Category Archives: russia

Pour one out for Mr. Reilly

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Unless you are under a rock, you have no doubt heard of the passing of Irish-born Kiwi actor Sir Nigel John Dermot “Sam” Neill.

While everyone else is talking Jurassic Park, we, of course, remember Mr. Neill as the fictional though composite Australian commando Sergeant Dan Costello in Attack Force Z (his first movie) and as the very real Sidney George Reilly in the BBC’s Reilly, Ace of Spies, before moving on to Capt. Vasily Borodin in The Hunt for Red October.

Even as a lad, the extensive use on-screen of a suppressed M3 Grease Gun was nothing short of magic, while Reilly was even more Bond than Bond.

While Mr. Neill never served in the military, his pop was a Sandhurst-minted career officer in the Royal Irish Fusiliers (Princess Victoria’s) for over 20 years, including WWII, and the actor was born near and grew up in the regimental depot in Gough Barracks, Armagh.

In 2013, he purchased a Bannockburn vineyard and renamed it ‘‘The Fusilier” in honor of his father and the regiment itself, which had been amalgamated out of existence in 1968.

So, be it a New Zealand pinot or a nice Irish whisky, raise one to Sam, lads.

Here’s hoping he found his “round American woman, rabbits, pickup truck, and recreational vehicle.”

Azov Tsushima

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The Battle of the Sea of Azov 2026 by Ivan Aivazovsky

According to the ISW, Ukrainian forces have struck no less than 90 Russian commercial shipping vessels (mostly coastal tankers but also a smattering of tugs, cargo ships, ferries, and floating dredgers) in the shallow Sea of Azov at the top of the Black Sea during the week between July 6th to 13th as part of their intensified campaign to isolate occupied Crimea.

Ninety.

As detailed by Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces (USF) Commander Major Robert “Magyar” Brovdi, the forces involved included the 9th Kairos Battalion of “Magyar’s Birds” of the 414th Separate Unmanned Strike Aviation System Brigade, along with elements of the 412th “Nemesis,” 413th “RAID,” and 427th “Rarog” USAS Brigades.

The release from USF included a 4-minute-long sizzle reel (below), with the Ukrainians seen specifically targeting the wheelhouses of the Russian vessels, going for mobility/mission kills, rather than aiming to sink the ships outright. That makes a UAV with a small 10-pound warhead super effective. This speaks to preserving the important ecological diversity of the region and its local fisheries, which include significant sturgeon (caviar) farming operations.

Some 35 vessels were hit in the first 96 hours of the offensive alone.

Update from Sal, make that 136 strikes through the 15th:

 

It is brutal and systematic, with seemingly zero air defense provided.

Meanwhile, Russia’s efforts to field AAA in any sort are probably exemplified by this recent clip of a new soldier with a mobile air defense team being introduced to a ground-mounted Yak B .51 caliber 4-barreled rotary machine gun (normally mounted on the Mi-24 Hind gunship). It is a gas-operated gun that fires at 4,000 rounds per minute and normally has a 10-ton gunship to absorb the recoil…

Ukraine Goes Dirty Dozen with a Twist

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Ukraine’s ground war with Russia is a charnel house that requires something like 30,000 new/returning recruits every month to keep the trenches semi-full. It is a war that has always been a numbers game.

An innovative method that the troop-poor country is turning to is the old enlisting prisoners bit, be it from among civilian or military inmate populations.

You know, the whole Dirty Dozen thing.

It is something that is actually pretty common in Soviet military history, with the Shtrafbat Penal Units of the Great Patriotic War being infamous. During that conflict, no less than 65 independent criminal battalions and 1,028 penal companies were established; however, pardons generally only came after being too wounded to fight any more, with the bonus of being sent to a regular infantry unit on the front once/if you healed, so there is that. Of the more than 427,000 who served in Soviet punishment units during the war, very few were still standing in 1946, and even those lucky bastards usually got a post-war ticket to the gulag for their service.

However, the difference with Ukraine is that they are actively recruiting in women’s prisons.

It makes sense on a modern battlefield when you need things like drone makers and operators and lots of EW/SIGINT folks.

A decent report on the matter from DW:

 

30,000 Miles From Moscow to Marseille

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In late 1915, it was hit on an idea for the soldier-rich but equipment-poor Imperial Russian Army– which had lost immense supplies of pre-war arms and ordnance in their series of sweeping defeats delivered by the Germans in the 12 months from Tannenberg in August 1914 to the capture of Warsaw in August 1915– that one of the best ways to help its allies in France was to send men there to fight with French-supplied arms.

While the French asked for a 400,000-strong Russian Expeditionary Force, the REF led to the piecemeal dispatch of ultimately five picked two-regiment brigades, plus an artillery brigade and an engineer battalion, some 44,319 volunteers in all.

The 1st Russian Special Brigade, 180 officers and 8,762 enlisted under Maj. Gen. Nikolai Aleksandrovich Lokhvitsky, left Moscow on 3 February 1916 and, during the coldest stretch of the Russian winter, set out East across the Trans-Siberian Railway to board four waiting French ships that would take them to the Western Front via the Indian Ocean and Suez Canal.

30,000 miles of the 1st Russian Expeditionary Brigade to France, 1916

After 80 days and 30,000 miles of travel by rail and ship, on 20 April 1916, the first two ships (Amiral Latouche-Tréville and Himalaya) carrying the lead elements of the brigade arrived in Marseille, having passed through Samara, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Harbin, Dairen, Saigon, Colombo, and Port Said.

