SAVING A SCUTTLED REPUTATION
On the night of January 25, 1945, Alexander Ivanovich Marinesko caroused in a tavern of ill repute, reaching for another drink, and yet another. Normally, Marinesko favored drinking alone. Tonight was different. A Swedish woman whom he had met during a recent New Year’s Eve party in Hanko, Finland, perched on a barstool beside Marinesko.1 Heavy drinking and women had become a tonic for the dark-haired, temperamental, Soviet submarine commander. In photographs from that time period, the sailor’s eyes appear to gleam with equal parts charm and swagger, and his full lips looked capable of breaking out into a sneer at any given moment.
Of course, plain displays of contempt for authority were a dangerous game to play in Stalin’s Soviet Union. Reports indicate that while Marinesko’s crews loved him, his high command didn’t hold the captain in high esteem. They found him to be impulsive and frequently sharp-tongued.2 His scorn earned him the suspicion of the NKVD, the Soviet internal secret police, who wondered whether the 32-year-old commander might be a counterrevolutionary in Soviet military disguise. The NKVD wielded tremendous power: its officers spied on foreigners and on its own citizens, and administered the slave-labor camps known as gulags.3 The secret police also executed thousands of political prisoners and helped organize mass deportations of Ukrainians and other non-Russians from the Baltic States. So it’s no wonder the NKVD caught up with the young commander Marinesko, who was completely drunk and seemingly unfit for duty this winter night in 1945. It was a given that the NKVD kept tabs on key military personnel to enforce the Communist Party’s political will. Those under constant scrutiny included generals, the infantry, admirals, and captains in the navy.
That night, as the hard-boiled Marinesko was drinking with his lady friend, a group of NKVD agents came to summon him. His superiors sought the submarine commander so they could discuss strategy. The submarine commander had no choice but to accompany them forthwith. He couldn’t simply shrug off this order to come in for questioning.4
Alexander Marinesko had a lot to be worried about. The state security apparatus fully intended to court-martial him as a deserter. Marinesko had not only failed to report for duty on New Year’s Eve 1944, but he also had broken the fraternization rule. Soviet soldiers were strictly prohibited from befriending foreigners, lest they be accused of helping foreign agents. The pretty Swedish woman he had bedded on New Year’s Eve was a clear transgression. Marinesko engaged in what the NKVD and Communist Party considered anti-Soviet behavior: overt drunkenness and barely concealed disrespect for his superiors. The fate likely awaiting Marinesko was to be sent to a camp on the frozen tundra. In winter, temperatures in this far eastern Siberian gulag regularly dipped to between minus 19 and minus 38 degrees Celsius (between minus 2 and minus 36 degrees Fahrenheit). About 30 percent of Kolyma gulag’s prisoners died each year.5
Yet, in 1945 seasoned submarine commanders were hard to find. The Communist Party purges of the 1930s had decimated the navy’s officer ranks; on June 11, 1937, many senior leaders of the Russian military were arrested and charged with treason, tried and executed. Among them was the marshal of the Soviet Union, M. N. Tukhachevsky, considered to be innovative and capable.6 Thus by the end of 1944 the Red Army and the Soviet navy no longer had a pool of experienced soldiers and sailors from which to choose. Instead, they had to rely on poorly trained replacements. Marinesko, considered a maverick by his superiors, was one of the few submariners who could handle the rapidly changing situation in the Baltic Sea. Marinesko’s crew had complete confidence in his abilities. Marinesko was granted a reprieve but remained under scrutiny. This time, the Baltic Fleet Admiral V. F. Tributs intervened and ordered the party apparatus not to waste resources court-martialing the wayward commander. To clear his name he needed to make a significant kill.7
When the war started in 1939, the Soviet navy boasted the largest submarine force in the world with more than 168 boats. More than two-thirds of those boats were anchored in European waters. Most of the vessels were less than 10 years old. By September 1, 1939, about one-third of the 55 Soviet submarines were stationed in the Baltic.8 Stalin ordered more than 300 submarines built between 1934 and 1943. By June 22, 1941, when Germany abrogated the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact by invading the Soviet Union, Russia had 215 submarines in service and 100 more on the factory line.
