The Unlucky Italian: A battleship that always had bad luck. The mystery of the death of the battleship "Novorossiysk" in Sevastopol: the confession of the Italian combat swimmer Julius Caesar ship

Cesare Pavese A Beautiful Summer (La bella estate) Tale (1949) Italy in the 1930s, working-class outskirts of Turin. A sad story unfolds in these dim scenery

GIULIO GERMANICO

GIULIO GERMANICO The cruiser was to become the fourth ship in this series to enter service. By July 1, 1943, the Giulio Germanico was 88% ready, and by the time Italy surrendered on September 8, 1943, the cruiser was at the Castellamarre de Stabia shipyard, about 94% ready. He was completely

"ROMREO MAGNO" and "GIULIO GERMANICO" after the war ("San Giorgio" and "San Marco")

"ROMREO MAGNO" and "GIULIO GERMANICO" after the war ("San Giorgio" and "San Marco"). La Spezia, along with "Attilio Regolo" and "Scipione Africano", was not included

On October 29, 1955, the battleship Novorossiysk, the flagship of the Black Sea squadron of the Soviet Navy, sank in the Northern Bay of Sevastopol.

Few people knew about this ship and its mysterious death until the end of the 80s, when they were allowed to write about it. But to this day the mystery of the death of the battleship "Novorossiysk" remains a mystery ...

"Novorossiysk" - Soviet warship, battleship of the Black Sea Fleet of the USSR Navy. Until 1948, the ship was part of the Italian Navy under the name "Giulio Cesare" ( Giulio cesare, in honor of Guy Julius Caesar).
Dreadnought " Giulio cesare"- one of five ships of the" Conte di Cavour "( Giulio Cesare, Leonardo da Vinci, Conte di Cavour, Caio Duilio, Andrea Doria), built according to the project of engineer-general Edoardo Masdea and launched in 1910-1917.
Being the main force of the Italian fleet in two world wars, they did not bring him glory without inflicting the slightest damage on the enemy. "Cavour" and "Da Vinci" died not in battle, but in their bases.
And "Julius Caesar" was destined to become the only battleship that the victorious country did not scrapped, did not use for experiments, but put into operation the operating fleet, and even as a flagship, despite the fact that it is clearly technically and morally obsolete ...

Giulio cesare was the second in the series, it was built by the firm "Ansaldo" (Genoa). The ship was laid down on June 24, 1910, launched on October 15, 1911 and entered service on May 14, 1914. Received the motto "To withstand any blow."
Armament consisted of 305, 120 and 76 mm guns. The ship's displacement was 25 thousand tons.

The battleship "Giulio Cesare" after modernization in 1940

"Giulio Cesare" was involved in the battles of the First and Second World Wars. After the end of World War II, it went to the Soviet Union on account of reparations. At the Tehran conference, it was decided to divide the Italian fleet between the USSR, the USA, Great Britain and the countries that suffered from the fascist aggression. By lot, the British received the latest Italian battleships of the Littorio class. The USSR, to whose share the "Cesare" fell, was able to transfer it to Sevastopol only in 1949. By the order of the Black Sea Fleet dated March 5, 1949, the battleship was named "Novorossiysk".

The battleship was in an extremely neglected state - it was mothballed for 5 years in the port of Taranto. Immediately before the transfer to the USSR, there was a small repair (mainly of the electromechanical part). They could not translate the documentation, and the ship's mechanisms needed to be replaced. Experts noted the shortcomings of the battleship - the antediluvian level of intra-ship communications, poor survivability systems, damp cockpits with three-tiered bunks, a tiny faulty galley.
In mid-May 1949, the battleship was delivered to the Northern Dock, and a few months later she went to sea for the first time as part of the Black Sea Fleet. In subsequent years, it was constantly repaired and refitted, was in service, not meeting the requirements for a warship in many indicators of the technical condition. Due to domestic difficulties, the primary repair and restoration work on the battleship was the equipment of the galley for the crew, the isolation of the living and office premises under the deck of the forecastle, as well as the re-equipment of part of the bathrooms, washbasins and showers.
At the same time, specialists were amazed at both the elegance of the contours of the underwater part and the nature of its fouling. Only the area of \u200b\u200bvariable waterline was intensively overgrown with shells, and the rest, covered with a paste of unknown composition, almost did not overgrow. But the bottom-outboard fittings were in an unsatisfactory condition. Moreover, as the last commander of the BCH-5 battleship I.I. throughput which decreased several times.

From 1950 to 1955, the battleship was under factory repair 7 times. However, some shortcomings were not eliminated until October 1955. The modernization work caused little increase in ship mass (about 130 tons) and deterioration of stability (the transverse metacentric height decreased by 0.03 m).

In May 1955, "Novorossiysk" entered the ranks of the Black Sea Fleet and until the end of October several times went to sea, practicing combat training tasks.
On October 28, 1955, "Novorossiysk" returned from the last cruise and took a place on the "battleship barrel" in the area of \u200b\u200bthe Marine Hospital, where the "Empress Maria" once stood ...

Before dinner, the ship was replenished - infantry soldiers transferred to the navy. At night they were placed in the bow quarters. For most of them, this was the first and last day of naval service.
On October 29 at 01.31 a powerful explosion was heard under the hull of the bow of the ship. An emergency combat alert was declared on the ship, an alarm was also announced on the ships standing nearby. Emergency and medical teams began to arrive at Novorossiysk.
After the explosion, the bow of the ship sank into the water, and the anchored anchor was firmly held by the battleship, not allowing it to be towed to the beach. Despite all the measures taken, water continued to flow into the ship's hull. Seeing that it was not possible to stop the flow of water, the acting commander Khorshudov turned to the fleet commander, Vice Admiral Parkhomenko, with a proposal to evacuate part of the team, but was refused. The evacuation order was issued too late. More than 1,000 sailors have gathered at the stern. Lifeboats began to approach the battleship, but only a small part of the crew managed to disembark on them. At 4.14 the hull of the ship suddenly jerked and began to roll to the port side and after a moment turned upside down with the keel. According to one version, Admiral Parkhomenko, not imagining the size of the hole, gave the command to be towed to the dock, and this destroyed the ship.

“Novorossiysk” turned over as rapidly as “Empress Maria” did almost half a century before it. Hundreds of sailors were in the water. Many, especially former infantrymen, quickly sank under the weight of wet clothes and boots. Part of the team managed to climb onto the bottom of the ship, others were picked up on boats, some managed to swim to the shore. The stress from the experience was such that some of the sailors who swam to the shore could not stand their hearts, and they immediately fell dead. Many heard a frequent knock inside the hull of the capsized ship - this was the signal given by sailors who did not manage to get out of the compartments.

One of the divers recalled: “At night then I dreamed for a long time of the faces of people whom I saw under water in the windows, which they were trying to open. With gestures I made it clear that we would save. People nodded, they say, they understood ... I plunged deeper, I can hear them knocking with Morse code - the knocking in the hearth is clearly audible: "Save faster, we suffocate ..." I also tapped them: "Be strong, everyone will be saved." And then it began! They started knocking in all the compartments so that they would know above that the people who were under the water were alive! I moved closer to the bow of the ship and could not believe my ears - they are singing "Varyag"! "
Through a hole cut in the aft part of the bottom, 7 people were pulled out. Two more were rescued by divers. But air began to flow out of the cut hole with increasing force, and the overturned ship began to slowly sink. In the last minutes before the death of the battleship, it was heard how the sailors, walled up in the compartments, sang "Varyag". In total, 604 people died during the explosion and sinking of the battleship, including emergency parties from other ships of the squadron.

Summer 1956 expedition special purpose EON-35 started lifting Novorossiysk. The operation was carried out in the morning of May 4 and on the same day the ascent was completed. The news of the upcoming surfacing of the battleship spread throughout Sevastopol, and, despite heavy rain, all the shores of the bay and nearby hills were strewn with people. The ship floated upwards with its keel, and it was taken to the Cossack Bay, where it was turned over and hastily dismantled for scrap.

As it was then stated in the order for the fleet, the cause of the explosion of the battleship was a German magnetic mine, allegedly lying on the bottom since the war for more than 10 years, which for some reason unexpectedly came into action. Many sailors were surprised, because on this place of the bay, immediately after the war, a thorough trawling was carried out and, finally, mechanical destruction of mines in the most critical places. On the barrel itself, the ships anchored hundreds of times.

After lifting the battleship, the commission carefully examined the hole. It was monstrous in size: more than 160 sq. m. The force of the explosion was so enormous that it was enough to penetrate 8 decks - including 3 armored ones! Even the upper deck was twisted from starboard to port. It is easy to calculate that this would require a few more than a ton of TNT. Even the largest German mines were not as powerful.

The death of "Novorossiysk" gave rise to many legends. The most popular of these is the sabotage of Italian naval saboteurs. This version was supported by the experienced naval commander, Admiral Kuznetsov.

Valerio Borghese

During the war, Italian submariners were stationed in the captured Sevastopol, so that some of Borghese's associates were familiar in the Sevastopol Bay. But how could the penetration of an Italian submarine to the entrance to the main base of the fleet, 10 years after the end of the war, go unnoticed? How many trips from the submarine to the battleship did the saboteurs have to make to place several thousand tons of TNT on it? Maybe the charge was small and served only as a detonator for a huge mine that the Italians placed in a secret compartment at the bottom of the battleship? Such a tightly certified compartment was discovered in 1949 by Captain 2nd Rank Lepekhov, but there was no reaction from the command to his report.

Some historians claim that the members of the commission, with the support of Khrushchev, distorted many facts of the tragedy, after which only Vice-Admiral V.A., acting commander of the Black Sea Fleet, was punished. Parkhomenko and Admiral of the Fleet N.G. Kuznetsov, removed from the leadership of the Navy and demoted by two steps.
Soon after the death of Novorossisk, the chief of intelligence of the Black Sea Fleet, Major General Namgaladze, and the commander of the OVR (protection of the water area) Rear Admiral Galitsky, flew from their posts.

By order of the fleet, families of the victims were given lump-sum benefits - 10 thousand rubles each. for the dead sailors and 30 thousand - for the officers. Then they tried to forget about "Novorossiysk" ...
Only in May 1988, the newspaper "Pravda" published for the first time a small article dedicated to the sinking of the battleship "Novorossiysk" with the recollections of eyewitnesses of the tragedy, which described the heroic behavior of sailors and officers who found themselves inside the capsized ship.
(from here)

After the death of Novorossiysk, various versions were put forward.

Versions about the causes of the explosion
Official version. According to the official version put forward by the government commission, the battleship was blown up by a bottom magnetic mine set by the Germans in 1944 when leaving Sevastopol. On November 17, the commission's conclusion was submitted to the CPSU Central Committee, which adopted and approved the conclusions. The cause of the disaster was called "an external underwater explosion (non-contact, bottom) of a charge with TNT equivalent of 1000-1200 kg." The most probable was the explosion of a German magnetic mine left on the ground after the Great Patriotic War.
However, power supplies were removed in the 50s. bottom mines turned out to be discharged, and fuses were inoperative.

