the silhouettes of ships flashed by several times far on the horizon. Everything went well.

As soon as it got dark, "Mikoyan" set off. Ahead lay the islands of the Greek Archipelago. Near the island of Samos, Mikoyan passed literally under the noses of Italian patrol ships, which illuminated the sea with searchlights. Only fresh weather, slanting rain and poor visibility helped our sailors. We safely passed only two miles from the enemy naval base. We stopped for a day, squeezed into a gap between the rocks of two deserted islands. There was no doubt that the enemy was looking for the missing icebreaker, the sailors were preparing for the worst.

On previous nights, our sailors were lucky, the weather was inclement, and the Italians, not the Germans, controlled the Aegean, and there were no locators. Therefore, the icebreaker, not surprisingly, remained undetected. But on the third night in the evening, surprisingly clear weather set in, the full moon shone in the night sky. And ahead was the island of Rhodes, which was the main naval base of the Italians in this area of ​​the Mediterranean Sea. German aviation was also based here, bombing the Suez Canal and British bases and ports. It was the most dangerous place.

On December 3, the icebreaker carefully emerged from its hiding place and rushed to the breakthrough at full speed. Hostile Rhodes was approaching. "A. Mikoyan" entered the strait between the Turkish coast and the island of Rhodes and headed for the small island of Kastellorizo, beyond which the expanses of the Mediterranean Sea opened.

First, a small schooner appeared, and for some time walked not far, and then turned aside and disappeared. Soon a reconnaissance aircraft appeared, circled the icebreaker several times and flew over it, the pilot apparently looked out and determined whether there was weapons, and flew away towards the island.

It became clear that the Mikoyan had been found and identified. From the bridge, all posts received an order from the commander: - if the Nazis try to capture the icebreaker and try to climb to the upper deck, beat them with crowbars, pikes, axes, hooks, beat them until at least one of the team is alive. Kingstons open at the very last moment, when there will be nothing and no one to defend. An alarming expectation was established on the Mikoyan. Time seemed to slow down. The sailors peered into the expanses of the sea and the heavenly heights until the pain in their eyes. The tense silence was broken by the loud cry of the signalman from the crow's nest.

I see two dots!

On the bridge and on the deck, everyone began to look in the indicated direction.

"Two torpedo boats coming at us!" the signalman shouted again.

"Italian," said senior assistant Kholin.

The alarm signal sounded and everyone ran to their places. The huge, slow and unarmed icebreaker had not the slightest chance of getting away from two high-speed boats, each of which had two torpedoes.

The boats were approaching. The chief boatswain, midshipman Groysman, just in case, hung out the Turkish flag. But it was not possible to cheat. There were no such ships, let alone an icebreaker, in Turkey. The boats approached at a distance of less than a cable and lay down on a parallel course. From one of them they asked through a megaphone in broken Russian.

- Whose ship?

By order of Sergeev, the boiler mechanic, the Crimean Tatar Khamidulin, who knew Turkish, shouted an answer into the mouthpiece in the direction of the boat.

- Turkish ship, we are going to Smyrna! What do you want?

In response, a machine-gun burst thundered for warning, but Khamidulin managed to hide. A command sounded from the boat.

- Immediately proceed to Rhodes under our escort!

On Mikoyan, no one thought to follow the orders of the enemy, and he continued to go his own way. Then the boats began to prepare for torpedo attacks. The fact that the icebreaker was absolutely unarmed, the Italians knew and acted fearlessly. The first boat, clearly counting on success, rushed into the attack, as at a training ground. And it was here that the commander came in handy with the extraordinary maneuverability of the icebreaker and the experience gained in battles of evading enemy attacks. As soon as the boat reached the calculated firing point, a second before the volley, the command of the commander was heard: “Rudder on board!” When the boat fired two torpedoes, the icebreaker was already turning almost on the spot towards the deadly cigars, and they passed along the sides. Leaving the attack, the boat fired at the icebreaker with a machine gun. Then the second boat went on the attack. But he acted differently - first he fired one torpedo. At the time of the salvo, all three cars worked out "Full back". The icebreaker almost stopped, and the torpedo passed close to the bow. And on the bridge the engine telegraph had already rang: "Full speed ahead." The second torpedo, fired at intervals, passed by, almost hitting the stern.

The boats did not lag behind, opened fire from all machine guns and small-caliber guns. The boats were getting closer and closer to both sides. The commander of the on-board broadcast ordered: “Prepare the ship for sinking!” But the boats soon stopped firing and moved aside. The sailors were delighted with this, but, as it turned out, prematurely. Three torpedo bombers appeared, radioed by the failed boats. The first immediately lay down on a combat course, a torpedo was visible under its fuselage. The situation seemed hopeless. And then the unexpected happened. Senior bilge officer Methodiev rushed to the hydromonitor and turned it on. A powerful wall of water, shining in the moonlight like silver, like an explosion, unexpectedly splashed out towards the plane. The pilot abruptly turned away and, gaining altitude, dropped a torpedo, which fell far from the icebreaker. In the same way, the second torpedo bomber was knocked off course. A third dropped a swirling torpedo by parachute, which began to describe a death spiral. But with a quick maneuver, Sergeev managed to evade her as well. Turned the ship in the opposite direction, and then turned sharply to the side. The torpedo passed.

Unsuccessful torpedo attacks infuriated the enemy. Now they could not sink the icebreaker, but they did not dare to board. Firing from all machine guns and small-caliber cannons, boats and planes attacked the icebreaker. But his body was invulnerable to bullets and small-caliber projectiles. On boats and planes, they realized this and concentrated fire on the bridge and the wheelhouse, trying to disrupt control. Ruzakov, the helmsman, who was wounded, was taken to the infirmary, and the helmsman Molochinskiy took his place. The wounded signalman, foreman of the 2nd article, Poleshchuk, gasped and fell onto the deck. The senior political instructor M. Novikov was wounded ...