In the late 1920s the Soviet navy had begun building a new class of submarines modeled after British boats, with technical assistance from Germany. In the 1930s the Soviet navy introduced another class of larger and faster submarines that were armed with torpedo tubes. By 1941 the Soviet Union had about 200 boats in its navy distributed among four fleets: the Northern, the Baltic, the Black Sea, and the Pacific. Many of the ships and submarines were poorly maintained. They patrolled the Baltic and Black Seas and brought supplies to the Red Army.9
The Soviet Union drafted most of its submarine officers from the ranks of the merchant marines, which helped control transportation along some of the world’s most extensive coastline and helped protect the navy. If they had mettle and proved their qualifications, the sailors served one tour as executive officers on a submarine before assuming their own command. Even still, finding officers with adequate experience proved a continuous challenge for Soviet leaders.
Two formidable enemies conspired to keep the Soviet navy in check during the early years of the war: the German navy and the weather. German U-boats engaged in a ruthless campaign against military and civilian targets alike. Reliant on their underwater strategy, the Germans began working on a secret program for a new U-boat in 1943. This new U-boat would be larger, faster, and equipped with the most current radar. It was designed to guard the Germans position of strength on the sea.10
The Baltic Sea was vital to both the Reich and the Soviet Union. When Germany invaded Russia by land in the summer of 1941, only 10 of the Russian Baltic Fleet’s 69 submarines actively patrolled the seas. German U-boats kept the rest of the Baltic Fleet prisoners within their bases. The Reich used the sea’s shipping lanes to support the infantry with supplies, deliver fuel for its aircraft, and transport tanks and stockpiles of armaments. The Russians wanted control of the Baltic Sea to protect its coast.
From September 8, 1941 through January 27, 1944, during the nearly 900-day siege of Leningrad, much of Russia’s submarine fleet was stuck in the Gulf of Finland; the German navy was able to keep the Soviet boats penned in. Landlocked, many submariners grew restless. Some cast their lot with besieged residents, wrote Victor Korzh, a captain who served aboard a Soviet submarine during World War Two.11 Malnutrition also took its toll on submarine crews; they lost their stamina and will to fight. In addition, morale declined when the key naval bases of Libava, Riga, and Tallinn were lost to ice and Germans in 1941. It wasn’t until August 1944 that the Soviet navy reached Riga and reestablished its presence in the Baltic Sea.
In 1942 the main port of the Soviet navy at Sevastopol, Ukraine, fell to German forces. This forced the Baltic Fleet to deploy ships out of Poti, a Georgian port on the Black Sea, and Taupse, a port in the eastern Black Sea. This made it difficult for the Soviets to attack German ships. The German air force also deterred submarine attacks. Like birds of prey, the Luftwaffe picked off Soviet subs when they surfaced—until June 1944 when the Soviets finally achieved air superiority. In spite of these odds, the Baltic submarine force established a reputation for ruthlessness during one of its first missions.
The fact that submarine commanders were needed protected Marinesko. Still, when the NKVD agents summoned him that night at the bar, Marinesko realized he needed to make a significant kill. He needed something that would redeem his military career. Sinking several German boats, or even one sizable German ship, would eventually elevate him in the eyes of his countrymen and raise the spirits of his beleaguered nation.12
Alexander I. Marinesko was born in 1913 in Odessa, a port on the northwest shore of the Black Sea. His father was a Romanian sailor and his mother Ukrainian.13 Ever since the Tartars settled Odessa in the early 1200s it has been a major seaport, and a warm water seaport at that. French and Italian influences are apparent in the city’s architecture and wide tree-lined avenues. It was a city of many nationalities and many tongues. Ukraine, one of the four original Soviet states in 1922, always retained a strong sense of nationalist and cultural identity. And it was identity that obsessed Marinesko, from how authorities perceived him to how he perceived himself. It became Marinesko’s lifelong quest to shed his Ukrainian skin and become fully Russian.