Professor, Engineer-Captain 1st Rank N. P. Muru in his book Catastrophe in the Inner Roads, he proves that the most likely cause of the ship's death is the explosion of a bottom mine (two mines). N.P. Muru believes that after the catastrophe by trawling bottom silt, 17 similar mines were found, of which 3 were within a radius of 100 m from the place where the battleship was destroyed.

Opinion Y. Lepekhova, Lieutenant Engineer of the battleship Novorossiysk: the explosion was caused by German magnetic underwater mines. But at the same time, due to the nature of the destruction of the battleship's hull (the ship was pierced through and through by the explosion, and the hole in the bottom does not coincide with the hole on the deck), he believes that the mine explosion caused a detonation of the charge that was laid on the ship by the Italians even before side. Lepekhov claims that when, during acceptance, he and other members of the commission examined the ship, they buried themselves in a deaf bulkhead in the bow of the battleship. Then they did not attach importance to this, but now Lepekhov believes that there was a powerful explosive charge behind this bulkhead. This charge was supposed to be activated some time after the transfer of the ship, but for some reason this did not happen. But already in 1955 this charge detonated, serving as the main cause of the ship's death.

In a number of later studies of the death of the battleship, it was shown that to cause the destruction that Novorossiysk received - through penetration of the hull from the keel to the upper deck, it would take about 2-5 tons of TNT, if the charges were placed directly at the bottom of the hull, or 12, 5 tons of TNT, when the charges are placed on the bottom, under the battleship, at a depth of 17.5 m. It has been proven that the German RMH bottom mine, which has a hexonite charge weighing 907.18 kg (in TNT equivalent 1250-1330 kg), could not apply such damage to the battleship when it explodes on the ground. In this case, only the first and second bottoms of the battleship would have been pierced, which is also confirmed by experimental data. A search for mine fragments was undertaken in the area of \u200b\u200bthe explosion, the silt was washed, but nothing was found.

Explosion of ship ammunition... This version disappeared after the inspection of the hull: the nature of the destruction indicated that an explosion had occurred outside.

Meeting in Sevastopol in September 1955... There is a version that the ship was deliberately blown up during a discussion about the directions of the fleet's development. We will return to this version ...

Sabotage... The commission's conclusions did not exclude the possibility of sabotage. On the eve of the transfer of the battleship to the USSR, calls were openly voiced in Italy to prevent the pride of the Italian fleet from falling under the Soviet flag. Some bloggers claim that it was planned to prepare the 320-mm main caliber of the Novorossiysk for firing nuclear-filled shells. As if, just on the eve of the battleship, after long setbacks, it was as if it were fired by experimental special rounds (without a nuclear charge) at training targets.

In the mid-2000s. magazine "Itogi", published the story of a certain submarine officer Nikolo, allegedly involved in the sabotage. According to him, the operation was organized by the former commander of the flotilla of submarine saboteurs V. Borghese, after the transfer of the ship, vowing "to take revenge on the Russians and blow it up at any cost." The sabotage group arrived in a mini-sub, which was secretly delivered by a cargo steamer from Italy. The Italians allegedly set up a secret base near the Sevastopol Bay Omega, mined the battleship, and then went out on a submarine to the open sea and waited for their "own" steamer to pick them up.

And in 2013, a veteran of the Italian division of combat swimmers "Gamma" Hugo D'Esposito stated that the Italian military was involved in the sinking of the Soviet battleship "Novorossiysk". 4Arts writes about this, noting that the words of Hugo d "Esposito are the first admission of involvement in the destruction of Novorossiysk by the Italian military, who had previously categorically denied such a version. The Italian edition calls Esposito's confession of sabotage against Novorossiysk the most sensational in the interview : "It directly confirms the probable hypothesis about the cause of the explosion on the ship."
According to Hugo D'Esposito, the Italians did not want the "Russians" to get the ship, so they made sure to sink it: "They did everything possible." But he did not specify exactly how the sabotage was carried out.

A strange story. Believe it or not?

Earlier, the version that the "Novorossiysk" sank as a result of a sabotage organized by the Italians was not officially confirmed.

Reference:

Prince Junio \u200b\u200bValerio Scipione Borghese (ital. Junio \u200b\u200bValerio Scipione Ghezzo Marcantonio Maria dei principi Borghese; 06/06/1906, Rome - 08/26/1974, Cadiz) - Italian military and political leader, captain of the 2nd rank (Italian. capitano di fregata).
Born into an aristocratic Borghese family. In 1928 Borghese graduated from the Naval Academy in Livorno and joined the submarine fleet.
An interesting detail: in 1931 Borghese married a Russian countess Daria Vasilievna Olsufieva (1909-1963), with whom he had four children and who tragically died in a car accident in 1962. Her name bears the prize for experts in Rome.

Since 1933 Borghese is a submarine commander, has carried out a number of successful operations, sank the Allied ships with a total displacement of 75 thousand tons. Received the nickname "Black Prince". He initiated the creation of a unit in the X flotilla that used combat swimmers. Since 1941 as acting, since 1943 he officially commanded the X Flotilla, which became the most successful unit of the Italian Navy.

10-flotilla of assault vehicles ( Decima Flottiglia MAS) - a detachment of naval saboteurs in the Italian Navy, created in 1941. It consisted of a surface unit (boats with explosives) and an underwater unit (guided torpedoes). Also had a special unit "Gamma", which included combat swimmers. The unit was originally part of the 1st IAS flotilla, then received the name "Tenth IAS Flotilla". MAS is an abbreviation for Italian. Mezzi d "Assalto - assault equipment; or ital. Motoscafo Armato Silurante - armed torpedo boats.

The SLC guided torpedo, which was called the Piglet in the Tenth Flotilla, was essentially a small boat, capable of diving to shallow depths. Dimensions - 6.7 m long and 53 cm wide. Thanks to tanks for ballast and compressed air, the torpedo could submerge to a depth of 30 m. Two propellers were driven by an electric motor powered by a battery. The torpedo developed a speed of three knots (5.5 km / h) and had a cruising range of 10 nautical miles (18.5 km).

The torpedo was delivered to the scene of hostilities on an ordinary submarine. Then two saboteurs sat on her astride one after the other, like a horse. The pilot and the torpedo commander sat on it. They were protected from the shock of waves by a glass shield, and at the base of the shield there were onboard instruments: a magnetic compass, a depth gauge, a roll gauge, a steering lever, engine and pump switches that held the torpedo at the desired depth.
A mechanic diver sat behind the pilot. With his back he was leaning against a container with tools (a cutter for locking nets, a spare oxygen device, ropes and clamps for fixing an explosive charge). The crew was dressed in lightweight spacesuits and used an oxygen breathing apparatus. The oxygen cylinders were enough for 6 hours.
Having sailed to the enemy's ship as close as possible, the torpedo sank, and the diver fixed the 300 kg explosive charge brought with him to the hull of the ship. Having installed the clockwork, the swimmers boarded the torpedo and returned to base.

At first there were setbacks: the "pigs" drowned, they were destroyed, caught in the nets, the crew was poisoned and suffocated because of the imperfect air supply system, torpedoes were simply lost at sea, etc. But then the "pigs" began to make progress: on the night of November 18-19, 1941, "live torpedoes" sank two British ships - Queen Elizabeth and Valiant: "The Italians won one of the most brilliant victories in the history of naval wars. 6 people were seriously injured. 2 battleships in a strictly guarded port. "
(from here)

Nuance: the practice of underwater saboteurs, both English and Italian, during the Second World War did not involve hanging such large charges under the ship's hull as in Sevastopol.
Italian submarine saboteurs on guided torpedoes (Maiale) suspended a charge under the bottom weighing only about 300 Kg... So they acted, conducting sabotage in Alexandria on 19.12.1941, damaging 2 British ships of the line ("Queen Elizabeth" and "Veliente") and in Gibraltar in 1941-1943.
The charges were suspended for lateral keels ships using special clamps called "sergeants".
Note that the side keels on the battleship "Novorossiysk" in the area of \u200b\u200bthe explosion (30-50 frames) were absent.

Another sabotage version: installation under the bottom of the battleship magnetic mines... But you had to have about hundredsunderwater saboteurs-swimmers, carrying a magnetic mine underwater to create a charge under the bottom about 2 t.... For example, Italian divers from the "Gamma squadron", which is part of the 10th IAS flotilla, during sabotage during the Second World War, transported charges of the "Minyatta" or "Bauletti" type with a total weight no more than 12 kg.

Should I believe Signor Hugo D'Esposito? It still seems to me not entirely clear asdid the Italian swimmers manage to penetrate the Sevastopol bay, and most importantly, deliver a bunch of explosives to the place of sabotage? Maybe the former saboteur still lied?

From the "Information on the regime in the area of \u200b\u200bthe Main Base dated October 29, 1955", it follows that during October 27-28, 1955, the following foreign ships were on the transition in the Black Sea:
- Italian "Gerosi" and "Ferdinando" from Odessa to the Bosphorus;
- Italian "Esmeraldo" and French "Sanche Kondo" from Novorossiysk to the Bosphorus;
- French "Roland" from Poti to the Bosphorus;
- Turkish "Demirkalla" from the Bosphorus to Sulina.
All ships were at a considerable distance from the main base ...

Submarine saboteurs were also supposed to have complete information about the security regime of the Main Base of the Black Sea Fleet, the places of anchorage and exit of ships. They should have known that the boom gates to the Sevastopol Bay would be open, that the battleship, returning from the sea on October 28, 1955, would stand on barrels # 3, and not on its regular place - barrels # 14 in the very depths of the bay.
Such information could be collected only by an intelligence resident located in Sevastopol, and it was possible to transmit a "signal" to saboteurs on the submarine only by radio communication. But the presence of such a resident in closed (1939-1959) Sevastopol and his possible actions in the interests of Prince Borghese seem unrealistic.
And he could not get information about which barrels the battleship would stand on. it was transferred to "Novorossiysk" when it was already at the Inkerman sections immediately in front of the entrance to the base.

The question is:
- whereset saboteurs mines in "magnetic cylinders" if the battleship was at sea all day on October 28?
- asthey could finish all work on October 28 by “sunset” and even “sail” back to Omega, if the sun set on October 28, 1955 in the Sevastopol region at 17.17 (it got dark at 18.47), and the battleship Novorossiysk by the time of sunset did not finish mooring ”? He anchored and barrels on 10/28/1955 only in 17.30 !