Having used up their ammunition, the planes flew away, but the boats continued to conduct a fierce shelling. On the Mikoyan, fires began to break out in different places. Sailors of fire-fighting groups under the leadership of the senior assistant commander, captain-lieutenant Kholin, ignoring the shelling, extinguished the fires. But it was half the trouble. Due to numerous holes in the pipes, the draft in the furnaces of the boilers fell. Despite all the efforts of the stokers, the steam pressure in the boilers began to fall, and the speed gradually began to decrease. A serious danger loomed over the icebreaker.

For several hours, evading continuous attacks, Mikoyan stubbornly walked towards its goal. Fortunately, the weather began to deteriorate, clouds hung over the sea, the wind rose, waves appeared (obviously, the weather did not allow the planes to take off again). But the enemy did not let up, from his next turn, a rescue boat caught fire, in the tanks of which there were almost two tons of gasoline, the explosion of which could have serious consequences. Noticing the high flames and thick smoke covering the icebreaker, the Italians decided that it was all over with him. But they were wrong. The sailors rushed to the burning boat, chopped off the fasteners. The boat was thrown overboard before it exploded, sending up a column of fire and debris. And at that moment, a downpour of unimaginable force began. Under its veil, and managed to break away from the enemy. Taking the explosion of the boat for the death of the icebreaker, the Italians raised several pieces of debris, a lifebuoy with the inscription "Mikoyan" and left for Rhodes.

When the danger had passed, they began to put the icebreaker in order and repair the damage. First of all, they began to close up holes in the pipes in order to create traction in the boiler furnaces and increase the speed. Hastily made wooden plugs began to be hammered into the holes, everything that came to hand. But all this quickly burned out in the heat of hot gases. I had to start all over again. And at the boilers, exhausted, the stokers worked, throwing coal into the insatiable furnaces. "Mikoyan" survived, having received about 150 different holes, continued to go to his goal.

As soon as the coast of Cyprus appeared on the morning of December 4, English destroyers with pointed guns rushed towards them. Senior Lieutenant Hanson radioed his ships and soon everything was cleared up. It turned out that the radio stations in Berlin and Rome had already managed to inform the whole world about the destruction of a large Soviet icebreaker. Believing this message, the British mistook the icebreaker for an enemy ship. The British did not doubt for a minute that the Soviet adventure with a breakthrough would end in the inevitable death of all four ships. Therefore, they did not expect to see an icebreaker. Accompanied by destroyers, Mikoyan, having traveled more than 800 miles, arrived in Famagusta. The icebreaker was scary to look at. The tall chimneys were scorched, and smoke billowed from numerous hastily patched holes. The navigation bridge and superstructures are riddled with holes. The sides are stained with pockmarks of hits. The upper deck, covered with teak wood, littered with fumes and soot, was almost black. The task of the GKO to break through to Cyprus was completed. What through London was reported to Moscow.

The British met the Mikoyan unfriendly, they were not allowed to enter the port, they ordered to anchor behind booms. Captain Sergeev demanded an immediate explanation. At any moment, the ship could be attacked by an enemy submarine or aircraft. A representative of the British naval command arrived on board. He looked at the holes received and informed the commander that the Mikoyan should immediately weigh anchor and, under the escort of the corvette, go to Beirut. The ship, which had endured an unequal hard fight with the enemy, was not given the opportunity to patch holes and repair damage. We reached Beirut calmly. But even here they received an order: without delay, continue moving to Haifa. This surprised the commander of the Mikoyan, he knew that Haifa was subjected to frequent German air raids. In Haifa, they said goodbye to the captain-mentor I.A.Boev. Having completed his task, he returned to his homeland.

Here "Mikoyan" was moored for repairs. But two days had not passed before the port authorities demanded to change the parking place. A week later I had to move to another place. For 17 days the ship was rearranged 7 times. It became clear to everyone: the British were using a Soviet ship to check for magnetic mines in the port.

Repairs were in full swing when a disaster occurred in the port. Many warships, transports and tankers have accumulated in Haifa. On December 20, a powerful explosion suddenly thundered in the port and a powerful blow shook the Mikoyan. Almost simultaneously, the ship's bells rang out loudly, announcing an "emergency alarm". The sailors who ran out onto the deck of the icebreaker saw a terrible picture - the Phoenix tanker, as it was established later, was blown up by a bottom mine. Above him rose fire and clouds of thick smoke. There was a second explosion that broke the hull of the tanker into two parts, and it went into the water, slowly drifting towards the Mikoyan. From the broken hull, thousands of tons of burning oil poured onto the surface of the water, which began to envelop the icebreaker in a ring of fire. The stern of the Phoenix was on fire, and the surviving sailors crowded and screamed on the bow, some jumped into the water, swam, trying to escape to the shore or to the Mikoyan.

The icebreaker could not move - of the three machines, two onboard were under repair and were dismantled, and the stern machine was in a "cold" state. There was only one boiler in operation. The slightest delay threatened imminent death. The sailors rushed to the hydromonitors and powerful jets of water began to drive away the burning oil, knocking down the flames. Gave away the moorings. The stokers rushed to the boiler rooms - to urgently breed steam in the boilers; machinists - to the engine room to prepare the car to start.

For three days a huge fire raged in Haifa. Our sailors were surprised that neither the British command nor the local authorities even tried to fight the fire. As soon as the fire went out on its own, the senior naval commander in Haifa sent the commander of the Mikoyan, Captain 2nd Rank Sergeev, a “Gratitude Letter”, in which he expressed admiration for courage and dashing. Manifested by the crew in a particularly dangerous situation. In newspapers published in Haifa and Port Said, the British government expressed its deep gratitude to Soviet sailors for rescuing British soldiers. When the consequences of the unprecedented conflagration were more or less eliminated, repairs continued on the icebreaker.

On January 6, Mikoyan left Haifa and headed for Port Said, where a caravan of ships was formed to cross the Suez Canal. On January 7, the icebreaker, taking a pilot on board, moved further south. We went out to the Red Sea and anchored in the roadstead of the port. Here, by agreement with the British, guns and machine guns were to be installed on the Mikoyan. But the British did not fulfill this important condition of the agreement, they only installed an old 45-mm cannon, suitable only for salute, from which they conducted training firing. Then, in order to give the icebreaker the appearance of a well-armed vessel, our sailors went to the trick. Logs were obtained from local Arabs. And the boatswain's team made a semblance of powerful artillery installations from these logs and tarps on the deck. Of course, these sham cannons will not bring any benefit, but when they meet with an enemy ship, they can catch up with fear.