It would be the first time that armed Russian formations had marched through France since Alexander I’s boys came in 1814 to get rid of Napoleon.

While only the officers and NCOs shipped out with their personal arms (handguns) and a picked “colors company” was equipped with Mosins, by and large, the Russians came sans small arms.

The newly arrived Russians were billeted at the training camp at Mailly-le-Camp in Champagne, where they learned to use their new French equipment, which included primarily Mle 1874/80/14 Gras rifles (often with Mle 66 bayonets) that had been rechambered to fire 8mm Lebel ammunition, Hotchkiss machine guns, gas masks, and Adrian helmets.

Besides the nearly 50,000 Gras rifles used by the REF (M1874/80/14 8mm conversions), France shipped another 400,000 (mostly original 11mm models) directly to Russia to help alleviate shortages. Even though a hopelessly obsolete design by 1916, it was better than no rifle at all

After the 3rd brigade (the 2nd and 4th brigades had been sent to the Salonika front in the Balkans) arrived in France in September 1916, it was merged into a “square” four-regiment division under Major Gen. Mikhail Ippolitovich Zankevich at Mourmelon-le-Grand, then sent to the Front.

Russian units took part in the Battle of Verdun. After serious losses during the April offensive of 1917 on the Western Front, amounting to 5,183 soldiers and officers killed and wounded– more than a quarter of their strength– the Russian 1st and 3rd Brigades were withdrawn to rest in the La Courtine military camp near Limoges.

Although the Revolution back home in Russia eventually caught up to the REF aboard– resulting in a widespread mutiny that had to be put down by French forces in September 1917– reformed Polish, Lettish (Latvian) and Russian Legions emerged from the REF’s ashes in 1918 and continued to fight until the Armistice. The two-battalion Russian Legion of Honor (Légion d’Honneur Russe) was notably folded into the colonial troops of the Moroccan Division (Division marocaine, 1re D.M), and provided notable service and ended the war on occupation duty in Worms, Germany, in 1919.

Some 9,000 who elected in March 1918 to continue fighting as their country had signed the peace with the Central Powers at Brest-Litovsk, were sent to North Africa to perform hard labor in construction projects under the watchful eyes of the French Foreign Legion. As the war continued, nearly 1,000 of these later requested to go back to the front!

Sent back home in waves via French ships, the trio of legions would form key parts of the Latvian, Polish, and White Russian armies in early 1919. By 1920, those left in North Africa were repatriated home, or given the option to join White Russian exiles then streaming into Europe.

Of the six brigade and division commanders of the REF that remained with the force to Armistice, all went back to Russia and fought with the Whites, then fled in exile after the Bolshevik Reds won the Civil War. Four, Lokhvitsky, Zankevich, Leontiev (4th Brigade Cdr), and Taranovsky, all settled in France, with Leontiev later opening a nightclub on the Riviera and retiring to Tahiti.

Today, more than 900 Russian war dead are interred at Saint-Hilaire-le-Grand Cemetery near Mourmelon, outside of Reims, while numerous monuments exist around France to the Adrian-helmeted troops of the Tsar that arrived to die for the Republic some 110 years ago this week.

They are well remembered by the Brigades Russess 16-18 Association.

Gaming the Suwalki Gap

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Last December, WELT collaborated with the German Wargaming Center of the Helmut-Schmidt-University of the German Armed Forces to conduct an all-day war game centered on an October 2026 Russian move into the Baltics without the bedrock promise of immediate U.S. military support.

Under the guise of a humanitarian emergency in isolated Kaliningrad (still occupied former German East Prussia), the 65-mile Suwałki Gap between the Lithuanian borders becomes a fortified Russian superhighway in an operation that could be interpreted as somewhat short of all-out Article 5-invoking war.

The outcome, gamed by a group of German high-ranking former defense bigwigs, is interesting, albeit a bit slanted.

More here. 

Polar Bears in the trees…

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With all of these polar vortices and bombs recently (I mean, we just had like 11 days in a row that hit below freezing on the Mississippi Gulf Coast), these images from roughly 107 years ago seemed appropriate.

Take a look at this photo, know it is in Northern Russia, February 1919, and ask yourself the nationality of the snow-camo-ed troopers masking themselves among the birch, pines, spruces, and larches of the region.

U.S. Signal Corps photo 111-SC-161113 via NARA.

If you guessed American, you are right, as they are the “Polar Bears” of the U.S. 339th Infantry Regiment (a Wisconsin-Michigan outfit) that fought in North Russia in 1918-19 against the “Reds.”

As the 339th, who unenthusiastically used American-made Mosins in combat against Russians, who unenthusiastically sometimes used lever-action Winchesters against the “Interventy” (Interventionists), I always thought the campaign bordered on the absurd.

