11-07-2021, 05:04 PM
(11-07-2021, 11:00 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: On the night of 6/7 November 1941 Armenia took on thousands of passengers at Sevastopol, amid scenes of chaos. Although the city would end up withstanding the German siege for nine months before falling, at the time enemy seizure appeared imminent. Entire Soviet hospital staffs and civilian officials and their families were taken aboard alongside the thousands of wounded, bound for the town of Tuapse, 400 kilometres (250 mi) away on the northeastern shore of the Black Sea. After leaving port in the early morning hours of the 7th, Armenia's captain, Vladimir Plaushevsky, received orders to put in at Yalta, a few kilometres east of Sevastopol, where the already overloaded ship was to pick up yet more passengers. Here, no attempt was made at registering the embarkees; wounded soldiers and civilians were simply crammed onto the decks. Plaushevsky was eager to get underway while darkness still provided some protection, but was ordered to wait for escorts to arrive. At 07:00 Armenia finally departed Yalta, accompanied by two armed boats and two fighter planes.[4]
The Germans and their Romanian and Italian allies had only a few surface vessels on the Black Sea; as such, it remained essentially under Soviet control throughout the Second World War. However, in the earlier part of the war the Axis had complete air superiority. Over a hundred Soviet merchant ships were sunk,[1] as were dozens of naval vessels. Only the most heavily armed and escorted ships could travel in daylight with reasonable hope of safety; ships caught alone or in port in the western part of the Black Sea were very likely to be attacked.[5]
Armenia's status as a hospital ship was uncertain. Though her sides and top were painted with large red cross symbols, she had light anti-aircraft armament, had previously transported troops and military stores, and, on the morning of 7 November, was traveling with military escort, inadequate though it was.[4]
At 11:30, about 40 km (25 mi) from Yalta, Armenia was attacked by a Heinkel He 111 medium bomber of 1.Staffel (Lufttorpedo)/KG 28,[6] which dropped two torpedoes. One torpedo missed; the other scored a direct hit. The ship broke in two and sank within four minutes. Only eight people were rescued.[7]
Even by the lowest estimate of about 5,000 dead, the sinking of Armenia remains the deadliest maritime disaster in Russian and Soviet history. In terms of loss of life in the sinking of a single ship, it is often listed as third worst in world history, after the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff and the Goya, German naval ships transporting military personnel and civilian refugees, which were torpedoed by Soviet submarines in the Baltic Sea in 1945.[8]
In 2014, an Australian company GeoResonance claimed to have located the hulk of Armenia in 2005 at a depth of 520m,[9] using an undisclosed remote sensing technique. However this claim has not been substantiated. All three of her Adzharia-class sister ships were also lost during the war.[1]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Armenia (ship, 1928).
In 2020 the Russian Geographical Society claimed to have located the hulk of Armenia.[10
More from Wikipedia.
This event is not nearly as well known as another event that happened one month to the day later. Needs no introduction.