After stopping in Suez, the icebreaker went on, passed the Red Sea and arrived in Aden. But by this time the situation in the world had changed for the worse. When they left Batumi, there was peace in the Far East. On December 7, 1941, Japan suddenly attacked the naval bases of Great Britain and the United States, and the war also engulfed these areas. The sailors became aware that on December 8, the Japanese government declared the La Perouse, Korea and Sangar Straits to be its "marine defense zones", put the Sea of ​​Japan and all exits from it under its control. Japanese ships sank and captured Soviet merchant ships. Thus, the shortest route to the Far East for "A. Mikoyan" became almost impossible. Under these conditions, it was decided to go south, to Cape Town, and further west, to their native shores. And then the allies once again rendered a “service” - they refused to include the Mikoyan in their convoy, citing the fact that the icebreaker was slow and smoked too much.

On February 1, 1942, in spite of everything, the Mikoyan left Aden and went south alone, heading for the Kenyan port of Mombasa.

Then further along the Indian Ocean along the east coast of Africa. The tropical heat exhausted the crew. It was especially difficult to keep watch in the boiler rooms and engine rooms, where the heat rose to 65 degrees. Stokers and machinists doused themselves with water, but this did little to help. March 19 came to Cape Town. We replenished the stocks, loaded more than 3,000 tons of coal in excess of any norms. Mikoyan was ready to move on. The British command informed S.M. Sergeev of the situation in the Atlantic Ocean. German submarines operate on the Cape Town-New York line. Since the beginning of the year, they have shifted their operations from the shores of Europe, first to the east coast of the United States, and then to the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, the Antilles and Bermuda. The German raiders "Mishel" and "Stire" are supposedly operating in the South Atlantic. The path to the Panama Canal was extremely dangerous.

And then Sergeev decided to deceive the German intelligence, which, as he believed, was operating here. To this end, he informed local reporters that the Mikoyan was on its way to New York. This message was published in all local newspapers and broadcast on the radio.

On the night of March 26, having silently weighed anchor, the icebreaker left Cape Town. Just in case, they really went for some time, as it were, to New York. But in the desert region of the Atlantic they changed course. Sergeev chose another, longer route - to go around South America, and go to the Far East with the eastern part of the Pacific Ocean. The icebreaker went to the shores of South America. Caught in severe storms. The pitching reached 56 degrees, the ship was thrown like a chip. Sometimes the ocean calmed down to collapse with renewed vigor. The bow superstructure was damaged, heavy steel doors were torn off and carried into the ocean. These were the infamous "Roaring Forties" to sailors. This went on for seventeen days. In constant violent storms they crossed the Atlantic Ocean and entered the Gulf of La Plata. The sailors breathed a sigh of relief.

We passed the rusted superstructures of the German heavy cruiser Admiral Graf Spee, which died here in December 1939. We approached the Uruguayan port of Montevideo. Sergeev requested permission to enter the port. But in response, he was informed that the authorities did not allow warships and armed vessels to visit the port, the fake “guns” of the icebreaker looked so impressive. I had to call a special representative to convince the port authorities that the "armament" was not real. Only after that they received permission to enter the port.

In Montevideo, they replenished supplies, carried out the necessary repairs, and after a rest they set off. And in order to deceive German intelligence, they defiantly headed north. With the onset of darkness, they turned around and rushed south at full speed. Cape Horn was in great danger of being attacked by German raiders or submarines. Therefore, we went to the Strait of Magellan, quite difficult and dangerous for navigation. In frequent fogs, past Tierra del Fuego, with a call at the port of Pointe Arenas, they passed the strait, entered the Pacific Ocean and headed north. In dashes, with short calls to the ports of Coronel and Lota, they arrived at the Chilean port of Valparaiso, replenished supplies, audited boilers, machines and mechanisms. After a short rest, we continued north, heading for the Peruvian port of Callao. We replenished our supplies and went to the Panamanian port of Bilbao. We replenished our supplies again, and went to San Francisco.

The icebreaker arrived in San Francisco, and then moved to Seattle for repairs and weapons. The Americans quickly and efficiently repaired the ship. The English cannon was dismantled and thoroughly armed: four 76.2-mm guns, ten 20-mm anti-aircraft guns, four 12.7-mm and four 7.62-mm machine guns were installed.

From Seattle, the Mikoyan headed for the port of Kodiak in Alaska. From Kodiak I went to the port of Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands. Leaving Dutch Harbor, the Mikoyan rounded the Aleutian Islands to the north and headed for their native shores. Finally, the outlines of distant shores appeared in the haze. A deserted shore appeared - the Chukchi Cape. August 9, 1942 "Mikoyan" entered the Gulf of Anadyr.

The rest of the crew was short. Almost immediately received a new combat mission. In Providence Bay, 19 (nineteen) were waiting for his arrival! transports with weapons, ammunition and other military cargo, and warships of the Pacific Fleet: the leader "Baku", the destroyers "Reasonable" and "Furious". "A. Mikoyan" was appointed as a regular icebreaker EON-18. In essence, this was the task to which the ship went this way from Batumi.


On August 26, 1941, the linear icebreaker "Anastas Mikoyan" hastily departed from the outfitting wall of the Nikolaev Shipbuilding Plant named after Marty and, heavily burying its nose in the oncoming waves, headed for Sevastopol. There was no solemn orchestra on the pier, it was not greeted by enthusiastic spectators. The ship quickly went to sea to the accompaniment of the roar of anti-aircraft guns, reflecting the next raid of enemy bombers. Thus began his long journey. A path full of dangers, mystical signs and incredible rescues.