The official caption for the above image:

American Soldiers on patrol wear white capes to reduce the chances of discovery while operating in the snow-blanketed forests, which line the Vologda railroad line on each side. Left to right: Bugler Charles Metcalf, Company I; Private Harold Holliday, Company M; and Sgt. Major Ernest Reed, 3rd Battalion, 339th Infantry, 85th Division, February 21, 1919. 111-SC-161113

And these others from the same period:

Blockhouse at Verst 455 on the Vologada Railway, surrounded by the forest, white with a new covering of snow. Photo taken on one of the coldest days of the year, when the temperature reached a point 50 degrees below zero. The American soldier in the foreground is Corporal Hearn of Company I, 339th Infantry, 85th. Division Verst 455, Vologda Railroad front, Northern Russia. 17 February 1919. 111-SC-161081

339th Inf in Russia Verst 455, Vologda Railway Front Feb 1919, with Mosins and Lewis guns. The Lewis was also probably chambered in 7.62x54R (30 cal Russian), drawn from U.S. Savage-made stockpiles originally contracted by the Tsar. 111-SC-161112

339th Inf in Russia Verst 455 Volgada Railway front Feb 1919 Mosins 111-SC-161090.

The 339th served in Russia from September 1918 to June 1919, rather involuntarily clocking in during the Russian Civil War with their more supportable Mosins, then shipped back to a much more agreeable service in post-Great War springtime France, where they were all too happy to get their M1917 Enfields back before shipping home, arriving back in the Midwest in July, wrapping their confusing, and bitter, war.

Warship Wednesday (on a Thursday) 30 October 2025: End of the Line

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Here at LSOZI, we take a break every Wednesday to explore the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period, profiling a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger

If you enjoy my always ad-free Warship Wednesday content, you can support it by buying me a cup of joe at https://buymeacoffee.com/lsozi As Henk says: “Warship Coffee – no sugar, just a pinch of salt!”

Warship Wednesday (on a Thursday) 30 October 2025: End of the Line

IWM (Q 48273)

Above we see the Italian Conte di Cavour-class dreadnought Giulio Cesare, in a very clean state while at Taranto during the Great War, on 3 June 1917. Note her interesting original five-turret (A-B-Q-X-Y), 13-barrel (3-2-3-2-3) main battery of 12″/46 Model 1909 Elswick pattern guns. She also wears a bow eagle with the Caesarian motto, “Veni. Vis. Vita.”

Following her second world war, she would go on to be the final battleship lost while in active service, under very controversial circumstances, some 70 years ago this week.

The Cavour class

The three-pack of Conte di Cavour–class battleships was designed in 1908 by RADM Engineer Edoardo Masdea, Chief Constructor of the Regia Marina, in the immediate spell after HMS Dreadnought and the French Courbet-class battlewagons. They followed in the wake of Italy’s first dreadnought, Dante Alighieri (19,500t, 551 ft. oal, 22 knots, 12×12″ guns, 10 inch armor plate), but were much heavier, at 24,500 tons.

As built, they carried the previously mentioned 13 12″/46s as well as 18 casemated 4.7″/50s, three torpedo tubes, and assorted tertiary light guns. Their Parsons turbines on 20 Yarrow boilers allowed Cavour to hit 22 knots on trials, but Cesare, even with 21 Babcock boilers installed (later 24), was only able to hit 21.7 knots. Even this came by whittling down the armor belt to where it was only 9.8 inches at its thickest, tapering to as thin as 3 inches near the bow, while the front forward tower and front turret faces were only 11 inches. Still, they were triple bottomed and had 23 watertight sections. While Terni made the armor for Cavour, Cesare’s and Da Vinci’s was imported from Bethlehem in Pennsylvania.

Plan, via the 1914 Jane’s

The three sisters, Cavour, Cesare, and Leonardo da Vinci, were laid down within weeks of each other in the summer of 1910 at three different yards (La Spezia, Gio. Ansaldo, and Odero) to be finished in 1913, one that would slip slightly due to Italy’s war with the Ottoman Empire and a diversion of resources during that period.

Hail, Cesare!

Our subject was named after the legendary Roman general and statesman of Et Tu Brute fame. Laid down at Ansaldo in Genoa on 24 June 1910, she launched on 15 October 1911 to much fanfare, one day after Da Vinci slid down the ways at Odero.

15 October 1911, Sestri-Ponente & Launch of Giulio Cesare, Bain News Service, LC DIG ggbain-09800-09879u

Fitting out would take nearly three full years, but she entered service on 14 May 1914, just 10 weeks before the “lights went out across Europe.”

Placing a 305 mm/12″ gun within Turret 2 of the Italian battleship Giulio Cesare, Genoa, 1912

Battleship Giulio Cesare during sea trials, 9 January 1913.

She was the first of her class commissioned, three days before Da Vinci and a full 11 months ahead of Cavour, which had been delayed due to Terni developing their cemented armor, while Ceasare and Da Vinci benefited from American imports.

Cesare compared to her contemporaries. Imagerie d Epinal Les Flotte de Guerre 

Great War

While the potential of a clash with the British and French loomed at the beginning of WWI, as Italy was officially an ally of Germany and Austria, the country’s quick declaration of neutrality, migrating to a polar shift to join the fight against Berlin and Vienna by May 1915, changed the orientation of the Italian battle fleet.

The Cavours were assigned to RADM Corsi’s 1st Battleship Division and left on seemingly eternal alert, ready to weigh anchor and sortie out within three hours.

Italian battleships of the Cesare Class, showing triple gun turrets, Great War. NH 111474 and IWM Q 19095

With the German Mediterranean Squadron chased to the Black Sea and the Austrian fleet effectively bottled up in the Adriatic, the naval war in the region devolved into four years of small craft and submarine operations as the respective battleships lay in wait for a decisive Tsushima/Battle of Yalu River/Manila Bay/Santiago style sea clash.

