History | |
---|---|
United Kingdom | |
Name | HMS L55 |
Builder | Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, Govan |
Launched | 29 September 1918 |
Fate | Sunk, 9 June 1919 |
Soviet Union | |
Name | Л-55 Bezbozhnik |
Acquired | Raised, 11 August 1928, and repaired |
Recommissioned | 7 August 1931 |
Renamed | 7 August 1931 |
Fate | Scrapped c. 1960 |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | L class submarine |
Displacement |
|
Length | 230 ft 6 in (70.26 m) |
Beam | 23 ft 6 in (7.16 m) |
Draught | 13 ft 1 in (3.99 m) |
Propulsion |
|
Speed |
|
Range | 4,500 nmi (8,300 km) at 8 kn (15 km/h; 9.2 mph) |
Complement | 44 |
Armament |
|
HMS L55 was a British L class submarine built by Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, Govan, Clyde. She was laid down on 21 September 1917 and was commissioned on 19 December 1918.
In 1919 L55 was sunk in the Baltic Sea by Bolshevik vessels while serving as part of the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. The submarine was raised in 1928 and repaired by the Soviets. After being used for training, she finally was scrapped in the 1950s.
HMS L55 was based at Tallinn, Estonia as part of the Baltic Battle Squadron, which was supporting the Baltic states fighting for independence. On 9 June 1919 in Caporsky Bay in the Gulf of Finland L55 attacked two 1,260-ton Bolshevik Orfey-class minelayer-destroyers, Gavriil and Azard. HMS L55 missed her targets and was forced into a British-laid minefield. [1] Soviet sources stated Azard sank her by gunfire. [2] If she was sunk by gunfire, L55 was the only British submarine sunk by hostile Soviet vessels. [3]
The wreck was found by Soviet minesweepers in 1927. The Soviets raised her on 11 August 1928. As the Soviets refused to allow any British warship into their waters, the remains of the crew members were returned on the British merchantman Truro before transfer to HMS Champion. [4] The crew, 42 officers and men, were buried in a communal grave at the Haslar Royal Naval Cemetery in Portsmouth on 7 September 1928. [5] [6]
The boat was rebuilt by Baltic Works, Leningrad, the reconstruction cost of 1 million roubles being financed by a public fund as "an answer to Chamberlain". She was recommissioned as a Soviet submarine with the same number (Л-55) on 7 August 1931. She was later named Bezbozhnik ("Atheist") and was used as the basis of design for the Soviet L-class submarines. L55 was used for training until the beginning of World War II, when she was damaged in an accident in early 1941. She was scrapped in 1953 or possibly 1960.
Petropavlovsk was the third of the four Gangut-class dreadnoughts built before World War I for the Imperial Russian Navy, the first Russian class of dreadnoughts. She was named after the Russian victory in the siege of Petropavlovsk during the Crimean War. The ship was completed during the winter of 1914–1915, but was not ready for combat until mid-1915. Her role was to defend the mouth of the Gulf of Finland against the Germans, who never tried to enter, so she spent her time training and providing cover for minelaying operations. Her crew joined the general mutiny of the Baltic Fleet after the February Revolution of 1917 and she was the only dreadnought available to the Bolsheviks for several years after the October Revolution of 1917. She bombarded the mutinous garrison of Fort Krasnaya Gorka and supported Bolshevik light forces operating against British ships supporting the White Russians in the Gulf of Finland in 1918–1919. Later, her crew joined the Kronstadt rebellion of 1921 and she was renamed Marat after the rebellion was crushed.
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