Since the beginning of the 1930s, the USSR government has paid close attention to the Arctic. The pragmatic Stalinist people's commissars clearly understood that the transportation of goods by the northern waterway from Europe to the Asia-Pacific region and back promises great prospects, but only if regular shipping is organized there. By order of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR on October 17, 1932, the Main Directorate of the Northern Sea Route was established. Of course, the development of such a complex route was impossible without the construction of a powerful icebreaking fleet. Using the experience of operating the Ermak and Krasin icebreakers, Soviet designers developed a new type of vessel that met all the requirements of the most modern shipbuilding. Lead line icebreaker I. Stalin "was launched from the slipway of the Leningrad plant named after S. Ordzhonikidze on April 29, 1937, and on August 23 of the following year he went on his first Arctic voyage. Following him, two more ships of the same type were laid down: in Leningrad - “V. Molotov", in Nikolaev - "L. Kaganovich. The last, third, ship from this series was also laid down in Nikolaev at the plant named after A. Marty in November 1935 under the name “O. Yu. Schmidt”. The icebreaker was launched in 1938, and the following year it was renamed “A. Mikoyan". The ship turned out great. For example, only high-quality steel was used for the manufacture of the hull, the number of frames was doubled. Such a technical innovation significantly increased the strength of the sides. The thickness of the steel sheets in the bow reached 45 mm. The ship had a double bottom, four decks and 10 watertight bulkheads, which ensured the survivability of the ship when any two compartments were flooded. Three steam engines with a capacity of 3300 hp were installed on the ship. each. Three four-bladed propellers provided a maximum speed of 15.5 knots (about 30 km / h), the cruising range was 6,000 nautical miles. The icebreaker had nine Scottish-type fire-tube boilers with coal heating and several power plants. Rescue equipment included six lifeboats and two motor launches. The ship was equipped with a powerful radio station, which had a huge range. During the design and construction, much attention was paid to living conditions. For the crew of 138 people, comfortable two- and four-bed cabins, a wardroom, dining rooms, a library, a shower, a bath with a steam room, an infirmary, a mechanized kitchen were provided - all this made the new icebreaker the most comfortable in the fleet. The acceptance of the ship by the State Commission was scheduled for December 1941. However, all plans were confused by the war.

In order to avoid the destruction of the icebreaker by enemy aircraft on the stocks of the plant in Nikolaev, the incompletely completed ship had to be urgently put out to sea. The most experienced sailor, captain of the 2nd rank S.M. was appointed to command the ship. Sergeyev. Sergei Mikhailovich fought in Spain, was the chief of staff of the destroyer division of the Republican fleet. For skillful leadership of military operations and personal courage, he was awarded two Orders of the Red Banner.

By decision of the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet, the Mikoyan, which arrived in Sevastopol, was converted into an auxiliary cruiser. It was equipped with seven 130-mm, four 76-mm and six 45-mm guns, as well as four 12.7-mm DShK anti-aircraft machine guns. Such weapons could be the envy of any domestic destroyer. The firing range of 34-kilogram shells of "Mikoyan" hundred and thirty millimeters was 25 kilometers, the rate of fire was 7-10 rounds per minute. At the beginning of September 1941, the armament of the ship was completed, the RKKF Naval flag was hoisted on the ship. The ship was manned according to the wartime staff, the deputy for political affairs, senior political instructor Novikov, the commander of the navigational combat unit, captain-lieutenant Marlyan, arrived on the ship, captain-lieutenant Kholin was appointed senior assistant. The gunners were taken under the command of Senior Lieutenant Sidorov, the machine command was taken over by Lieutenant Engineer Zlotnik. But the most valuable replenishment for the warship that became a warship was the workers of the commissioning and repair teams of the plant named after. Marty. These were real masters of their craft, highly qualified specialists who knew their ship literally to the last screw: Ivan Stetsenko, Fedor Khalko, Alexander Kalbanov, Mikhail Ulich, Nikolai Nazaratiy, Vladimir Dobrovolsky and others.

In the autumn of 1941, German and Romanian aviation dominated the skies over the Black Sea. The anti-aircraft guns and machine guns mounted on the icebreaker were serious weapons, sufficient to equip a small destroyer or a nimble guard. Anti-aircraft weapons were clearly not enough to reliably cover a huge vessel with a displacement of 11,000 tons, a length of 107 m and a width of 23 m. In order to improve protection against air attacks, the ship's craftsmen tried to adapt the main battery guns for firing at aircraft. It was a revolutionary decision; before that, no one had fired at air targets with the main caliber. The commander of the BS-5, senior engineer lieutenant Józef Zlotnik, proposed an original method for implementing this idea: to increase the vertical aiming angle, increase the loopholes in the gun shields. Autogen did not take armor steel, then the former shipbuilder Nikolai Nazaratiy completed all the work using electric welding in a few days.

The armed icebreaker, which has now become an auxiliary cruiser, was included by order of the Commander of the Black Sea Fleet in the detachment of ships of the northwestern region of the Black Sea, which, as part of the cruiser Komintern, destroyers Nezamozhnik and Shaumyan, a division of gunboats and other floating units, was intended to provide fire support to the defenders of Odessa. Upon arrival at the Odessa naval base, the ship was immediately included in the city's defense system. For several days, the guns of the auxiliary cruiser A. Mikoyan "crushed the positions of the German and Romanian troops, simultaneously reflecting enemy air raids. One day, when the icebreaker entered the position for artillery firing, it was attacked by the Junkers link. One aircraft was instantly shot down by anti-aircraft fire, the second caught fire and headed towards the ship, apparently the German pilot decided to ram the ship. The cruiser, which practically did not have a course and was deprived of the possibility of maneuver, was doomed, but ... literally a few dozen meters from the side, the Junkers suddenly pecked with its nose and fell into the water with a fireball. Having used up all the ammunition, the icebreaker went to Sevastopol to receive supplies.

Another combat mission assigned to the cruiser "A. Mikoyan", consisted of artillery support for the famous landing near Grigorievka. On September 22, 1941, the ship smashed the enemy with its volleys in the zone of operations of the 3rd Marine Regiment. The well-aimed fire of the gunners suppressed several artillery batteries, destroyed a number of fortifications and strongholds of the enemy, and destroyed a large number of manpower. For excellent shooting "Mikoyanovtsy" received gratitude from the command of the Primorsky Army. After the completion of the heroic defense of Odessa, the combat service of the ship continued. The icebreaker participated in the defense of Sevastopol, where, fulfilling the requests of the city defense headquarters, it repeatedly opened fire on enemy troops, but the main occupation of the auxiliary cruiser was regular raids between Sevastopol and Novorossiysk. The vessel, which had a large volume of internal living quarters, was used to evacuate the wounded, civilians and valuable cargo. In particular, it was on the Mikoyan that a part of the historical relic was taken out - the famous panorama of Franz Roubaud "The Defense of Sevastopol".