Let's say the saboteurs managed to set mines. Taking into account their two-fold return and the possible weight of explosive charges (for example, the Miniatta type - 2 kg, the Bauletti type - 4.5 kg, which were used by Italian saboteurs, and each swimmer wore 4-5 such mines on his belt), they could install a charge weighing a maximum of 540 kg under the bottom of the battleship. This is clearly not enough to inflict the damage that the battleship received. Note also that the Minyatta mine was attached to the underwater part of the ship by suction, and the Bauletti mine was attached to the side keel of the ship with two clamps, i.e. these were not magnetic mines. There were no side keels on the Novorossiysk in the area of \u200b\u200bthe explosion. Assume that magnetic mines were specially made? But why, if the Italians had mines already tested in real business?

The opinion of former Italian submarine saboteurs.
A.N. Norchenko met with these people in 1995 in Italy, and described these meetings in his book "The Cursed Secret":
- Luigi Ferraro, an underwater saboteur who served in the squad of underwater swimmers ("squad Gamma"), who blew up several ships during the war, the national hero of Italy, holder of the Great Gold Medal for Military Valor.
- Evelino Marcolini, in the past a saboteur-torpedoist, during the war he participated in an operation against the British aircraft carrier "Aquila", for which he was awarded the Great Gold Medal for military valor.
- Emilio Legnani, began his service as a young officer on the battleship "Giulio Cesare", after the war went to Malta on it, a former saboteur boatman who served in the assault and torpedo boat detachment of the 10th IAS flotilla. During the war, he visited Gurzuf, Balaklava, Sevastopol. After the war, in 1949, he commanded a detachment of ships, ensuring the safety of a group of ships, which were assigned to the USSR for reparations and went to Albania, where their transfer took place. This detachment of ships was responsible for the safety of the group of ships transferred all the way to the Albanian shores.
All of them were intimately acquainted with the prince Borghese. All of them were awarded, but for their military actions during the war.

Answers to questions about the involvement of Italian saboteurs in the explosion of the battleship "Novorossiysk":
L. Ferrari:
“This question is not new to us. It has already been asked to us in various letters. Everyone asked if we blew up the Giulio Cesare in Sevastopol? I speak responsibly and definitely: this is all fiction. At that time, our country was in ruins, there were enough of its own problems! .. And why do we need all this? This is a distant story. I would admit my participation without any problems, but I do not want to invent something that did not exist.
… I am 95 percent unable to imagine who else but Italians could do it. But I am 100 percent sure that these are not Italians. We had both equipment and trained people. It seems like there is no one besides us, many people think so. But we have nothing to do with this act. This is absolutely certain. He was of no use to us. And in general, you know, Señor Alessandro, if I had blown up the Giulio Cesare in combat conditions, I would have reported it to you with pride. And I don't want to attribute it to myself ".

E. Marcolini:
“We are all aware that more than a ton of explosives were detonated under the battleship. I could have delivered no more than 280 kilograms in my "Mayala" (a guided torpedo driven by E. Marcolini during the war). To deliver our charge to the battleship, we would need support equipment: either a submarine or something like the Olterra. And so that they are not far away. Because there would be practically no power reserve for the return: the torpedo would then have to be drowned, and we ourselves would have got out just like that.
And this is physically impossible in a little-known place. And even in a matter of minutes ...
There is nothing to say about the swimmers from Gamma. They wouldn't last long in your water. (the water temperature on 10/28/1955 in the Sevastopol region was 12-14 degrees). So I have little idea how I would have done it myself. And why did we need it? ..
If we had actually taken part in the bombing of "Giulio Cesare", then it would have immediately become known to everyone, and then they dealt with us very quickly, they would have been torn to pieces. And first of all, our leftists, they had great power in Italy then. "

E. Legnani answers questions, including about the oath of Prince Borghese to drown the battleship on his golden sword, but not to let him serve with the Bolsheviks:
“It's all fantasy. The prince, as far as I knew him, did not take any such oaths to anyone. Yes, and we all had the same swords. And in general, why should we Italians take the risk to blow up this rusty box, which barely floated and could hardly shoot ?! I personally know this better than anyone else. Because of him, there was nothing to risk, let him swim and ruin your treasury ... And if anyone had to take revenge, it was England and America - they took from us completely new battleships "Vittorio Veneto" and "Italy", and the Germans bombed "Roma" on the day of the truce. So from any side this action with Giulio Cesare in Italy was absolutely unnecessary ... The guilty and interested should be looked for elsewhere. "

The answer is somewhat cynical, but frank.
All these interlocutors advised: determine who needed all this and was beneficial.
Hmmm. It seems that Hugo D'Esposito just decided to brag in his old age.

As for the version about the involvement of British underwater swimmers-saboteurs in the bombing of Novorossiysk, their problems would be the same as those pointed out when analyzing the version of the “Italian trace”. Besides, no English ships, which could deliver underwater saboteurs or an ultra-small submarine, were not observed in the Black Sea at that time.

But if not sabotage of combat swimmers, then what caused the death of the battleship?
The version analysis was carried out in his research by A.D. Sanin ( Once again about the "cursed secret" and various versions of the sinking of the battleship "Novorossiysk").
Interestingly, in the area of \u200b\u200bthe explosion, "A torn part of a barge with a winch, 8-9 m long, 4 m wide, protruding from the ground by 2.5-4 m.", i.e. to the bottom of the battleship. It was quite possible to place explosive charges on the barge with a total mass of 2-2.5 tons and more. At the same time, the explosion becomes no longer bottom, but bottom and practically under the very bottom of the battleship (3-5 meters remain to the bottom). "Iron sheet without fouling" of dimensions 4x2 m., 20 mm thick could be used for better shielding of charges from the bottom and imparting an upward directed character to the explosion. As you can easily calculate, the weight of this sheet is about 1.2 t.
To deliver such a quantity of explosives (more than 2 tons) to a barge under water and to drag a sheet of iron to it, of such dimensions and weight, is clearly beyond the power of underwater saboteurs ... Hence the conclusion that such an operation, if it was carried out, was carried out surfacepath followed by the sinking of this rusty barge in the area of \u200b\u200banchorage number 3.
A.N. Norchenko, comparing the documents on the explosion of the battleship and various objects found at the bottom of the funnel in the area of \u200b\u200bits parking on barrels No. 3, gives a possible scheme for installing charges under the battleship "Novorossiysk": the first charge detonation occurred closer to the left side of the battleship. The cavity he created in the water accumulated the explosion energy of the second charge and gave it a more directional character. The insignificant depth and smoothness of the craters just indicate that the explosions occurred at a certain distance from the ground, equal to the height of the flooded barge, that is, bottom directed explosions were realized.

The proposed scheme (reconstruction) of the installation of the charge of the LK "Novorossiysk" using a flooded barge

Fragment of the map of the LK "Novorossiysk" parking lot on barrels No. 3

The second sabotage version (O. Sergeev) of the explosion may be associated with the disappearance after the explosion of the regular battleship longboat No. 319 and the command boat No. 1475, standing under the shot, from the starboard side of the battleship at a distance of 10-15 m from the side.
From the explanatory note of the assistant commander of the battleship captain of the 3rd rank Serbulov dated 10.30.55:
“… Hearing the explosion, in 2-3 minutes I went to the bottom. Following to the place of the explosion, from the waist I saw people floating ... and there I found out that under the right shot there was neither boat No. 1475 and longboat No. 319. "
The commission also did not attach any importance to the fact of the disappearance of the boat and the launch, although all the first reports of the explosion were associated with the fact that some gasoline containers exploded.
From the explanatory note of the Fleet Commander Parkhomenko presented to the commission: "... At about 01.40, Captain 3rd Rank Ksenofontov called me at the apartment of the OD of the Fleet and reported that at 01.30, gasoline tanks had exploded on the battleship Novorossiysk."
But there was no gasoline in the bow of the battleship; there was gasoline in boat # 1475. A completely logical conclusion suggests itself that the traceless destruction of the boat and the launch could have occurred during underwater explosions of charges and the resulting explosion of the gas-air mixture. This led to the smell of gasoline and the first report on the explosion of a gasoline tank.

The explosive charges could possibly have been placed on longboat No. 319, whose displacement is about 12 tons, the length is 12 m, the width is 3.4 m, the side height is 1.27 m. It could accommodate charges weighing up to 2.5 tons and more (for example, 2 FAB-1000 air bombs), as well as a “sheet of iron without fouling” weighing 1.2 tons to give explosions an upward direction.
If longboat No. 319, during the battleship's departure to the sea on October 28, 1955, did not climb aboard it, but remained at the battleship's boat base in the Sevastopol Bay, then it could well have been "charged" with so many explosives in advance, and then simply sunk at the side battleship.

O. Sergeev believes that the battleship was blown up by two charges with a total TNT equivalent within 1800 kg, installed on the ground in the area of \u200b\u200bthe bow artillery cellars, at a small distance from the center plane of the ship and from each other. The explosions occurred with a short time interval, causing the creation of a cumulative effect and causing damage, as a result of which the ship sank. The bombing was prepared and carried out by domestic special services with the knowledge of the country's leadership for domestic political purposes. Who was this provocation directed against? According to Sergeev, against the leadership of the Navy. The death of "Novorossiysk" was the beginning of a large-scale reduction of the Soviet Navy. Outdated battleships Sevastopol, October Revolution, captured cruisers Kerch, Admiral Makarov, many captured submarines, destroyers and ships of other pre-war classes were used for scrap metal.

Hmmm. It turns out that they did blow up their? For the GRU or the KGB, it was clearly easier than for foreign swimmers, who simply did not physically have such an opportunity.

It is strange that for decades, experts have not been able to establish the cause of the battleship's death.

And another mystery: 40 years before the explosion of the flagship battleship of the Soviet fleet on the same Sevastopol raid and under the same unexplained circumstances, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the dreadnought "Empress Maria", died ...

Eternal memory to the lost sailors.

The question of the lifespan of an aircraft, ship or car, of course, does not have an exact answer. Someone in their third decade has been driving their favorite Buick Roadmaster, others change cars every four years. This is a story about a warship with a difficult history, two of its lives and an unexpected death.

Almost 60 years ago, on October 29, 1955, a disaster struck, completing the long and difficult path of one of the most famous ships in history. In the Northern Bay of Sevastopol, the Italian battleship "Giulio Cesare" ("Julius Caesar") sank from the explosion, which, however, by the time of its death, had long been the flagship of the Black Sea squadron of the Soviet Navy and went under the new name "Novorossiysk". More than six hundred sailors were killed. For a long time, the details of these events were not disclosed, the versions of the tragedy were kept secret - it is not surprising at all, because extremely strange events in the Sevastopol Bay led to a reshuffle in the command of the USSR Navy.

Giulio Cesare

The battleship "Novorossiysk" at the time of the catastrophe was forty-four years old - a very respectable time for a warship. For most of his life he was known as "Giulio Cesare" - and for a long time sailed under the flag of the Italian Navy.

Dreadnought "Giulio Cesare" on the slipway, 1911.

