SLAVA
Posted: Mon Sep 22, 2008 10:46 pm
Built as battleship by Baltiyskiy Zavod at St Petersburg for the Imperial Russian Navy.
01 November 1902 keel laid down.
29 August 1903 launched under the name SLAVA (Glory), one of the Borodino class, 5 sisters.
Displacement 13.516 tons standard, 15.275 tons full load, dim. 121.2 x 23.2 x 8.9m. (draught).
Powered by vertical triple expansion steam engines, 15.800 ihp, twin shafts, speed 18 knots.
Armament: 4 – 12 inch, 12 – 6 inc, 20 – 11pdr., 20 – 3pdr. and 4 – 15 inch torpedo tubes.
Crew 796.
March 1905 completed, and commissioned in June.
She was to late commissioned to take part in the Russo-Japanese War , while three of her sisters were sunk in this war, OREL surrendered to the Japanese and was renamed IWAMI.
1908 Rear-Admiral Vladimir Ivanovich carried his flag on the SLAVA when she with a squadron Russian training ships made a training voyage to the Mediterranean.
28 December 1908 the squadron was at Augusta, Sicily when the nearby town of Messina was struck by a heavy earthquake destroying most of the down and killing many people.
When Rear-Admiral Ivanovich received the news, he immediately left with his squadron Agusta, except the BOGATYR for Messina to assist in the rescue operation.
When the Italian Queen Elena arrived in Messina on board the Italian warship VITTORIO EMMANUEL, and when she visited the SLAVA where she asked what she could do to help, Litvinov asked her for more bandages and medicines, after Queen Elena ordered this the SLAVA sailed to Napoli to pick up this bandages and medicines.
During World War I she served in the Baltic.
8 – 19 August 1915 SLAVA was flagship of a Russian squadron of 3 gunboats, 1 minelayer and 16 destroyers when the German High Sea Fleet tried to destroy this squadron in the Gulf of Riga and help the German army to take the important town of Riga. The German squadron consisted of 4 battleships, 1 battle cruiser, 4 cruisers and 56 destroyers.
The German squadron failed to destroy the Russian squadron, and Riga remained in Russian hands till September 1917, when it was occupied by German troops.
17 October 1917 she was badly damaged by the German dreadnought KÖNIG during the “Battle of Moon Sound”, the sound between the island Muhu and the mainland of Estonia.
At that time the Russian squadron was under command of Vice-Admiral Bakhireff and the squadron consisted out of the battleship TSESAREVICH, one armed cruiser the BAYAN and eight destroyers, and had orders to defend the Gulf of Riga.
The squadron was attacked by superior German forces of several dreadnoughts of the Helgoland class, besides cruisers and destroyers.
The sound was shallow and after she was damaged she took water, given her a deeper draught, and she could not more escape, abandoned and scuttled in the Moon Sound. Most of her crew were saved.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_battleship_Slava. Many other web-sites.
Dictionary of Disasters at Sea during the Age of Steam 1824-1962. Conway’s All the Worlds Fighting Ships 1860 – 1905.