This led to a boring war for the Italian battleships as the Austrians decided to ride out the war safely at anchor rather than tempt a Jutland.

Sadly, Da Vinci would be lost to an unexplained magazine explosion while moored at Taranto in August 1916, taking a full quarter of her crew with her.

Da Vinci turned turtle at Taranto, August 1916.

In all, Cesare only spent 418 hours at sea during Italy’s war, 31 hours on combat missions (supporting operations in the islands of the Ionian archipelago in May 1917), and 387 hours in training/exercises, without ever encountering an enemy during the conflict in which her country suffered over 650,000 dead.

Interwar

The remaining sisters saw more sea time in the months just after Versailles than during the entire war, with Cavour heading to the Americas for a flag-waving cruise while Cesare toured the Eastern Med and stood by the Greek-Turkish conflict.

Cesare photographed at Constantinople, Turkey, in August 1919. Note that the ship is flying a Greek National Flag at the mainmast top. NH 47786

Jane’s 1921, with Da Vinci missing.

Following this, she had her first modernization, landing some small guns and her bow crest, picking up some AAA pieces, and changing her mast arrangements.

She also engaged in a bit of battleship diplomacy, being used in the seizure of Corfu in August 1923.

Italian battleship Giulio Cesare in La Spezia, 1925

A 1925 upgrade saw her pick up a Macchi M.18 seaplane over the stern along with a catapult and crane to retrieve it, and, after two years in ordinary, by 1928, she was relegated to use as a gunnery training ship, with the country soon after moving to build four new 40,000-ton Littorio-class battleships.

Jane’s 1929.

Great Rebuild

It was decided by the Italian admiralty in the early 1930s to not only keep on with the construction of a planned quartet of new Littorio-class 30-knot fast battleships, with their impressive 15-inch guns, but also to extensively modernize the two Cavours and the two similar yet slightly younger Andrea Doria-class battleships, giving Mussolini eight battleships in a decade. At least that was the plan, anyway.

Following the design by Gen. Francesco Rotundi, the Cavours and Dorias were rearming with more capable 12.6″/44 Model 1934 guns on upgraded mounts, with the middle Q mount deleted, giving them 10 new guns in place of 13 older ones, with a modern fire control house atop the conning tower.

Naples during the great 5 May 1938 naval review, showing the modernized Cavour followed by the similarly modernized Cesare and a heavy cruiser. NH 86147

The modernization also added armor, replaced the boilers and machinery, and deleted the casemate guns for more modern  3.9″/47 M1928 twin AA guns in high-angle turrets.

Cesare carried 12 of these 100 mm/47 (3.9″) Model 1928 AA guns in six twin turrets. These art deco-looking mounts were also used on the Trento, Zara, and Condotteri class cruisers.

They also picked up an assortment of twin Breda 37mm and Breda M31 13.2mm guns, landed the circa 1914 torpedo tubes, and lengthened the hull for added stability. Powered by eight more efficient Yarrow boilers and with 75,000shp on tap compared to the old 30,000shp, the class could make 27 knots, making them, at age 20, the fastest they had ever been.

Cesare underwent modernization at the Cantieri del Tirreno shipyard in Genoa from 25 October 1933 to 1 October 1937. Tellingly, the rebuild was one month longer than her original construction.

The U.S. Navy’s ONI, with war on the horizon, made sure to get several nice images of her in the late 1930s, essentially a new ship built around the upcycled bones of a circa 1914 dreadnought.

Cesare photographed during the late 1930s after her 1933-37 reconstruction. NH 86124

Cesare was photographed in 1938 following her 1933-37 reconstruction. NH 86127

Cesare photographed before World War II. The photograph has been retouched. NH 86590

Cesare at sea, 1938, photographed before World War II. NH 86588

Many shots endure from the epic May 1938 Naples Naval Review.

Italian battleship, either Cavour or Cesare, probably photographed during the 5 May 1938 naval review off Naples. Cant Z.501 flying boats be seen overhead. NH 86141

Cesare, 5 May 1938, at the Naval review off Naples. The torpedo boats Spica and Aldebaran appear in the background, NH 86142

Italian battleships Cavour and Cesare seen in column at the May 1938 Naval review off Naples. NH 86153

Italian battleships Cavour and Cesare seen in column at the May 1938 Naval review off Naples, followed by two Zara class cruisers. NH 86154

Cavour and Cesare seen in column at the May 1938 Naval review off Naples. NH 86151

5 May 1938, battleships Cavour and Cesare as seen from the fantail of a destroyer-type ship. Two cruisers appear in the right background, and a paravane for minesweeping can be seen on the ship’s stern in the foreground. NH 86148

Late 1930s, two Italian battleships and about nine or ten torpedo boats, the Cavour and Cesare, appear in the foreground, and the torpedo boat Altair can be identified in the background by her hull letters “AT.” NH 86140

A Second War

Cavour-class battleships as rebuilt, circa 1939. Luce archives via NHHC NH 111400

Giulio Cesare – San Giorgio, NH 111420

ONI 202 sheet on Cavour and Cesare.