The history of Julius Caesar began on June 27, 1909, when Italy decided to modernize its combat fleet and approved a large-scale project to build three cruisers, twelve submarines, as well as a dozen destroyers, thirty-four destroyers and, finally, three dreadnought battleships according to the 1908 project of the year. So in 1910 in Genoa, the future "Leonardo da Vinci", "Conte di Cavour" and "Giulio Cesare" were laid down, which was originally meant as a flagship.

The British liked to joke about the Italian fleet, they say, Italians are much better at building ships than they know how to fight on them. All jokes, but Italy was seriously counting on its new battleships in the upcoming European conflict, and by the beginning of the First World War, "Giulio Cesare" was in the main naval base of Taranto, constantly conducting exercises and shooting. The doctrine of linear artillery combat implied that battleships should engage only with enemy battleships, and the artillery preparation of the crew was carried out the most serious. In 1916, the ship was transferred to the coast of Corfu, in December 1917 - to the southern part of the Adriatic, and by the end of the war she returned to Taranto. The entire baggage of Caesar's experience during the First World War consisted of 31 hours on combat missions and 387 hours on exercises, not a single collision with the enemy followed.

Launching in Genoa, Ansaldo shipyard. October 15, 1911.
Source: Aizenberg B. A., Kostrichenko V. V., Talamanov P. N. "Epitaph of a great dream." Kharkiv, 2007

In the interwar period, "Giulio Cesare", remaining the pride of the Italian fleet, was actively improved and refined. In 1922, the foremast was changed, in 1925 - the fire control system and a catapult for seaplanes was installed. The ship underwent the greatest transformations in the 30s during a major overhaul - at that time it was already more than twenty years old! The battleship's displacement reached 24,000 tons, with a maximum speed of 22 knots. Initial armament included 13 305-mm guns, 18 120-mm guns, 13 76-mm guns, three torpedo tubes, anti-aircraft guns and large-caliber machine guns, as a result of modernization, the main caliber was bored to 320 mm.

The Italian battleship fought its first serious battle after the outbreak of World War II. On July 6, 1940, near Cape Punta Stilo, the Cesare entered into a firefight with the flagship of the British squadron, the battleship Worspite, but, unfortunately, could not show its best side: the hit (most historians agree that it was accidental) 381 -mm shell caused a fire on the Cesar, killing 115 crew members, destroying light weapons and damaging four boilers. The ship had to retreat.

Giulio Cesare in 1917

In November 1940, British aircraft attacked Italian battleships in the harbor of Taranto, as a result of which the Cesare was transferred first to Naples, then to Sicily. The battleship fought the second serious battle with an English convoy to Malta on November 27. The ships of the opposing sides received minor damage, the Italians retreated when the enemy aircraft approached. In 1941, "Cesare" was again unlucky: the ship was damaged by another British air raid and was sent for long-term repairs. By 1942, it became clear that the 30-year-old ship was hopelessly outdated. Due to design flaws, he could die from one torpedo hit, and was also unable to seriously resist enemy aircraft.

Until the end of hostilities, the battleship remained in the harbor, serving as a floating barracks.

"Giulio Cesare" in the battle at Punta Stilo. Photo taken from the battleship Conte di Cavour

"Novorossiysk"

Italy surrendered in 1943. According to the conditions of the allies, the Italian fleet was to be divided among the victor countries. The USSR claimed new battleships, since of the battleships in the ranks of the Soviet Navy, only the pre-revolutionary dreadnoughts Sevastopol and the October Revolution remained, but in the conditions of the impending Cold War, neither the United States nor Britain sought to strengthen the fleet of a potential enemy, and instead of a battleship of the type " Littorio ”, built in the second half of the 30s of the USSR, only the old“ Giulio Cesare ”was transferred. Given the ship's age, the Soviet command decided to use it to train crews. As for the newer Italian battleships, they were returned to Italy as part of the NATO partnership.

On December 9, 1948, the former pride of the Italian fleet, the battleship Giulio Cesare left Taranto and arrived 6 days later at the Albanian port of Vlora. In February 1949, he was transferred to the Soviet commission under the command of Rear Admiral Levchenko. On February 26, the battleship moored in Sevastopol, and by order of March 5, 1949, it was renamed Novorossiysk. The new life of "Giulio Cesare" began.

Taranto, 1948. One of the last photographs of a battleship flying the Italian flag.
Source: Aizenberg B. A., Kostrichenko V. V., Talamanov P. N. "Epitaph of a great dream." Kharkiv, 2007

As the researchers note, the ship was received in an extremely neglected state. Serious repair or replacement required pipelines, fittings, service mechanisms, that is, everything that had not undergone major overhaul of the 30s. Before the ship was handed over, the Italians only repaired the electrics so that the ship would at least reach the new home port. At the same time, the restoration of "Novorossiysk" in Sevastopol was hampered by the fact that in the USSR there were practically no specialists who spoke Italian, in which all the documentation on the ship was drawn up. Moreover, the technical documents were not provided in full, which further complicated the repair work.

Despite the difficulties with the operation of the ship, already in August 1949, "Novorossiysk" took part in the squadron's maneuvers as a flagship. He had not yet become a full-fledged combat unit, and it was far from complete recovery, but the Soviet command wanted to demonstrate success in mastering the Italian ship. NATO intelligence made sure that "Novorossiysk" entered the ranks of the Black Sea Fleet of the USSR, and this was already a sufficient result.

The battleship "Novorossiysk" in the Northern Bay of Sevastopol, 1949

The battleship spent the next six years in constant repairs. During this time, 24 37-mm anti-aircraft guns were installed on it, new radar stations, communications equipment, and Italian turbines were replaced. Nevertheless, the operation of the ship was complicated by extremely uncomfortable conditions for the crew, constant breakdowns and deterioration of the systems.

October disaster

On October 28, 1955, the ship returned to the harbor and took a place in the Northern Bay of Sevastopol, about 110 meters from the coast. The depth was 17 meters, plus about 30 meters of viscous silt.

The tragedy happened a day later. On board the "Novorossiysk" there were more than one and a half thousand people: part of the crew (who had not gone on leave), new replenishment, cadets and soldiers. A minute-by-minute reconstruction of what happened was subsequently created based on the testimony of surviving eyewitnesses.

On October 29 at 01:31 Moscow time, a powerful explosion occurred under the hull of the ship from the starboard side in the bow. In the underwater part of the hull, a hole with an area of \u200b\u200bmore than 150 square meters was formed, on the left side and along the keel - a dent of more than two meters. The total damage area of \u200b\u200bthe underwater part was about 340 square meters on a 22-meter site. Water immediately poured into the hole, a roll to starboard formed.

At 01:40 the fleet commander was informed about the explosion, and at 02:00 the order was given to tow the ship aground. 02:32 - a strong list to the left side was recorded, by 03:30 the unoccupied sailors were lined up on the deck, rescue ships were at the side of the battleship, but the evacuation did not begin. As Admiral Parkhomenko later explained, he "did not consider it possible to order the personnel to leave the ship in advance, because until the last minutes he hoped that the ship would be saved, and there was no thought that it would die." "Novorossiysk" began to capsize, the sailors were rescuing on boats, or simply jumped into the water, many remained inside the battleship.

By 04:14 the ship lay down on the port side, and by 22:00 on October 29, it had completely disappeared under water. In a few hours, 609 people died: from the explosion, covered by the ship's hull in the water, in flooded compartments. According to the recollections of the divers, it was only by November 1 that the seamen, walled up and doomed to death, stopped giving signals.

In May 1957, the ship was raised, taken to the Cossack Bay, studied and dismantled for metal.

Not everything is so simple

To find out the causes of the explosion, a special government commission was created, headed by the Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Vyacheslav Malyshev. Contemporaries spoke of him as an engineer of the highest erudition, a high-class specialist in shipbuilding, who, as is typical, back in 1946, recommended abandoning the acquisition of Giulio Cesare. In accordance with the tight deadlines set, the commission issued its opinion two and a half weeks later. The official version said that the explosion was caused by a German magnetic mine left over from the Second World War, with a force charge of 1000–1200 kg in TNT equivalent. Parkhomenko was declared to be the direct culprit of the death of people; battleship commander Captain Khurshudov; and Vice Admiral Kulakov, member of the Military Council of the Black Sea Fleet.

On October 29, 1955, the battleship Novorossiysk, the flagship of the Black Sea squadron of the Soviet Navy, sank in the Northern Bay of Sevastopol. More than 600 sailors were killed. According to the official version, an old German bottom mine exploded under the bottom of the ship. But there are other versions, unofficial, but very popular - allegedly Italian, British and even Soviet saboteurs are responsible for the death of Novorossiysk.

Giulio Cesare

In the mid-1930s, "Giulio Cesare" underwent a major overhaul. The ship's displacement reached 24,000 tons, it could develop enough high speed at 22 knots. The battleship was well armed: two three-barreled and three turret guns, three torpedo tubes, anti-aircraft guns and large-caliber machine guns. During the Second World War, the battleship was mainly engaged in escorting convoys, but in 1942 the naval command recognized it as obsolete and transferred it to the category of training ships.

In 1943 Italy surrendered. Until 1948, the Giulio Cesare was parked without being mothballed, with a minimum crew and no proper maintenance.

According to a special agreement, the Italian fleet was to be divided between the allies in the anti-Hitler coalition. The USSR had a ship of the line, a light cruiser, 9 destroyers and 4 submarines, not counting small ships. On January 10, 1947, in the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Allied Powers, an agreement was reached on the distribution of the transferred Italian ships between the USSR, the USA, Great Britain and other countries affected by the Italian aggression. For example, France was allocated four cruisers, four destroyers and two submarines, and Greece - one cruiser. The battleships became part of the "A", "B" and "C" groups intended for the three main powers.

The Soviet side laid claim to one of the two new battleships, superior in power even to the German ships of the Bismarck class. But since by this time the Cold War had already begun between the recent allies, neither the United States nor Britain sought to strengthen the Soviet Navy with powerful ships. I had to throw lots, and the USSR got the group "C". The new battleships went to the United States and England (later these battleships were returned to Italy as part of the NATO partnership). By the decision of the Triple Commission in 1948, the USSR received the battleship Giulio Cesare, the light cruiser Emmanuele Filiberto Duca D Aosta, the destroyers Artilieri, Fuchillera, the destroyers Animoso, Ardimentozo, Fortunale and submarines. Marea "and" Nicelio ".

On December 9, 1948, the Giulio Cesare left the port of Taranto and on December 15 arrived at the Albanian port of Vlora. On February 3, 1949, the transfer of the battleship to the Soviet commission headed by Rear Admiral Levchenko took place in this port. On February 6, the USSR naval flag was raised over the ship, and two weeks later he left for Sevastopol, arriving at his new base on February 26. By order of the Black Sea Fleet of March 5, 1949, the battleship was named Novorossiysk.