In early November 1941, the ship was withdrawn from the theater of operations "to carry out an important government task," as stated in the received radiogram. The icebreaker arrived at the port of Batumi, where the guns were dismantled for a week, and then the naval ensign was replaced with the state one. Auxiliary cruiser "A. Mikoyan" again became a linear icebreaker. Part of the crew left for other ships and the land front, the ship's artillery was used to equip the battery near Ochamchira.

In the autumn of 1941, the USSR State Defense Committee made a very peculiar decision - to overtake from the Black Sea to the North and the Far East three large tankers (Sakhalin, Varlaam Avanesov, Tuapse) and the linear icebreaker A. Mikoyan. This was due to the acute shortage of tonnage for the transport of goods. On the Black Sea, these ships had nothing to do, but in the North and the Far East they were urgently needed. In addition, due to the instability of the front and a number of defeats by the Red Army from the Wehrmacht in the south of the country, there was a real threat of capture or destruction of both the military and civilian fleet of the USSR, concentrated in the Black Sea ports. The decision was absolutely justified, only its implementation looked absolutely fantastic. Crossing by inland waterways to the North was impossible. The ships could not pass through the river systems due to too much draft, besides, in the fall of the 41st, Finnish troops reached the White Sea-Baltic Canal in the area of ​​​​the Povenets lock system and tightly blocked this waterway. Consequently, it was necessary to go through the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, the Mediterranean Sea, the Suez Canal, then around Africa, cross the Atlantic, the Pacific Ocean and arrive in Vladivostok. Even in peacetime, such a transition is quite difficult, and then there is war.

But the most "interesting" Soviet ships were ahead. During the fighting, civilian ships used as troop transports usually received some kind of weaponry - a couple of guns, several anti-aircraft machine guns. Of course, such equipment did little against a serious enemy, but with such weapons a convoy of several units was quite capable of driving a single destroyer away from itself, repelling an attack by several aircraft, and protecting itself from an attack by torpedo boats. In addition, the transports were almost always accompanied by warships. For Soviet sailors, this option was excluded. The fact is that Turkey has declared its neutrality, forbidding the passage of warships of all warring countries through the Straits. No exception was made for armed transports. In addition, Turkey was terribly afraid of the invasion of Soviet and British troops: the example of Iran was before her eyes. Therefore, the frank sympathies of the Ankara government were on the side of Germany, which so far was confidently winning on all fronts. Axis spies of all stripes felt at home in Istanbul. Moreover, the Aegean was controlled by Italian and German ships based on numerous islands. On about. A detachment of destroyers was stationed in Lesvos, and a base for torpedo boats was located on Rhodes. Air cover was provided by bombers and torpedo bombers of the Italian Air Force. In a word, a 25,000-mile trip across five seas and three oceans to unarmed ships was tantamount to suicide. However, an order is an order. On November 24, the teams said goodbye to their relatives, and the transition began. To confuse enemy reconnaissance, at the exit from the port, a small caravan of three tankers and an icebreaker under the escort of the leader "Tashkent" and the destroyers "Able and Quick-witted" took a direction north, towards Sevastopol. After waiting for darkness, the convoy abruptly changed course and moved at full speed towards the Straits. A fierce storm broke out at sea, soon in the darkness the ships lost each other, and the icebreaker had to make its way through the raging sea alone. In the Bosphorus "A. Mikoyan "came on its own, the raid boat spread a boom, and on November 26, 1941, the ship anchored in the harbor of Istanbul. The city impressed the sailors with its "non-military" life. The streets were brightly lit, well-dressed people walked along the embankments, music was heard from numerous cafes. After the ruins and conflagrations of Odessa and Sevastopol, everything that happened looked simply unreal. In the morning, the Soviet naval attache in Turkey, Captain 1st Rank Rodionov, and a representative of the British military mission, Lieutenant Commander Rogers, arrived on the icebreaker. According to a preliminary agreement between the governments of the USSR and Great Britain, the icebreaker and tankers to the port of Famagusta in Cyprus were to be escorted by British warships. However, Rogers said that England did not have the ability to escort ships and they would have to travel without protection. It was like betrayal. Whatever the motives of the "enlightened navigators" were guided by, the crews of Soviet ships faced the most difficult task - to break through on their own. After conferring, the captains of the icebreaker and the arrived tankers decided to go along the given route one by one, at night, away from the "knurled" shipping routes.

At 01.30 am on November 30, the icebreaker began to choose the anchor. A Turkish pilot came on board, when told where the ship was going, he just shook his head sympathetically. Cutting through the oily waves with its massive stem, the Mikoyan moved cautiously south. The night was very dark, it was raining, so his departure was unnoticed by enemy reconnaissance. Istanbul is left behind. At the ship's meeting, Captain Sergeev announced the purpose of the trip, explained what the sailors could expect at the crossing. The crew decided, when trying to capture the ship by the enemy, to defend themselves to the last, using all available means, and if it fails to prevent the capture, to sink the ship. The entire weapons arsenal of the icebreaker consisted of 9 pistols and one hunting "Winchester", primitive pikes and other "deadly" weapons were hastily manufactured in the ship's workshops. The emergency party rolled out fire hoses on the decks, prepared boxes of sand and other fire fighting equipment. A reliable watch of communist volunteers was posted near the Kingston valves.

Observers closely watched the sea and air, in the engine room the stokers tried to make sure that even one spark did not fly out of the chimneys. Radio operators Koval and Gladush listened to the air, periodically picking up intense conversations in German and Italian. During daylight hours, Captain Sergeev skillfully hid the ship in the area of ​​​​an island, approaching the shore as close as the depth allowed. At dusk, in a storm, the Soviet sailors quietly managed to pass the island of Samos, where the enemy had an observation post equipped with powerful searchlights.