Soon after Italy joined Germany in World War II, Cavour and Cesare, as the 5th Battleship Division, were part of a 14-cruiser/16 destroyer covering force running a convoy from Taranto across the Med to the country’s Libyan colony under the overall command of ADM Ingio Pola.

On the return trip, they crashed into a trio of Royal Navy task groups, Force A (five cruisers), Force B (battleship HMS Warspite and six destroyers), and Force C (battleships HMS Malaya and Royal Sovereign, carrier Eagle, 10 destroyers) on 9 July 1940, and the Battle of Calabria/Battle of Punta Stilo ensued.

During that clash, in which no ships were ultimately sunk on either side, Cesare opened fire on Warspite at an impressive 29,000 yards and, while her shells fell long, damaged two of the British battlewagon’s escorting destroyers. In return, the closing Warspite fired at and eventually hit Cesare with a 15-inch shell from 26,000 yards, exploding one of the Italian ship’s funnels and damaging four boilers, causing her to fall out of the battle line and reduce speed as Cavour took over. Cesare made it to Messina safely and took a month to repair.

Italian battleships at the Battle of Punta Stilo, July 9, 1940. Cavour opens fire with her 12.6-inch main battery during the battle. Photograph taken from aboard her sister ship Cesare. NH 86586

Italian battleship Giulio Cesare, seen from her sister Conte di Cavour, firing at HMS Warspite with her 320 mm guns, waters off Punta Stilo (Calabria), around 1555 h, 9 July 1940

Warspite hit on Cesare

Warspite hit on Cesare

Warspite hit on Cesare

Italian battleship Giulio Cesare after a hit from the HMS Warspite during the Battle of Calabria, 9 July 1940. The 15-inch shell hit the Italian ship from around 13nm. IWM HU 52333.

Then came the dramatic pre-Pearl Harbor night attack by a handful of British Fleet Air Arm Swordfish torpedo bombers from the carrier HMS Illustrious on the Italian battleship anchorage of Taranto on 11 November 1940.

Cobb, Charles David; Taranto Harbour, Swordfish from ‘Illustrious’ Cripple the Italian Fleet, 11 November 1940; National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/taranto-harbour-swordfish-from-illustrious-cripple-the-italian-fleet-11-november-1940-116445

While Cesare was spared damage, one torpedo sank sister Conte di Cavour in shallow water and effectively took her out of the war.

Cesare would strike out against the British again at the Battle of Cape Spartivento/Cape Teulada in November, without giving or receiving much damage, and in convoy work, including what is remembered by the Brits as the First Battle of Sirte off Malta in December 1941.

With the Med becoming less and less friendly to Italian capital ships due to British submarines and land-based bombers, Cesare was largely port-bound by 1942 and was eventually withdrawn up the Adriatic to a safer anchorage at Pola (Pula) and reduced to training status. It would seem her war was effectively over.

During the 1940–1943 campaign, Cesare made 38 combat sorties, covering 16,947 miles in 912 sailing hours, and consumed 12,697 tons of oil in the process.

Russia-bound

Spared the indignity suffered by most other post-1942 Axis capital ships, which were sunk at their moorings by Allied bombers, when Italy switched sides on 8 September 1943, Cesare overcame a small mutiny by Mussolini-inclined crew and made it safely to Malta by the interned under British guns. She fought off German air attacks along the way and managed not to be sunk by her former allies, such as the Littorio-class battlewagon Roma, which was sunk by German Fritz X radio-controlled bombs launched by Do 217s on 9 September, taking over 1,300 of her crew to the bottom.

Cesare was the last Italian capital ship to arrive at Malta.

As the invasion of Italy pushed the Germans and the rump of the Italian socialist republic further and further up the country’s “boot,” Cesare and the two Dorias were released to return to Taranto in June 1944, where they languished in ordinary.

Post VE-Day, Cesare was one of a list of ex-Italian vessels held by an Allied commission to be handed out as trophies.

Cesare in the 1946 Jane’s.

This process dragged on for years as Stalin’s iron curtain descended across Eastern Europe and the Western Allies were in no hurry to keep giving his war machine new toys. It was only in December 1948 that she was moved to Sicily and finally removed from the Italian naval list, ending her 34 years of service to Rome.

Ex-Cesare was turned over to the very happy Soviets under ADM Gordey Ivanovich Levchenko on 6 February 1949.

While Stalin wanted the newer Littoros, Cesare was arguably the nicest battleship the Russians had at the time, despite her age and the fact that she had basically been in reserve for six years and had not been dry-docked in eight.

Soviet battleship Novorossiysk, formerly Italian Giulio Cesare, from Vlorë (Albania) to the Black Sea in late February 1949.

After Cesare departed for a Soviet port, the loaned Arkhangelsk (HMS Royal Sovereign) was returned to England for scrapping.

Dubbed originally Z11 and moved to Communist allied Albania for a quick two-week refit with an Italian adviser crew aboard, then departed for Sevastopol. By order of the Black Sea Fleet dated 5 March 1949, the Italian battleship was renamed Novorossiysk.

Reportedly in extremely poor condition, with inoperable diesel generators, leaking pipes, broken fittings, and suffering signs of purposeful Italian neglect and sabotage, the Russians spent the next several years trying to reshoe their gift horse.

Although the Italians had delivered a library of technical manuals and books on the ship’s systems, a handful of Russian Italian translators on hand lacked experience in the specialized terminology used in the tomes, particularly when it came to handwritten notes and abbreviations, and the books ultimately proved an alien language.