"Novorossiysk"

When "Novorossiysk" settled in Sevastopol, the command of the Black Sea Fleet gave the order - in as soon as possible turn the ship into a full-fledged combat unit. The matter was complicated by the fact that some of the documentation was missing, and there were practically no naval specialists who spoke Italian in the USSR.

In August 1949, the Novorossiysk took part in the squadron's maneuvers as a flagship. However, his participation was rather nominal, since they did not have time to put the battleship in order in the three months released (and could not have time). However, the political situation demanded to demonstrate the successes of Soviet sailors in the development of Italian ships. As a result, the squadron went to sea, and NATO intelligence made sure that the Novorossiysk was floating.

From 1949 to 1955, the battleship was under factory repair eight times. It was equipped with 24 paired installations of Soviet 37-mm anti-aircraft guns, new radar stations, radio communications and intra-ship communications. Also, the Italian turbines were replaced with new ones manufactured at the Kharkov plant. In May 1955, the Novorossiysk entered service with the Black Sea Fleet and went to sea several times until the end of October, completing combat training tasks.

On October 28, 1955, the battleship returned from the last cruise and took a place in the Northern Bay on a "battleship barrel" near the Marine Hospital, about 110 meters from the coast. The water depth there was 17 meters of water and about 30 meters of viscous silt.

Explosion

On October 29, at 01:31 Moscow time, a powerful explosion was heard under the hull of the ship from the starboard side in the bow. According to experts, its force was equivalent to an explosion of 1000-1200 kilograms of trinitrotoluene. On the starboard side in the underwater part of the hull, a hole with an area of \u200b\u200bmore than 150 square meters was formed, and on the left side and along the keel - a dent with a deflection arrow from 2 to 3 meters. The total damage area of \u200b\u200bthe underwater part of the hull was about 340 square meters on a 22-meter long section. Outboard water poured into the resulting hole, and after 3 minutes a trim of 3-4 degrees and a list of 1-2 degrees to starboard appeared.

At 01:40 the incident was reported to the fleet commander. By 02:00, when the list to starboard reached 1.5 degrees, the chief of the operational department of the fleet, Captain 1st Rank Ovcharov, ordered "to tow the ship to a shallow place," and the approaching tugs turned it stern to the shore.

By this time, the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Vice Admiral V.A. Parkhomenko, Chief of Staff of the Fleet Vice Admiral S.E. Chursin, member of the Military Council, Vice Admiral N.M. Kulakov, Acting Squadron Commander Rear Admiral N I. Nikolsky, Chief of Staff of the squadron Rear Admiral A. I. Zubkov, Commander of the cruiser division Rear Admiral S. M. Lobov, Head of the Fleet Political Directorate Rear Admiral B. T. Kalachev and 28 other senior staff officers.

At 02:32 a roll to the left side was revealed. By 03:30, about 800 unoccupied sailors were lined up on the deck, and rescue ships were stationed at the side of the battleship. Nikolsky offered to transfer sailors to them, but Parkhomenko received a categorical refusal. At 03:50 the roll to the left side reached 10-12 degrees, while the tugs continued to pull the battleship to the left. After 10 minutes, the roll increased to 17 degrees, while the critical ones were 20. Nikolsky again asked Parkhomenko and Kulakov for permission to evacuate the sailors who were not engaged in the fight for survivability and was again refused.

"Novorossiysk" began to overturn upside down. Several dozen people managed to get into the boats and neighboring ships, but hundreds of sailors fell from the deck into the water. Many remained inside the dying battleship. As Admiral Parkhomenko later explained, he "did not consider it possible to order the personnel to leave the ship in advance, since until the last minutes he hoped that the ship would be saved, and there was no thought that it would die." This hope cost the lives of hundreds of people who, falling into the water, were covered by the battleship's hull.

By 04:14 the Novorossiysk, which had received more than 7,000 tons of water, banked to a fatal 20 degrees, swung to the right, just as unexpectedly fell to the left and lay on board. In this position, he remained for several hours, resting against solid ground with masts. At 22:00 on October 29, the hull completely disappeared under water.

In total, 609 people died in the crash, including emergency parties from other ships of the squadron. Directly as a result of the explosion and flooding of the bow compartments, from 50 to 100 people died. The rest died during the capsizing of the battleship and after it. Timely evacuation of personnel was not organized. Most of the sailors remained inside the hull. Some of them were kept in the air cushions of the compartments for a long time, but only nine people were saved: seven came out through the neck cut in the aft part of the bottom five hours after overturning, and two more were taken out after 50 hours by divers. According to the recollections of divers, the seamen, walled up and doomed to death, sang "Varyag". Only by November 1 did the divers stop hearing knocks.

In the summer of 1956, the EON-35 special-purpose expedition began lifting the battleship using the blowing method. Preparations for the ascent were fully completed by the end of April 1957. General purging began in the morning of May 4 and completed the ascent on the same day. The ship floated up keel on May 4, 1957, and on May 14 it was taken to the Cossack Bay, where it was turned over. During the rise of the ship, the third tower of the main caliber fell out, which had to be raised separately. The ship was dismantled for metal and transferred to the Zaporizhstal plant.

Commission conclusions

The commission gave its conclusion two and a half weeks after the disaster. Tight deadlines were set in Moscow. On November 17, the commission's conclusion was submitted to the CPSU Central Committee, which adopted and approved the conclusions.

The cause of the disaster was called "an external underwater explosion (non-contact, bottom) of a charge with TNT equivalent of 1000-1200 kg." The most probable was the explosion of a German magnetic mine left on the ground after the Great Patriotic War.

As for responsibility, the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Vice Admiral Parkhomenko, was named the direct culprits of the death of a significant number of people and the battleship "Novorossiysk" squadron commander Rear Admiral Nikolsky and acting battleship commander Captain 2nd Rank Khurshudov. The commission noted that Vice Admiral Kulakov, a member of the Military Council of the Black Sea Fleet, also bears direct responsibility for the disaster with the battleship Novorossiysk and especially for the death of people.

But despite the harsh conclusions, the matter was limited to the fact that the battleship commander Kukhta was demoted and sent to the reserve. They were also removed from office and demoted in rank: the commander of the water area protection division, Rear Admiral Galitsky, acting. squadron commander Nikolsky and member of the Military Council Kulakov. After a year and a half, they were reinstated. The fleet commander, Vice Admiral Viktor Parkhomenko, was severely reprimanded, and on December 8, 1955, he was removed from office. No judicial action was taken against him. In 1956, the commander of the Soviet Navy, Admiral N.G. Kuznetsov, was removed from his post.

The commission also noted that "the sailors, foremen and officers, as well as the officers in charge of the direct struggle to save the ship, are the acting commander of the BC-5 t. Matusevich, the commander of the survivability division, t. Gorodetsky, and the head of the technical department of the fleet, who helped them. Ivanov skillfully and selflessly fought the water coming to the ship, knew every job well, showed initiative, showed examples of courage and genuine heroism, but all the efforts of the personnel were devalued and nullified by the criminally frivolous, unqualified and indecisive command ... . "

In the documents of the commission, it was said in detail about those who were supposed to, but did not manage to organize the rescue of the crew and the ship. However, none of these documents gave a direct answer to the main question: what caused the disaster?

Version number 1 - mine

There are still several versions left: a mine explosion, a submarine torpedo attack and sabotage. After studying the circumstances, the mine version gained the most votes. Which was quite understandable - mines in the Sevastopol bays were not uncommon since the Civil War. The bays and roads were periodically cleared of mines with the help of minesweepers and diving teams. In 1941, when the German armies attacked Sevastopol, the German Air Force and Navy mined the water area both from the sea and from the air - mines different types and the designation was put forward by them several hundred. Some worked during the fighting, others were removed and rendered harmless after the liberation of Sevastopol in 1944. Later, the Sevastopol bays and roadsteads were regularly traversed and examined by diving teams. The last such comprehensive survey was carried out in 1951-1953. In 1956-1958, after the explosion of the battleship, 19 more German bottom mines were found in the Sevastopol Bay, including three - at a distance of less than 50 meters from the place where the battleship was destroyed.

The testimony of divers also spoke in favor of the mine version. As the squad leader Kravtsov testified: "The ends of the hole's plating are bent inward. By the nature of the hole, burrs from the plating, the explosion was on the outside of the ship."

Version number 2 - torpedo attack

In practice, the boat would hardly have had enough depth for a full-fledged attack. However, the military knew that some Western fleets were already armed with small or dwarf submarines. So, theoretically, a dwarf submarine could penetrate the inner raid of the main base of the Black Sea Fleet. This assumption, in turn, gave rise to another - were the saboteurs involved in the explosion?

Version number 3 - Italian frogmen

Valerio Borghese, a graduate of the Royal Naval Academy, had a brilliant career as a submarine officer, which was facilitated by a noble background and excellent academic performance. The first submarine under the command of Borghese was part of the Italian Legion, which, as part of Franco's assistance, operated against the Republican fleet of Spain. After that, the prince received a new submarine under his command. Later Valerio Borghese took a special training course in Germany on the Baltic Sea.

Upon his return to Italy, Borghese was given command of the most modern submarine, Shire. Thanks to the skilful actions of the commander, the submarine returned back to its base unharmed from each combat campaign. The operations of the Italian submariners aroused genuine interest in King Victor Emmanuel, who granted the prince-submariner a personal audience.

After that, Borghese was asked to create the world's first flotilla of sea saboteurs-submariners. For her were created midget submarines, special guided torpedoes, manned exploding boats. On December 18, 1941, the Italians in dwarf submarines secretly entered the harbor of Alexandria and attached magnetic explosive devices to the bottoms of the British battleships Valiant and Queen Elizabeth. The death of these ships allowed the Italian fleet to seize the initiative in the fighting in the Mediterranean for a long time. Also, "10th assault flotilla" took part in the siege of Sevastopol, based in the ports of the Crimea.

Theoretically, a foreign submarine could deliver combat swimmers as close as possible to Sevastopol so that they could sabotage. Taking into account the combat potential of first-class Italian scuba divers, pilots of small submarines and guided torpedoes, and also taking into account the slovenliness in matters of guarding the main base of the Black Sea Fleet, the version of underwater saboteurs looks convincing.

Version 4 - British saboteurs

The following argument is put forward in favor of this version - as if the Soviet command wanted to equip the Novorossiysk with nuclear weapons. The USSR possessed an atomic bomb since 1949, but there were no naval means of using nuclear weapons then. The solution could only be large-caliber naval cannons, firing heavy shells over long distances. The Italian battleship was ideal for this purpose. Great Britain, which is an island, in this case turned out to be the most vulnerable target for the Soviet Navy. In the case of the use of atomic explosive devices near the west coast of England, taking into account the wind rose that blows to the east in those regions all year round, the whole country would be exposed to radiation.