On the third night, the moon came out, the sea calmed down, and the icebreaker, desperately smoking from its pipes due to low-quality coal, became immediately noticeable. The most dangerous point of the route was approaching - Rhodes, where the Italo-German troops had a large military base. During the night they did not have time to slip through the island, there was nowhere to hide, and Captain Sergeyev decided at his own peril and risk to go further. Soon the signalmen noticed two fast approaching dots. A combat alarm was played on the ship, but what could an unarmed ship do against two Italian torpedo boats? Sergeev decided to go for a trick. The boats approached and from there, with flags according to the international code, they asked for belonging and a destination. There was no point in answering this question, the waving red flag with a golden hammer and sickle spoke for itself. However, in order to gain time, the mechanic Khamidulin climbed onto the wing of the bridge and answered in Turkish through a megaphone that the Turkish ship was heading to Smyrna. Flags were hoisted on the boats with the signal "Follow me". The direction proposed by the Italians so far coincided with the intended course, and the icebreaker obediently turned around behind the lead boat, organizing a small caravan: the boat was in front, followed by the Mikoyan, and another boat was following the stern. The icebreaker was moving slowly, hoping to approach Rhodes as late as possible in the evening, to all demands to increase speed, Captain Sergeyev refused, citing a breakdown in the car. The Italians, apparently, were very pleased: still, to capture a whole ship without firing a shot! As soon as the mountains of Rhodes appeared on the horizon, Sergeev gave the command: “Full speed!”, And the Mikoyan, picking up speed, turned sharply to the side. Apparently, the captain of the enemy "schnellboat" had already begun to celebrate the victory in advance, as he had committed an absolutely illogical act: launching entire garlands of missiles into the sky, he turned his ship across the course of the Soviet ship, substituting his board. Maybe in a peaceful environment this would have worked, but there was a war, and for a linear icebreaker, to which meter-long ice is seeds, the Italian “tin” did not create problems in the event of a collision. "Mikoyan" boldly went to the ram. Dodging the collision, the enemy ship moved parallel to the course of the Soviet ship, almost near the very side, the sailors of the boat rushed to the machine guns. And then a powerful jet of a fire hydrant hit from the icebreaker, knocking down and stunning enemy sailors. The second boat opened fire from all barrels on the sides and superstructure of the icebreaker. The wounded helmsman Rusakov fell, he was taken to the infirmary, sailor Molochinskiy immediately took his place. Realizing that cannon fire was ineffective, the Italians turned around and moved into position for a torpedo attack. It seemed that the huge unarmed ship was finished. According to eyewitnesses, Captain Sergeyev literally rushed along the wheelhouse from side to side, ignoring the whistling bullets and flying glass fragments, monitoring all the maneuvers of the boats and constantly changing course.



Italian torpedo boat MS-15

Here the first two torpedoes rushed towards the ship, quickly shifting the helm, Sergeev turned the icebreaker with his nose in their direction, thus significantly reducing the area of ​​\u200b\u200bdestruction, and the torpedoes passed by. The Italian boatmen launched a new attack, already from two sides. One torpedo was also dodged, while the other went right on target. What happened next can't be explained as a miracle. The icebreaker, having made some unthinkable circulation in a few seconds, managed to turn around astern to the rushing death and throw off the torpedo with a wake stream, which, flashing in the foaming water, passed literally a meter from the side. Having shot all the ammunition, the boats went to Rhodes in impotent anger. They were replaced by two Cant-Z 508 seaplanes. Having descended, they dropped specially designed torpedoes on parachutes, which, when splashed down, begin to describe concentric narrowing circles and are guaranteed to hit the target. However, this ingenious idea did not help either, both "cigars" missed the target. Having descended, the hydroplanes began to fire at the aircraft from cannons and machine guns. Bullets pierced the crew boat's gas-filled tank, and burning fuel poured onto the deck. The emergency party tried to fight the fire, but heavy shelling from aircraft forced the sailors to constantly take cover behind the superstructures. The signalman Poleshchuk was wounded. And then, in the midst of an almost clear sky, a squall unexpectedly came up, accompanied by heavy rain. The downpour knocked down the flames a little, a team of daredevils rushed to the source of the fire. Sailor Lebedev and boatswain Groysman were desperately cutting ropes with axes. A moment - and the burning boat flew overboard. Behind him went fire-damaged lifebuoys and other damaged equipment. Hiding behind a veil of rain, the icebreaker moved farther and farther away from the enemy shores, carrying more than 500 holes. On the air, the roll call of enemy destroyers that went out in search was heard, but the Soviet ship was no longer available to them.



Seaplane of the Italian Air Force Cant z-508

The English naval base of Famagusta, contrary to expectations, met the Mikoyanites unfriendly. The English officer who went on board questioned the Soviet captain for a long time and meticulously about what had happened, shaking his head in disbelief: after all, the Italians had just found the wreckage of the ill-fated boat and charred lifebuoys and trumpeted the whole world about the sinking of the Russian icebreaker. Finally, the Englishman gave the order to proceed to Beirut. Shrugging in bewilderment, Sergeev led the icebreaker along the indicated course, but even there the authorities, without even giving a day of parking to patch holes and eliminate the consequences of the fire, redirected Mikoyan to Haifa. The sailors knew that this port was constantly exposed to Italian air raids, but there was no choice, the ship needed repairs. Having successfully completed the passage, in the first days of December, the Mikoyan dropped anchor in the port of Haifa. Repairs began, however, the next day the British authorities asked to rearrange the ship. A day later, again, then again. For 17 days, the Soviet ship was rearranged six times! Deputy Sergeev Barkovsky recalled that, as it turned out later, in this way the allies “checked” the port waters for the presence of magnetic mines set by enemy aircraft, using the icebreaker as a test subject.