Soviet battleship Novorossiysk (the former Royal Italian Navy Giulio Cesare

After six weeks in dry dock at Sevastopol, Cesare/Novorossiysk sailed (briefly) as Black Sea Fleet flagship on maneuvers in July 1949. Over the next five years, she had five shipyard overhauls (July 1950, April-June 1951, June 1952, November 1954, and February-March 1955) in an attempt to bring old systems back online and add new ones.

Battleship Novorossiysk (Giulio Cesare) April 13, 1955

The Soviets added several new AAA batteries (24 twin 37mm V-11 guns, six 37mm 70-K automatic cannons) and a Zalp-M radar.

It was planned to put the elderly battlewagon into her second rebuild (first Russian), which would include new Soviet-made turbine engines and Russian Obukhovskii 12″/52 Pattern 1907 guns left over from the Tsarist Gangut, Imperatritsa Maria, and Imperator Nikolai I battleship classes.

She never made that grand overhaul.

Tragedy in Sevastopol

On the night of 28 October 1955, the 41-year-old Cesare/Novorossiysk returned from a cruise marking the 100th anniversary of the defense of Sevastopol and tied up at Buoy No. 3 near the Naval Hospital.

At 0131 on 29 October 29, a massive explosion under the ship’s starboard bow pierced the battleship’s hull, blew out part of the forecastle deck, and created a cavernous 1,600 sq. ft underwater hole.

Within a minute, a second explosion on the port side created what was later found to be a 2,000 sq. ft. hole in her hull.

The warship didn’t stand a chance and was settling on the harbor floor in minutes, and began to list, eventually turning turtle by the following evening.

At least 557 of the battleship’s crew were lost, along with some 60 men from the rest of the fleet who were lost in the attempt to save the ship and rescue trapped sailors.

We won’t get into the myriad of theories as to what killed Cesare/Novorossiysk, but suggestions have ranged from the far-fetched, such as Italian frogmen of the long-disbanded Xª MAS and long-dormant scuttling charges left aboard in 1948, to German bottom mines left over in the harbor’s silty bottom from their occupation of the port in WWII and assorted internal magazine explosions. Lingering mines seem the most likely cause, as extensive sweeps later found 32 mines on the bottom of Sevastopol’s harbor, some dating to the Great War.

In the end, with Stalin long gone and the Red Banner Fleet moving towards a more submarine and missile-borne strategy, the age of the Russian battleship came to an end as Cesare/Novorossiysk was raised over the course of the next 18 months and scrapped.

The final Soviet dreadnought, the circa 1911 Gangut/Oktyabrskaya Revolutsiya, was stricken on 17 February 1956 and slowly scrapped over the next two years.

After that, the handful of Turkish, French, British, and American battleships still on naval lists in NATO were soon taken out of service, with the Iowas staging a return in the 1980s-90s.

But gratefully, Cesare/Novorossiysk was the last one to go down with her flags flying.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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The last shots in the foggy, frozen Kuriles, 80 years ago this week

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While the sweeping battle between the shell of the once mighty Japanese Kwantung Army in Manchuria and Korea, reduced to some 600,000 second-rate troops, and the 1.5 million strong Soviet Far East Command, had officially ended on 16 August after just nine days of fighting, the Reds nonetheless kept pushing to seize territory right up to 2 September, meeting isolated pockets of resistance.

Meanwhile, in the Kurile Islands, a line of 56 volcanic islands stretching from north of Japanese Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan’s home islands, to just off the tip of the Soviet Kamchatka peninsula, was still very much in play after 16 August.

The battle for the Japanese island of Shumshu, just six miles south of Kamchatka’s Cape Lopatka, raged for a solid week, 18 to 23 August, and cost the Soviets somewhere in the region of 1,500 casualties (exceeding Japanese casualties by a ratio of 3:2) while five of the Soviet’s 16 Lend Leased LCI(L)s used for the landings were lost along with the minesweeper T-152 and torpedo boat TK-565.

A Soviet LCI landing on Shumshu Island, August 1945

The American-made Soviet landing craft DC-5 (former USS LCI-525), hit by Japanese coastal artillery fire and sunk at the landing site at Shumshu.

DS-1 (former USS LCI-672) sunk at Shumshu

DS-43, (former USS LCI-943) sunk at Shumshu

DS-9, in the background, DS-43 ((former USS LCI-554) lying on the shore

Destroyed Japanese tanks (“Ha-Go”, type 95) of the 11th Tank Regiment on the slopes of Hill 171 on Shumshu Island (Kuril Islands).

Soviet troops, Shumshu, August 1945. Note the PTRD anti-tank rifle, which would be needed

Landing on the Kuril Islands. Artist A.I. Dense, 1948 year

Japanese Lt. Gen. Tsutsumi Fusaki arriving at the Soviet line to negotiate the surrender of his forces in the Northern Kuriles, 22 August 1945. He led 12,227 remaining men of his 91st Division into captivity. He was released to Japan in 1946 and died in his hometown of Kofu in 1959.

Likewise, starting on 11 August, 100,000 Soviet troops swept past the Karafuto line, which had divided the island of Sakhalin into a Russian north and Japanese south since 1905. This began a straight-line ground campaign– sped up by leapfrog amphibious landings, bypassing strong points– that swept up the 20,000 Japanese defenders by 25 August.