And one more fact - at the end of October 1955, the British Mediterranean squadron conducted maneuvers in the Aegean and Marmara Seas.

Version 5 - the handiwork of the KGB

Who was this provocation directed against? According to Sergeev, primarily against the leadership of the Navy. Nikita Khrushchev answered this question two years after the death of Novorossiysk, at the plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU on October 29, 1957: “We were offered to invest over 100 billion rubles in the fleet and build old boats and destroyers armed with classical artillery. , Kuznetsov was removed ... he turned out to be incapable of thinking, taking care of the fleet, of defense. Everything needs to be re-evaluated. It is necessary to build a fleet, but above all to build a submarine fleet armed with missiles. "

The ten-year shipbuilding plan, which does not reflect in the long term the priority of developing the most capital-intensive and profitable for the military-industrial complex, naval strategic nuclear forces, objectively could not be supported by the country's military-political leadership, which decided the fate of the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy Nikolai Kuznetsov.

The death of "Novorossiysk" was the beginning of a large-scale reduction of the USSR Navy. Outdated battleships Sevastopol and October Revolution, captured cruisers Kerch and Admiral Makarov, many captured submarines, destroyers and ships of other classes of pre-war construction were used for scrap metal.

Version criticism

As for the version about the work of saboteurs from Italy or England, in this case a number of questions arise. First, an action of this scale is only possible with the participation of the state. And it would be very difficult to hide the preparations for it, given the activity of Soviet intelligence in the Apennine Peninsula and the influence of the Italian Communist Party.

Individuals would not be able to organize such an action - too large resources would be needed to support it, starting with several tons of explosives and ending with means of transportation (again, let's not forget about secrecy). This is permissible in feature films such as "Dogs of War", but in real life becomes known to the relevant services at the planning stage, as was the case, for example, with the unsuccessful coup in Equatorial Guinea. In addition, as the former Italian combat swimmers themselves admitted, their life after the war was strictly controlled by the state, and any attempt at amateur performance would be suppressed.

In addition, preparations for such an operation should be kept secret from the allies, primarily from the United States. Had the Americans found out about the impending sabotage of the Italian or British navies, they would certainly have prevented this - in the event of a failure, the United States would not have been able to clean up the charges of inciting war for a long time. It would be madness to launch such a sortie against a nuclear-armed country at the height of the Cold War.

Finally, in order to mine a ship of this class in a guarded harbor, it was necessary to collect complete information about the security regime, anchorage places, ship exits to the sea, and so on. It is impossible to do this without a resident with a radio station in Sevastopol itself or somewhere nearby. All operations of the Italian saboteurs during the war were carried out only after thorough reconnaissance and never "blindly". But even after half a century, there is not a single evidence that in one of the most guarded cities of the USSR, thoroughly filtered by the KGB and counterintelligence, there was an English or Italian resident who regularly supplied information not only to Rome or London, but also to Prince Borghese personally.

Supporters of the Italian version claim that some time after the death of "Novorossiysk" a message flashed in the Italian press about the awarding of orders to a group of officers of the Italian Navy "for completing a special mission." However, so far no one has published a single photocopy of this message. References to the Italian naval officers themselves, who once declared to someone about their participation in the sinking of the Novorossiysk, are unsubstantiated. There are many "absolutely reliable" interviews with people who allegedly personally led ultra-small submarines to Sevastopol on the Internet. One trouble - it immediately turns out that these people have either already died, or there is still no opportunity to talk to them. And the descriptions of the sabotage attack are very different ...

Yes, information about the explosion of "Novorossiysk" appeared in the Western press very quickly. But comments from Italian newspapers (with vague allusions) are a common journalistic device when "credible" evidence emerges after the fact. It should also be borne in mind that the Italians melted down their "younger" battleships, which they received back from NATO allies. And if there hadn't been a disaster with the Novorossiysk, the battleship Giulio Cesare in Italy would have been remembered only by historians of the Navy.

Overdue awards

Only in 1996, after repeated appeals from the ship's veterans, the Russian government gave appropriate instructions to the Ministry of Defense, the FSB, the Prosecutor General's Office, the Russian State Maritime Historical and Cultural Center and other departments. The main military prosecutor's office began to check the materials of the investigation carried out in 1955. All this time, the classified award lists for the Novorossiysk were kept in the Central Naval Archives. It turned out that 6 sailors were posthumously presented to the highest award of the USSR - the Order of Lenin, 64 (53 of them were posthumously) - to the Order of the Red Banner, 10 (9 posthumously) - to the Orders of the Patriotic War of the 1st and 2nd degree, 191 ( 143 posthumously) - to the Order of the Red Star, 448 sailors (391 posthumously) - to the medals "For Courage", "For Military Merit", Ushakov and Nakhimov.

Since by that time there was no longer either the state under the naval flag of which the Novorossiysk died, or the Soviet orders, all Novorossiysk citizens were awarded the Orders of Courage.

Afterword

When writing the article, the following materials were used:

Site battleships.spb.ru.
S.V. Suliga. The battleship "Julio Cesare" ("Novorossiysk").
N.I.Nikolsky, V.N.Nikolsky. "Why did the battleship Novorossiysk die?"
Sergeev O.L. Accident of the battleship "Novorossiysk". Testimonials. Judgments. Facts.
Publication of the journal of the FSB of the Russian Federation "Security Service" No. 3-4, 1996, materials of the investigation file on the death of the battleship "Novorossiysk" from the archives of the FSB.

"Guilio Cesare" - battleship of the Royal Italian Navy class « » , participated in the First and Second World War. Named after Gaius Julius Caesar, the ancient Roman statesman and politician, military leader and writer.

Design

The stern of the battleships had a rounded shape with two rudders located in the longitudinal axis of the hull. The hull was made almost entirely of high-strength steel and had a double bottom throughout, and was also divided by 23 longitudinal and transverse bulkheads. The ships had three decks: armored, main, and upper. In the bow and stern of the tower of the main caliber No. 3 there were two masts, further to the extremities were spaced pipes, a conning tower and a stern command post symmetrical to it. The bow bugs of the main caliber were located on the forecastle deck, which is a tier higher than the stern bugs.

Since the foremast was located just behind the chimney, its mars were constantly shrouded in smoke on the move. This deficiency was eliminated during the repair in 1922, when the foremast was cut off and moved forward from the pipe. The base of the old mast was used to attach the cargo boom. Later class battleships « » originally had a foremast in front of the chimney.

The ships had an extended forecastle, narrowed in the area of \u200b\u200bthe bow towers of the main caliber, and in the center of the hull, turning into a wide casemate, diamond-shaped in plan, in which four groups of 120-mm guns were located. The living quarters of both the officers and the crew quarters of the sailors were widely spaced along the length of the ship, large enough and comfortable by the standards of those years.

Waterline length of class ships « » was 168.9 meters, total length - 176 meters. The width of the corbels was 28 meters, and the draft was 9.3 meters. Normal load tonnage was 23,088 tons, and deep load 25,086 tons. The ship's crew consisted of 31 officers and 969 sailors.

Engines

The original engine rooms for all three ships consisted of three Parsons turbines, each housed in its own engine room. In each of the engine rooms, located on the sides of the middle tower, there was a unit of high and low pressure turbines connected in series and driving the external mushroom shafts. The middle turbine unit stood in the engine room, located between the aft boiler group and the middle tower. It consisted of high and low pressure turbines installed in parallel, rotating the left and right internal propeller shafts.

The steam for the turbines was generated by twenty-four water-tube boilers of the Babcock & Wilcox system. The boilers were located in two groups in front of and behind the engine room. "Guilio Cesare" had 12 boilers for pure oil heating and 12 boilers for mixed heating.

During development, it was planned that the ships will be able to reach a maximum speed of 22.5 knots, but during tests they were able to develop a maximum speed of 21.56 - 22.2 knots. The ships' fuel reserve was 1,450 tons of coal and 850 tons of oil, while the cruising range was 4,800 nautical miles at 10 knots and 1000 nautical miles at 22 knots. Each ship was equipped with three turbine generators that generated 150 kW at 110V.

Armament

Since construction, the ships' main armament consisted of thirteen 305mm 46 caliber guns, developed by Armstrong Whitworth and Vickers, and housed in five gun turrets. Three of which were three-gun and two two-gun. Two-gun turrets were located above the three-gun turrets in the bow and stern. Three-gun turrets were located one at the bow and stern, the third was located in the middle of the ship. All gun turrets were installed in the center plane of the battleships so that five guns could be fired at the bow and stern, and all thirteen on either side. At the same time, the ships had one gun less than the Brazilian battleship "Rio de Janeiro", the most armed battleship in the world. It had seven main battery twin-gun turrets. These guns had vertical angles of inclination from -5 to +20 degrees and the ship could carry 100 shells to each gun, although with a normal load the rate was 70 units. Historians disagree about the rate of fire of these guns and what kind of shells they fired, but historian Giorgio Giorgerini believes that they fired 452 kg armor-piercing shells, with a rate of fire of one round per minute and with a maximum firing range of 24,000 meters. The towers had a hydraulic lift and an elevator with an auxiliary electrical system.

Anti-mine armament consisted of nineteen 120 mm 50 caliber guns, developed by the same company and located in casemates along the sides of the ship. The vertical tilt angles of these guns ranged from -10 to +15 degrees and their rate of fire was six rounds per minute. They could fire 22.1 kg high-explosive shells with a maximum firing range of 11,000 meters. Ammunition for these guns was 3,600 shells. To protect against destroyers, the ships were armed with fourteen 76 mm 50 caliber guns. Thirteen of them could be installed at the top of the towers, but they could also be installed in thirty different places, including on the tank and on the upper deck. The vertical aiming angles corresponded to the auxiliary weapons and had a firing rate of ten rounds per minute. They could fire 6 kg armor-piercing shells with a maximum firing range of 9,100 meters. The ships were also armed with three 450 mm torpedo tubes, recessed 45 centimeters. They were located on the sides and in the stern.

Reservation

Class ships « » had a full-fledged armor belt along the waterline, its height was 2.8 meters, it protruded 1.2 meters above the waterline and dropped below the waterline by 1.6 meters. In the middle part, its thickness was 250 mm, towards the stern and bow, the thickness decreased to 130 mm and to 80 mm. The thickness at the bottom edge was 170 mm. Above the main armor belt was an armor belt with a thickness of 220 mm and a length of 2.3 meters. Between the main and upper decks there was an armor belt with a thickness of 130 mm and a length of 138 meters, from the bow to tower No. 4. The uppermost armor belt, which protected the casemates, had a thickness of 110 mm. The ships had two armored decks. The main deck was 24 mm thick and had two layers. Its thickness on the bevels adjacent to the lower edge of the main belt armor was 40 mm. Between the towers No. 1 and No. 4 there was an armor deck with a thickness of 30 mm, which went at the level of the edge of the 220 mm armor belt and also had two layers. The upper deck was not armored, with the exception of a 30 mm thick section from the edge of the 170 mm armor belt to the casemate wall. The thickness of the tank deck above the 120 mm casemates of the guns was 44 mm.