Finally, the repair was completed, the team was preparing to sail. The first to leave the port was the large English tanker "Phoenix", filled to capacity with oil products. Suddenly, a powerful explosion was heard below him: an Italian mine went off. The sea was aflame with burning oil. The crews of the ships standing in the port and the port employees rushed to run in a panic. "Mikoyan" did not have a move, the flames that had crept close had already begun to lick the sides. The sailors, risking their lives, tried to knock him down with jets of hydraulic monitors. Finally, the car came to life, and the icebreaker moved away from the pier. When the smoke cleared a little, a terrible picture appeared to the Soviet sailors: two more tankers were on fire, people crowded at the stern of one of them. Turning the ship around, Sergeyev headed towards the ships in distress. Having ordered the emergency party to shoot down the flames with water from fire hoses and in this way pave the way to the emergency ship, the captain of the Soviet ship sent the last remaining boat to rescue those in distress. People were taken out on time, the fire had almost reached them, the ship's doctor immediately began to provide assistance to the burnt and wounded. The signalman transmitted a message that English anti-aircraft gunners were cut off by fire on the breakwater. The ship's boat picked up people who were escaping by swimming from the water, and there was clearly not enough time to use it to help the English gunners. Sergeev's gaze fell on the port tugboats standing near the pier, abandoned by their teams. On the speakerphone, the captain called for volunteers. Crew members, senior assistant Kholin, Barkovsky, Simonov and some others on a rowboat through the fire went to the pier. The Soviet sailors started the tug's engine, and the small boat boldly moved through the burning oil to the breakwater. Help came to the British anti-aircraft gunners in a timely manner: boxes of ammunition had already begun to smoke in their positions. The fire continued for three days. During this time, the crew of the Soviet vessel managed to save crews from two tankers, soldiers from gun crews, and provide assistance to several ships. Just before the icebreaker left the port, an English officer arrived on board and handed over a letter of thanks from the British admiral, who thanked the icebreaker's personnel for the courage and steadfastness shown in rescuing British soldiers and sailors of foreign ships. According to a preliminary agreement, the British were supposed to put several guns and anti-aircraft machine guns on the icebreaker, however, even here the “noble lords” remained true to themselves: instead of the promised weapons, a single saluting cannon of the 1905 edition was installed on the Mikoyan. For what? The answer sounded mockingly: "Now you have the opportunity to salute nations while entering foreign ports."

The icebreaker passed the Suez Canal at night, bypassing the protruding masts of sunken ships. Fires blazed on the shores: another German air raid had just ended. Ahead - Suez, where "A. Mikoyan" was supposed to receive the necessary supplies. Loading of coal, and this is 2900 tons, was carried out manually, captain Sergeev offered help: to use the ship's cargo mechanisms and allocate part of the team for work. A categorical refusal followed from the British authorities, they tried to prevent contact between Soviet people and local residents for fear of "red propaganda". During loading operations, an incident occurred that outraged the entire team. In his diary, sailor Alexander Lebedev wrote the following: “One of the Arabs, who was running with a basket of coal along the shaky gangway, stumbled and flew down. He fell backwards on the sharp iron side of the barge and apparently broke his spine. The ship's doctor Popkov rushed to his aid. But the overseers blocked his way. Picking up the groaning loader, they dragged him into the hold of the barge. To Sergeyev's protest, a dapper young English officer replied with a cynical smile: "The life of a native, sir, is a cheap commodity." The current "bearers of universal values" had excellent teachers.

On February 1, 1942, the Indian Ocean opened its arms to the ship. The transition was very difficult. On an icebreaker completely unsuitable for sailing in the tropics, the team had to make superhuman efforts to complete the task. From the sweltering heat, the engine crew had a particularly hard time: the temperature in the rooms reached 65 degrees Celsius. To make it easier to keep watch, the captain ordered the stokers to be given cold barley beer and water with ice, slightly “tinted” with dry wine. One day, signalmen noticed several smokes on the horizon. Soon, two English destroyers approached the icebreaker and, for some unknown reason, fired a volley of guns. Although the fire was fired from a distance of one and a half cables (about 250 m), not a single shell hit the ship! Finally managed to establish contact with the brave sons of the "mistress of the seas." It turned out that they mistook the Soviet icebreaker for a German raider, although from such a meager distance, the absence of any weapons on board the Mikoyan and the waving red flag could not be seen only by the blind.

Finally, the first planned stop, the port of Mombasa. Sergeev turned to the British commandant with a request to ensure the passage of the icebreaker through the Mozambique Strait, to which he politely received a refusal. To the absolutely fair remark of the Soviet captain that the path along the east coast of Madagascar was seven days longer, in addition, according to the same British, Japanese submarines were seen there, the commodore mockingly replied that Russia was not at war with Japan. Sergeev promised to complain to Moscow, and the Englishman reluctantly agreed, even providing a naval officer, Edward Hanson, for communication. However, the British resolutely refused to provide sea charts of the strait to Soviet sailors. The icebreaker moved forward again, winding between the mass of small islands off the African coast. One day the ship got into a difficult situation, shoals were found everywhere along the course. And then a miracle happened again. Boatswain Alexander Davidovich Groisman spoke about it this way: “During the most difficult passage through the reefs, a dolphin nailed to the ship. There was no card. Sergeev ordered to turn on the music, and the dolphin under it, like a brave pilot, led the sailors to safe places.

In Cape Town, the icebreaker was warmly received, the press has already published a note about his exploits. There were no problems with the supply, a convoy was formed in the port, which was supposed to go towards South America. Sergeev turned to the flagship with a request to enroll his ship in the caravan and take it under guard, but this time he was refused. Motivation - too slow speed. To a completely reasonable objection that the convoy includes vessels with a speed of 9 knots, and even after such a long passage the Mikoyan confidently gives 12 knots, the English officer, after a little hesitation, issued another excuse: coal is used as fuel on a Soviet ship, smoke from pipes will unmask the ships. Having finally lost faith in the sincerity of the actions of the allies, Sergeev ordered to prepare for the withdrawal. In the late evening of March 26, 1942, the icebreaker silently weighed anchor and disappeared into the darkness of the night. In order to at least somehow protect themselves from possible meetings with German raiders, ship craftsmen built models of guns on the deck from improvised materials, giving the peaceful ship a menacing look.