Soviet soldiers from the landing force and the minesweeper T-589 (USN type YMS, ex USS YMS-237) in the port of Maoka, Sakhalin. Late August 1945.

In the meantime, on 16 August, Stalin proposed to Truman that, in addition to seizing all of the Kurile Islands, his forces should also occupy northern Hokkaido along a line from Kushiro to Rumoi.

Truman pushed back, saying that Hokkaido would surrender to MacArthur, but that an American base in the future Russian Kuriles sounded like a good idea.

Stalin backed down on the 23rd (the day Shumshu finally fell, showing the Soviets just how hard amphibious warfare against Japanese defenders could be) and said he would stay out of Hokkaido, but that the Americans would not be welcome to a base in the Kuriles.

In the background of this, at least three small Russian Series XI/XIII-Leninist, or L class, submarines and two squadrons of torpedo-carrying Ilyushin Il-4 (DB-3T) twin-engine bombers from Petropavlovsk were running amok off the North coasts of Hokkaido and around Sakhalin.

A Soviet Leninist, or L class, submarine. Smallish (1,400 tons, 273 feet oal) minelaying boats reverse engineered from the raised HMS L55, which sank in the Baltic in 1919, 13 of the type were built and operated by the Soviet Pacific Fleet

The DB-3T, with a suspended 45-36 AV (high-altitude) or 45-36AN (low-altitude) torpedo, looked ungainly because it was ungainly, with a cruising speed hovering around 180 knots with both of its knock-off Gnome-Rhone 14K radial engines glowing. It nonetheless could be effective in the right circumstances and would remain in Soviet/Warsaw Pact use long enough into the 1950s to gain the NATO reporting name “Bob.” Alternatively, it could carry MAV-1 or AMG-type aircraft mines.

They bagged at least eight Japanese ships in the last part of August, even though the IJN Admiralty had passed word that there was a general ceasefire and the rest of the Western Allies had paused offensive operations. Notably, all were sunk outside of the general Kuriles area.

  • Cargo ship Daito Maru No. 49 sunk by an unknown submarine on 22 August
  • Cable layer Ogasawara Maru (2,774 tons) sunk by L-12 (Capt. Shelgancev) on 22 August
  • Coaster Taito Maru (880 tons) sunk by L-12 on 22 August
  • Cargo ship Notoro Maru (1229 grt) sunk by aircraft on 22 August
  • Coaster Sapporo Maru No. 11 sunk by submarine, likely L-19 (Capt. Kononenko), on 22 August
  • Freighter Tetsugo Maru (1403 grt) sunk by L-19 on 23 August
  • Sub chaser Giso Maru No. 40 GO (273 grt) sunk in a surface action on 24 August
  • Sub chaser CHa-77 sunk by aircraft of unknown origin on 28 August

Ogasawara Maru was perhaps the saddest of these. Built for the Japanese Ministry of Communications in 1905 and capable of 10 knots, the cable layer left Wakkanai on Sakhalin Island on the afternoon of 21 August, carrying 702 evacuees– elderly people, children, and women ordered off the island by the military government– headed to Funakawa.

She never made it, with L-12 sinking her in the predawn of the 22nd while three miles off Mashike, littering the coastline for miles with bodies. Only 62 survivors were recovered.

Ogasawara Maru

Likewise, Taito Maru, on the same evacuation route, went down with another 667 souls.

A ninth ship, attacked but not sunk, was the 5,886-ton freighter turned minelayer Shinko Maru No. 2 (former Toyo Kaiun, 2577grt). Crowded with some 3,600 civilians evacuating from Otomari on Sakhalin, she left alone on the night of 20-21 August heading for Otaru Port at a speed of 9 knots. Around 0500 on 22 August, she caught a torpedo in her No. 2 hold and replied with her 12cm and 25mm guns in a surface action in the predawn against an unidentified submarine, which broke contact.

Shinko Maru No. 2, post torpedo hit

Brushing off a further attack by a torpedo-carrying plane once the sun came up that morning, she limped into Rumoi Port in Hokkaido with 298 bodies aboard and at least 100 known missing.

While Shinko Maru No. 2 was eventually repaired and, returning to commercial service, was still around as late as 1992, her likely attacker, L-19, disappeared on or around 24 August near the La Perouse Strait, thought to have either sunk from damage incurred in the battle or lost to a Japanese minefield (which ironically may have been laid by Shinko Maru No. 2). Her broken hull and the 64 crewmen were the Red fleet’s final loss of WWII.

L-12 returned to Petropavlovsk to honors, having logged two attacks and fired six torpedoes. Converted to a training hulk in 1959, the Russians only retired her fully in 1983.

Sistership L-18 (Capt. Tsvetko) was underway in late August in the area and landed 61 marines and three 45mm guns at Maoka (now Kholmsk), in the then Japanese-held south Sakhalin, the latter secured behind the fence constructed on the rear of the conning tower. She did not document any attacks on shipping. Tsvetkov was awarded the Order of the Red Banner and would later retire as an admiral.

Today, the Japanese government considers the three refugee-packed emergency evacuation ships (Ogasawara Maru, Shinko Maru No. 2, and Taito Maru) to have been attacked post-ceasefire by submarines and aircraft of “kokuseki fumei” (“unknown nationality”), and numerous memorials dot Hokkaido to those vulnerable civilians lost on the ships.