The frontal armor of the main caliber turrets is 280 mm, on the sides it is 240 mm and 85 mm on the roof. Their barbets were 230 mm thick above the tank, from the tank to the upper deck it decreased to 180 mm, below the main deck the armor was 130 mm thick. The walls of the conning tower were 280 mm thick, and the reserve command post was 180 mm thick. The total weight of the ship's armor was 5,150 tons, and the total weight of the defense system was 6,122 tons.

Modernization

Until 1925, no serious work was done to improve the battleships. In 1925 on ships « » and "Guilio Cesare" installed a catapult on the forecastle to launch the Macchi M.18 seaplane. Battleship Leonardo da Vinci did not undergo modernization, as it sank in 1916 and in 1923 was dismantled for scrap. The foremast was also redesigned and moved forward from the pipe, which became four-legged. By the beginning of 1930. both ships lost their combat significance, and since France was armed with equally outdated battleships, modernization work was not planned. However, the situation changed dramatically when work began on the construction of a fast battleship in France. "Dunkerque"... Italy's response was quite quick, but instead of building new battleships at the end of 1932, it was decided to radically modernize the existing battleships.

In mid-1933, the Design Committee prepared a modernization plan. It provided for the dismantling and replacement of about 60% of the original structures: replacing mechanisms, changing weapons, remaking the body and equipping anti-torpedo protection.

The directive on the modernization of both ships was signed by Vice Admiral Francesco Rotundi in October 1933. At the same time, the ships began to modernize - "Guilio Cesare" in Genoa and « » in Trieste.

During the reconstruction, both ships completely changed their silhouette - instead of the typical dreadnought with two widely spaced chimneys and relatively small superstructures in 1936 the shipyard was abandoned by modern ships with closely spaced chimneys, a high streamlined superstructure and an elegant "yacht" stem. Their hulls were lengthened - the maximum length increased from 179.1 to 186.4 meters. An interesting feature: the new bow section, like a stocking, was put on the old one - the ram stem remained inside the hull along with part of the inclined keel. The forecastle was extended by approximately 3/5 of the hull. The central turret of the main battery was removed, thanks to which more powerful mechanisms were placed. The turbines were replaced with new ones. If the old turbines used to develop a total capacity of 31,000 liters. with., dividing it into four shafts, now the capacity is 75,000 liters. from. was distributed only on two inner shafts, while the outer ones were eliminated.

The new power plant consisted of 8 Yarrow boilers and two Belluzzo turbo-gear units, for which they adopted an echelon arrangement with staggered elements. With regard to the starboard side, the first compartment went from the bow to the stern, followed by four boiler rooms. For the port side - on the contrary, first four boiler rooms, and then - the engine room.

On sea trials December 12, 1936 "Guilio Cesare" reached a stroke of 28.24 knots with a power of 93,430 hp.

The new 320 mm guns were obtained by reaming the old 305 mm barrels and received the designation "320 mm / 44 model 1934 gun". Since the thickness of the walls after that decreased, and the weight of the projectile increased, the Italian designers reduced the muzzle velocity of the projectile. The turrets were also modernized, as a result of which the elevation angle increased to 27 degrees, and the firing range to 154 kbt.

Mine artillery now consisted of twelve 120 mm 55-caliber guns located in six twin-gun turrets, providing the highest elevation angle of 42 degrees.

Anti-aircraft armament consisted of eight 102 mm 47-caliber Minisini guns, they were paired and mounted with shields and could fire 13.8 kg shells at a rate of fire of eight rounds per minute. Light anti-aircraft armament included six paired 37 mm 54 caliber mounts with Breda machine guns and the same number of coaxial 13.2 mm machine guns from the same company.

The main change in the ship's armor scheme was the appearance of an inner citadel between the armor deck and the main deck. Its thickness was 70 mm. The protection of all decks was increased. On a flat area, on the sides of the citadel, the thickness of the deck armor was increased to 50 mm. The main deck within the inner citadel was 80 mm thick above the mechanisms and 100 mm above the cellars, otherwise it remained unchanged. The upper deck received 43 mm reinforcement around the barbets.

The anti-splinter armor of the bow superstructure outside the conning tower was 32-48 mm. The conning tower had a wall thickness of 240 mm, a roof of 120 mm and a floor of 100 mm. The thickness of the turret front plates was reduced to 240 mm. The protection of the barbets has been increased by installing 50 mm thick slabs with a small gap.

The ships' anti-torpedo protection was concentric, where the main element was a hollow tube passing through a compartment filled with liquid. The pipe had thin walls and was "soft", which allowed it to absorb most of the energy and weaken the impact on the anti-torpedo bulkhead. The thickness of the anti-torpedo bulkhead was 40 mm. The displacement increased to 26,400 tons, which is why the main armor belt was completely submerged.

In the second half of 1940, all 13.2 mm machine guns on battleships were replaced with 20 mm Breda 65 caliber machine guns.

In 1941 on the battleship "Guilio Cesare» the number of 20 mm and 37 mm assault rifles was increased to 16 (8x2).

Service

At the beginning of World War I "Giulio Cesare" was based in Taranto and was part of the 1st battleship division. The Italian fleet at the time of the declaration of war was an impressive force, but it lacked modern light ships capable of withstanding the Austrian cruisers of the class "Novara" and class destroyers "Tatra"... Also, British officers believed that "Italians build ships better than they know how to fight on them." For these reasons, the Allies sent their ship formations into Italian waters. May 27, 1915 on a battle cruiser « » in Taranto, a meeting took place between the commanders of the fleets - Gamble, Abruzky and Lapereira (France), as well as the commander of a squadron of British battleships Rear Admiral Turnsby.

Italian battleships, including "Giulio Cesare" were supposed to withstand the Austro-Hungarian class dreadnoughts « » otherwise they should not join the battle. However, due to the threat of attack by submarines, which in the first week of July 1916 sank three armored cruisers, forced the commander of the Italian fleet to keep all battleships in the harbors.

The only operation in which they took part "Giulio Cesare", « » and « » , was the occupation of the Kurzola base on the Sabbionzela Peninsula in Italy, it began on March 13, 1916. As part of the division, he moved to Valona, \u200b\u200band then returned to Taranto. In December 1916. stood in the roadstead of Corfu, but the threat of an underwater attack forced the battleship to return to the harbor.

In March 1917, all dreadnoughts were in the southern Adriatic and the Ionian Sea. At the end of the war, "Giulio Cesare" was in Taranto, never having met the enemy or firing a single shot. Throughout the war, the battleship spent 31 hours at sea on combat missions and 387 hours on exercises.

In 1922, it underwent minor modernization, during which the foremast was changed.

In 1923 « » , "", "Guilio Cesare" and « » went on a military campaign to the island of Corfu, where there were battles with Greek troops. Battleships were sent to defeat the Greek troops in revenge for the massacre of the Italians in Ioannina. The Italian government demanded that Greece apologize and allow Italian ships to enter the port of Athens, but, without waiting for an answer, gave the order to send an Italian squadron to Corfu. On August 29, 1923, ships destroyed an ancient fort on the island of Corfu, and the Greeks soon immediately took over the ships at the port of Phaleron near Athens.

During repairs in 1925, the fire control system was replaced and a catapult was installed on the forecastle to launch the Macchi M.18 seaplane. From 1928 to 1933 was a training artillery ship, and from 1933 - 1937. underwent a major modernization in Genoa.

By the time World War II broke out, only two ships of the line were ready for battle in the Italian navy: « » and "Guilio Cesare"... They made up the 5th Division of the 1st Squadron.

July 9, 1940 "Guilio Cesare" as part of 1 squadron was involved in battle with the main forces of the British Mediterranean fleet. The British escorted the convoy from Malta to Alexandria, while the Italians escorted the convoy from Naples to Benghazi, Libya. The Mediterranean fleet tried to line up its ships between the Italian squadron and their base at Taranto. The crews of the ships visually saw each other in the middle of the day, at 15:53 \u200b\u200bthe Italian battleships opened fire from a range of 27,000 meters. Two of Britain's leading battleships, HMS Warspite and "Malaya" opened fire a minute later. Three minutes later, as the battleships opened fire, shells from "Guilio Cesare" began to fall on HMS Warspite who made a small U-turn and increased the stroke to get out of the firing zone of the Italian battleships at 16:00. At the same time, 381 mm projectile fired from HMS Warspite got into "Guilio Cesare" from a distance of 24,000 meters. The shell pierced the armor near the rear chimney and exploded, creating a hole 6.1 meters across. Fragments caused several fires and four boilers had to be shut down as the maintenance staff could not breathe. This reduced the speed of the battleship to 18 knots. After that, the Italian squadron successfully emerged from the defeat zone of the British forces.

August 31, 1940 "Giulio Cesare" together with battleships: « » , « » and with ten heavy cruisers set off to intercept British formations heading from Gibraltar and Alexandria for supplies. Due to poor intelligence work, especially airborne, the interception failed. The British, on the other hand, successfully completed the operation. On September 1, the squadron departed for Taranto.

On November 11, 1940, during a night attack by British aviation on Taranto, he did not receive any damage and the next day he moved to Naples. November 27 "Giulio Cesare" with the battleship "Vittorio Veneto" and six heavy cruisers participated in the battle at Cape Spartivento (in the Italian classification, Battle at Cape Teuland). During this time, British Formation H performed a number of tasks, including escorting a convoy of three transports to Malta and meeting ships of the British Mediterranean Fleet. The Italian fleet undertook an operation to intercept the British compound. After the connection of British forces, the Italian admiral decided to withdraw to his bases. As a result, the battle consisted of a brief exchange of fire between the cruising fleets, during which the British cruiser was damaged "Bernwick" and an Italian destroyer.

With the reorganization of the Italian fleet in December 1940 "Giulio Cesare" and « » made up the 5th battleship division, but practically did not participate in hostilities. On the night of January 9, 1941, during a raid of British bombers on Naples, the battleship was damaged by close explosions of three bombs. As a result, the repair took one month.

February 9-10, 1941 "Giulio Cesare" together with battleships « » and Vittorio Venetto, three heavy cruisers and ten destroyers searched the Ligurian Sea for Formation H, which included the battleship "HMS Malaya", battle cruiser "HMS Renown", aircraft carrier "HMS Ark Royal", a cruiser and 10 destroyers that shelled Genoa. However, due to bad weather and poorly functioning communications, the Italian ships were unable to intercept the British. Due to the ban, issued on March 31, on the actions of battleships outside the zones of fighter cover, for several months he did not participate in combat operations.