The transition to Montevideo turned out to be very difficult, a merciless eight-point storm lasted 17 days. It should be noted that the icebreaker was not adapted to sailing in rough seas. It was a very stable ship, with a large metacentric height, which contributed to the rapid and sharp rolling, sometimes the roll reached critical values ​​​​of 56 degrees. Waves caused a number of damages on the deck, several accidents with boilers occurred in the engine room, but the sailors withstood this test with honor. Finally, the muddy waters of La Plata Bay appeared ahead. Captain Sergeev requested permission to enter the port, to which he received an answer that neutral Uruguay does not allow foreign armed ships to enter. It was necessary, in order to eliminate the misunderstanding, to call the representatives of the authorities in order to show them that the "armament" on the ship was not real. Linear icebreaker "A. Mikoyan was the first Soviet ship to visit this South American port. His appearance caused an unprecedented stir among the locals, and when the sailors in full dress, solemnly lined up on Independence Square, laid flowers at the monument to the national hero of Uruguay, General Artigas, their adoration of the Russians reached its climax. Delegations, excursions, just a lot of curious citizens frequented the ship. Soviet sailors were perplexed by the constant requests to remove their uniform caps and show their heads. It turns out, as the “free” press kept repeating to the townsfolk for years, every bolshevik was obliged to have a pair of flirtatious horns on his head.

The further journey of the heroic icebreaker was uneventful; in the summer of 1942, A. Mikoyan entered the port of Seattle for repairs and supplies. The Americans armed the ship well, installing three 76 mm guns and ten 20 mm Oerlikon assault rifles. On August 9, 1942, the icebreaker anchored in the Gulf of Anadyr, having made an unparalleled three hundred day passage, 25 thousand nautical miles long.



Icebreaker A. Mikoyan in the Kara Sea

Many books and articles have been written about the transatlantic convoys that traveled across the North Atlantic to the ports of Soviet Russia during the war years. However, few people know that the caravans of transports also went along the Northern Sea Route. For some reason, this important episode of the war is almost forgotten by domestic historians and writers.

On August 14, 1942, the Special Purpose Expedition (EON-18), consisting of 19 transports, three warships: the leader "Baku", the destroyers "Reasonable" and "Furious", accompanied by the icebreakers "A. Mikoyan" and "L. Kaganovich", left the Bay of Providence and headed west. By that time, Captain M.S. Sergeev left for Vladivostok, where he took over a warship. The most experienced polar explorer Yuri Konstantinovich Khlebnikov was appointed to command the icebreaker. Due to the most difficult ice conditions, the advance of the convoy was carried out slowly. In the Chukchi Sea, the flagship of the Arctic icebreaker fleet I. Stalin came to the aid of the caravan. With the help of three icebreakers, on September 11, EON-18 managed to break into the East Siberian Sea, where replenishment of supplies and fuel was waiting for the ships in Ambarchik Bay. After a week of heroic efforts, the caravan arrived in Tiksi Bay, where the Krasin icebreaker joined them. In Tiksi, the ships had to linger; in the Kara Sea, the German battleship Admiral Scheer and several submarines began to carry out Operation Wunderland to search for and destroy EON-18. On September 19, having declared increased combat readiness on the ships, the caravan moved west in the direction of the Vilkitsky Strait. Soviet sailors were ready for any surprises, they had already received a message about the heroic death of the icebreaker "A. Sibiryakov". Fortunately, meetings with the German raider and submarines were avoided.

After EON-18 was safely brought to clean water, the A. Mikoyan icebreaker again set off east, to Sharka, where another group of ships that left the Yenisei Bay was waiting for it. Then the icebreaker made several more voyages to the Kara Sea, escorting caravans and single ships breaking through to the ports of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk. The navigation of the winter of 1942-43 was completed in mid-December, by which time the Soviet icebreakers had led about 300 ships through the ice. On December 21, the Mikoyan rounded Kanin Nos, and an entry appeared in the ship's log: "We crossed 42 degrees east longitude." In this geographical point, in fact, the circumnavigation of the ship, which began a year ago, ended.

The vessel followed at full speed into the throat of the White Sea, skirting the low shores of Kolguev Island. Suddenly there was a strong explosion: the icebreaker hit a mine. In September 1942, the Nazis, annoyed by the unsuccessful raid of the Admiral Scheer, sent the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper to the Kara Sea and adjacent areas, accompanied by four destroyers that set up several minefields. On one of them, the icebreaker "A. Mikoyan" was blown up. The explosion mangled the entire stern of the ship, severely damaging the engine room, the steering gear was disabled, even the poop deck was swollen with a mound. However, the margin of safety incorporated in the design of the vessel bore fruit, the Mikoyan remained afloat, the shaft generators and propellers survived. A repair team was immediately organized from experienced shipbuilders who had worked on the construction of the icebreaker. Repairs were carried out right at sea, among the ice. Finally, it was possible to set in motion, and the ship, driven by machines, independently arrived at the port of Molotovsk (now Severodvinsk). Every icebreaker was needed for the winter ice campaign in the White Sea. And the workers of the shipyard No. 402 did not disappoint. Applying hull cementing, replacing cast parts with welded parts, they managed to make complex repairs in the shortest possible time. The icebreaker again went on a voyage, providing escort for caravans across the White Sea.

In order to finally eliminate the consequences of the explosion, a more complete repair was required. There was no large dock and technical facilities in the North of Soviet Russia at that time, and by agreement with the American side, with the start of navigation in the summer of 1943, A. Mikoyan went to a shipyard in America, in the city of Seattle. The icebreaker went east on its own, and even led a caravan of ships.

After the repair, the A. Mikoyan line icebreaker provided escort for ships in the Eastern sector of the Arctic, and after the war, for 25 years, drove caravans along the Northern Sea Route and the harsh Far Eastern waters.

All four pre-war icebreakers of the same type served the country faithfully for a long time. "BUT. Mikoyan”, “Admiral Lazarev” (former “L. Kaganovich”) and “Admiral Makarov” (former “V. Molotov”) were excluded from the lists of the icebreaking fleet of the USSR in the late 60s. The Sibir, which underwent a deep modernization in 1958 in Vladivostok (this was the name given to the flagship I. Stalin), was scrapped only in 1973.


Photos used:Photos from the Internet