Meanwhile, no Japanese government has recognized the Russian sovereignty over four of the southernmost Kurile Islands (Kunashiri, Etorofu, Shikotan, and Habomai) occupied in 1945, and only marked the end of the state of war between the Soviet Union and Japan in 1956.

Swashbuckling Baltic Baron of Boxer Fame

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Some 125 years ago this month, this guy was the biggest hero in Russia, having recently picked up not only the St. George Cross but also five foreign orders “in recognition of exemplary bravery and selflessness.’

I give you 37-year-old Lieutenant Baron Ferdinand (Vladimirovich) Arthur Lionel Gotthard von Rahden, of the Tsar’s Navy, who commanded the Russian naval infantry unit drawn from the crews of the battleships Navarin and Sisoy the Great during the defense of the Peking Legation Quarter during its 55-day siege in the Boxer Rebellion.

Hailing from a family of hereditary Baltic barons (he inherited the title from his late father, Vladimir, the former vice-governor of Estonia, in 1881), Ferdinand graduated from the Naval Cadet Corps in 1886 and from 1889 onward held down spots on Russian warships drifting further and further East. From the Black Sea Fleet to the Caspian Flotilla and the cruiser Admiral Kornilov in the Indian Ocean. By 1891, he was a navigator on the cruiser Vladimir Monomakh in Vladivostok. By the time of the Boxer Rebellion, he was head of the 01 Division on Navarin and was selected to lead the 71-member company to Peking.

Of the 445 foreign soldiers, sailors, and Marines holding the Legation wall, the Russians had the third-largest force, just behind the only slightly larger British (79 Marines) and the French (75 sailors) contingents.

Russian sailors on a barricade before the Peking Legation Boxer Uprising, Niva magazine, No. 43, 1900

During the siege of Pekin, Baron von Rahden received several wounds, including a contusion of the cranial bone, but, importantly, his force captured four guns from the besieging Boxers, which were of great use to the defenders.

“Peking, China. 1900. A Russian officer, Baron Randen [sic], and four armed soldiers behind a barricade, probably at the Russian Legation, during the Boxer Rebellion.” Note he appears armed with a Steyr M.95, which may have been borrowed from Austrian Marines in the Legation, while his men have Mosin M.91s (AWM A05909)

Baron von Rahden, as portrayed in 55 Days at Peking, albeit in a much nicer costume, complete with sword belt sash, than the uniform he actually wore

After the Boxer Rebellion, Von Rahden, promoted to Captain (2nd rank), rode a wave of good assignments, including XO of the gunboat Koreets and command of the destroyer Ryany, which operated out of Vladivostok during the Russo-Japanese War. A scouting mission with his greyhound along the Korean peninsula during the conflict earned him an Order of St. Stanislav and a promotion to Captain (1st rank).

Then came a position as port captain of Vladivostok, followed by what would be the pinnacle of his naval career, that of skipper of the cruiser Askold in 1910.

Russian cruiser Askold in Vladivostok

At that point, Von Rahden’s star burned out.

Dismissed from his post on embezzlement charges, the Vladivostok Naval Court handed down a sentence of 3.5 years in the brig and the removal of all ranks, orders, and privileges. After serving 22 months, the Tsar commuted his sentence in light of his past record, and he was dismissed from the Navy, ending his 26 years in the fleet with a squish.

When Russia marched to war again in 1914, Von Rahden repeatedly, and unsuccessfully, applied to return to service.

It was only after the twin seismic military disasters of 1914 and 1915 that, on Valentine’s Day 1916, Von Rahden was appointed from ignoble retirement to become a colonel and second in command of the 205th (Shemakha) Infantry Regiment, then part of the 52nd Division on the mud of the Austrian front. In January 1917, he was made commander of the 82nd Infantry (Dagestan) Regiment, on the Romanian front. In April 1917, he was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir, 3rd degree with swords, one of the last issuances of that decoration.

Von Rahden, somewhat redeemed, was the 85th’s final colonel, and on 23 November 1917, he was promoted to major general, setting him up for command of a division. It was a position he held only briefly, being cashiered at the end of the year, following directives from the new Bolshevik military commissars who were eager to separate from the service any nobles still in uniform.

Returning home to Estonia in 1918, Von Raden soon fell in with the German-allied Baltic Landeswehr, a proto-Freikorps-style force led by his fellow Couronian and Livonian nobility. Leading a company in that force, he fought with the Landeswehr against the Reds at Windau, Tukkum, and Mitau.

Once Riga was captured, with the Landeswehr being strongly disfavored by the recently arrived British and French military missions to the Baltic, he and his company moved over to General Yudenich’s White Russian Northwestern Army during what had become the full-blown Russian Civil War.

Leading the battalion-sized 17th Libau Regiment of the 5th Division during Yudenich’s failed push on Petrograd, Baron Von Rahden, formerly of the Tsar’s Navy, was killed in action in the village of Russkoye Koporye on 25 October 1919, aged 56 hard years.

Barbarossa in the rear view

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The German DW network has just released (in English) a sobering and fairly honest look at the massive 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union by the Axis, an event now 84 years past.

It is two hours long in two parts and uses first-person accounts from both sides as well as extensive period color footage.

If you have the time, it is worth watching.

 

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