December 13-19, 1941 "Giulio Cesare" carried out long-range protection of convoy M42 as part of battleships "Littorio", « » , 2 heavy cruisers and 10 destroyers. On December 17, an English convoy was found heading for Malta and long-range escorts entered the battle. However, due to the large distance between the enemy ships and the late detection of the English convoy, neither side suffered losses. Participation "Giulio Cesare" was purely nominal, since the battleship did not open fire due to the long distance. This battle is known as the First Encounter at Sirte Gulf.

From January 3 to January 5, 1942, the battleship made the last military campaign, covering a convoy to North Africa, after which it was withdrawn from the fleet. In addition to the lack of fuel, it turned out that due to design flaws, the battleship could die from one torpedo hit. It was risky to use it in the conditions of the allied aviation domination in the air. From January 1943 he was in Pola where he was used as a floating barracks. Throughout the war "Giulio Cesare" made 38 combat exits to the sea, having covered 16 947 miles in 912 sailing hours, using 12 697 tons of oil.

After the conclusion of the armistice, the battleship with an incomplete crew and without an escort moved to Malta, where it arrived on 12 September. In the face of the constant threat of attack by German torpedo boats and aircraft, this transition can be considered the only heroic page in history "Giulio Cesare"... At first, the allied command decided to leave the Italian battleships in Malta under their direct control, but in June 1944, the three oldest, including "Giulio Cesare"were allowed to return to the Italian port of Augusta for training use. On June 18 he arrived in Augusta, and on June 28 he moved to Taranto, where he remained until the end of the war.

After Italy's withdrawal from the war, by decision of the Triple Commission, "Giulio Cesare" transferred for reparations to the USSR. The Soviet Union claimed new battleships of the class " Littorio”, But he got only an outdated battleship. At the end of the war in the Soviet Union, only two old battleships remained in service: « » and « » ... But, despite this, the USSR had ambitious plans for the construction of battleships and it was planned to use "Giulio Cesare"... Despite the decision of the tripartite commission, it was not possible to immediately receive the ship, so the British temporarily transferred their old dreadnought to the USSR. "Royal Sovereign", which received the name in the Soviet fleet "Arkhangelsk"... In 1948, after "Giulio Cesare" went to the Soviet port, "Arkhangelsk" was returned to England for scrap.

The transfer of the battleship took place on February 3, 1949. in the port of Vlore (Valona). On February 6, the USSR naval flag was raised on the ship, and two weeks later it left for Sevastopol, arriving at a new base on February 26. On March 5, the battleship was renamed to "Novorossiysk".

The resulting ship was in a very poor condition, since from 1943 - 1948. stood idle and with a minimal team, the lack of proper maintenance also affected. Before the transfer of the ship to the USSR, the battleship carried out a small repair of the electromechanical part. The main part of the weapons and the main power plant were in working order. There was no radio communication on the ship, radars and anti-aircraft weapons were completely absent. Emergency diesel generators were also inoperative. In addition, there was practically no operational technical documentation and unsinkability documentation, but what was available was in Italian. The living conditions on the battleship did not correspond to the climatic features of the region and the organization of the service of the Soviet fleet. In this regard, in mid-May 1949 g. "Novorossiysk" put for repairs in the Northern dock of the Sevmorzavod (Sevastopol).

July 1949 "Novorossiysk" took part in the maneuvers of the squadron as a flagship. At the same time, the weapons did not meet the requirements of the time, the mechanisms, as a result of the lack of maintenance, were in a state of disrepair, and the life support systems had to be adapted to new standards.

The commander of the hold group Yu. G. Lepekhova recalled: “In such conditions, the command of the fleet set the task to put the ship in order within three months, create and work on a completely unfamiliar foreign ship (battleship!) A combat and daily organization, hand over the course tasks of K-1 and K-2 and go to sea. Only those who happened to serve on large ships during the period of their construction and delivery can judge about the possibility of fulfilling the prescribed within the prescribed period. At the same time, the political situation demanded to demonstrate the ability of Soviet sailors to quickly master the received Italian ships. As a result, after the next staff check, the squadron commander, Rear Admiral V.A. virtually none course problem, in early August, literally "pushed" the battleship into the sea. As part of the squadron, we approached the Turkish shores, waited for a NATO plane to appear, making sure that Novorossiysk was floating, and returned to Sevastopol. And so began the service in the Black Sea Fleet of the ship, which, in fact, was unsuitable for normal operation. "

Over the next six years, from 1950 to 1955. the battleship was under repair seven times. A significant amount of work was carried out on the ship to repair, partially replace and modernize combat and technical equipment.

During restoration work the battleship was equipped with 24 37-mm twin V-11 anti-aircraft guns and 6 37-mm 70-K automatic cannons, as well as a Zalp-M radar station. In addition, the foremast was redesigned, the fire control devices for the main caliber guns were modernized, radio and in-ship communications were installed, emergency diesel generators were replaced, and the main and auxiliary mechanisms were partially repaired. Thanks to the replacement of turbines with domestic turbines of the Kharkov plant, the battleship showed a speed of 27 knots.

Due to the work on the modernization of the ship, it caused an increase in its mass by 130 tons and a deterioration in stability. In May 1955 g. "Novorossiysk"entered the Black Sea Fleet and went to sea several times until the end of October, practicing combat training tasks. Though "Novorossiysk" was a very outdated ship, at that time it was the strongest warship in the Soviet Union.

On the evening of October 28, 1955, the battleship returned from a campaign to take part in celebrations in honor of the 100th anniversary of the defense of Sevastopol. The ship is moored on barrel # 3 in the area of \u200b\u200bthe Marine Hospital. The depth in this place was 17 meters of water and 30 meters of viscous silt. Yes, and the mooring itself was abnormal, as the battleship slipped through the right place by half a hull. After mooring, part of the crew left for the shore.

On October 29, at 01:31, an explosion, equivalent to 1000-1200 kg of TNT, was heard under the ship's hull from the starboard side in the bow, piercing through the ship's hull, tearing out part of the forecastle deck and piercing a hole of 150 m2 in the underwater part. The explosion immediately killed from 150 to 175 people. And after 30 seconds, there was a second explosion on the port side, as a result of which a dent of 190 m2 was formed.

They tried to tow the battleship in shallow water, but the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Vice Admiral V.A.Parkhomenko, who arrived on the ship, suspended the towing that had begun. The belated order to resume towing turned out to be meaningless: the bow had already landed on the ground. The admiral did not immediately allow the evacuation of sailors who were not employed in rescue operations, who had accumulated up to 1000 people on the quarterdeck. When the decision to evacuate was made, the list of the ship began to increase rapidly. At 4 hours 14 minutes, the battleship lay down on the port side and in a moment buried her masts in the ground. At 22 o'clock, the hull completely disappeared under water.

The crash killed 614 people, including emergency parties from other ships of the squadron. Many were locked in the compartments of the capsized ship - of which only 9 people were saved. The divers stopped hearing the knocking of sailors locked in the battleship's hull only on November 1.

In the summer of 1956, the EON-35 special-purpose underwater expedition began lifting the battleship using the blowing method. During blowdown, 24 compressors with a total capacity of 120-150 m³ of free air per minute were used simultaneously. Preparatory work was completed in April 1957, and on April 30, preliminary purging began. The general purge began on May 4, and on the same day the battleship surfaced upward with a keel - first the bow end, and then the stern. The bottom rose about 4 m above the water. During the rise of the ship, the third tower of the main caliber remained at the bottom, which had to be raised separately. Many for their participation in the rescue operation received awards and were awarded certificates of honor of the Central Committee of the Komsomol, including Valentin Vasilyevich Murko.

On May 14 (according to other sources, 28), the ship was towed to the Cossack Bay and turned over. Later, the ship was dismantled for metal and transferred to the Zaporizhstal plant. The trunks of 320-mm guns until 1971 lay in front of the Naval School.

At the moment, there are five versions of the death of the battleship "Novorossiysk":

Bottom mine.

The official version put forward by the commission headed by Vyacheslav Malyshev and further proved by N.P. Muru in the book "Catastrophe in the Inner Roads" is the explosion of a German RMH or LMB mine with an M-1 fuse, delivered during the Great patriotic war... N.P. Muru believes that after the catastrophe, trawling of bottom silt, 17 such mines were found, of which 3 were within a radius of 100 m from the site of the sinking of the battleship, direct confirmation of the mine explosion version. However, the power supplies of the ground mines that were removed in the 1950s turned out to be discharged, and the fuses were inoperative.

Detonation of ship ammunition.

This version disappeared after examining the hull: the nature of the destruction indicated that the explosion occurred outside.

Intentional undermining.

According to the conspiracy theory of the author of the NVO Oleg Sergeev, the ship was blown up by "domestic special services with the knowledge of the country's leadership for domestic political purposes" to discredit Admiral Kuznetsov's costly program for the large-scale construction of surface ships.

Explosives on the ship.

According to Yuri Lepekhov, the explosion was caused by German magnetic underwater mines. At the same time, he believes that the nature of the destruction of the battleship's hull indicates that the explosion of the mine caused the detonation of the charge, which was laid on the ship by the Italians even before it was transferred to the Soviet side.

Sabotage.

The commission's conclusions did not exclude the possibility of sabotage. In Italy, on the eve of the transfer of the battleship to the USSR, calls were openly voiced to prevent the pride of the Italian fleet from falling under the Soviet flag. The forces and means for sabotage in post-war Italy were available. During the war, Italian submarine saboteurs from Xª MAS, the 10th flotilla of assault weapons, commanded by the "black prince" Valerio Borghese, operated on the Black and Mediterranean Seas.

Historian-researcher Oktyabr Bar-Biryukov believes that Prince Valerio Borghese, the former commander of Xª MAS, is to blame for the death of the battleship. Allegedly during the transfer of the battleship to the Soviet Union, the former commander of the Xª MAS, Prince Valerio Borghese, vowed to avenge the dishonor and blow up the battleship "Giulio Cesare" at any cost. During the year, preparations were underway for sabotage. Eight combat swimmers were hired by the performers, each had a combat sabotage school on the Black Sea. Each saboteur knew perfectly well the location of the operation. In the bay, saboteurs entered the mini-submarine "Picollo", which was delivered by an Italian transport ship. This steamer was equipped with a secret hatch in the bottom, which housed a mini-submarine. After the battleship was blown up, saboteurs on a mini-submarine went out into the open sea, where they were picked up by the steamer.

In July 2013, a veteran of the Italian division of combat swimmers "Gamma" as part of the Italian Xª MAS, ex-employee of the Italian military intelligence service, the German SD and an expert on encrypted communications, Hugo D'Esposito, admitted that the combat swimmers from the previously disbanded Italian Xª MAS were involved in the sinking of the Soviet battleship "Novorossiysk" in 1955, after eight frogmen, on behalf of the Italian services and acting on behalf of NATO, placed charges on the keel of the ship.

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