Living and playing near the docks in Odessa schooled Marinesko in a variety of languages, and eventually he could speak a sort of patois combining the saltier notes of Russian, Ukrainian, Romanian, Greek, Bulgarian, and even Yiddish. Fluent in Russian, Marinesko changed the spelling of his last name from Marinesku to Marinesko, which shows he sought a more solid Russian identity. He likely believed that the ‘u’ ending made him Ukrainian, and because he so desperately wanted to rise through the ranks, he’d need to be more Russian. He zealously worked to rise in the Soviet fleet and prove he was as Soviet as any Russian.14
Marinesko wanted to belong to the class of power elites. He was determined to get his share. So, before the war, the young man enlisted, knowing the military offered the best path to success.
Joining the navy and then volunteering for submarine duty suited hardcore men on all sides of the war. Submarines were crowded and the air inside was heavy with moisture, but some men relished the close camaraderie and generally high morale in the submarine service. Their mission was often more intense and, being under the sea, they had less to fear from the German Luftwaffe.15 During World War Two, submarines were designed and operated as weapons systems; comfort never entered the equation. Each space was accounted for; even the officers’ mess doubled as a sick bay if needed. There was little variety in their daily menu; beet borscht, canned beef, and herring were ladled onto plates again and again.16 The sailors looked forward to an occasional shot of vodka.17 The men slept on bunks as narrow as pantry shelves. The noise of engines, various loud horns, and other equipment constantly rattled the inside of the vessel. They learned to sleep when they could, tuning out the unceasing noise. One submariner wrote how he “closed his eyes after the last spoonful of pudding.”18
Young men dominated the world of submarines in the 1940s. The United Kingdom deemed 35 years of age too old for a submarine commander and in the United States most submarine commanders were in their early 30s. In Germany, as the war progressed, the average age dropped to under 25. Age differences aside, most of the members of this elite club were nonconformists. In his mid-20s when he joined, Marinesko fit right in.
In 1941, the Soviet Navy commissioned the S-13 into the Baltic Fleet under the command of Captain Pavel Malantyenko. The S-13, was of the Stalinet, or S-class submarines. With its narrow body it looked more like a cigarillo than a cigar. Daily life aboard the S-13 was loud, crowded, and pungent. The air reeked of oil and the sweat of 46 crew members. Although fans drove fresh air into and throughout the boat, moisture clung to the walls. They were ready to avenge the Motherland.
Soviet submarines like the S-13 relied primarily on air reconnaissance to track enemy boats. When Russian airplanes spotted an enemy boat, they would radio that information to a submarine operating in the vicinity. The submarine then cruised into position, armed its torpedoes, and fired. On occasion a submarine spotted a lone enemy ship as it sailed on the surface of the water. When this happened, it reported sighting the target, dove, and fired.
Like many of his fellow sailors, Marinesko first whetted his appetite for submarine life in the Soviet merchant marine, followed by service in the Black Sea Fleet. He was assigned to the Baltic Fleet on a new, small coastal-type of submarine, the M–96, in 1939, but the boat wasn’t ready for service until mid-1941. He received a gold watch to mark the occasion of being in charge of a vessel said to be the best in the Baltic Fleet. After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, the Baltic Fleet high command had ordered the M–96 to the Caspian Sea to serve as a training boat, and Marinesko was to take the sub to Leningrad for refitting. It never reached its destination. Germany’s blockade of Leningrad at the time prevented the M–96 from entering the waters in the vicinity of Leningrad. On February 12, 1942, a German artillery shell hit the M–96. It took nearly half a year to fix the damage.19 Far from the action, the bored, impatient, reckless Marinesko began to drink.
Six months later, on August 14, 1942, Marinesko and crew were finally on patrol near the Finnish coast. The young commander was comfortable operating in shallow waters, a skill that would serve him well when he attacked the Gustloff. He sighted the German heavy artillery barge Schwerer Artillerie-Träger, SAT–4, nicknamed Helena. Marinesko launched a torpedo and reported a hit. After the war, the Soviet Union’s Baltic Fleet raised the wreck and discovered Marinesko hadn’t hit as large a ship as he had reported.20
A couple of months later, in October, Marinesko’s superiors ordered him to attack a German ship and capture an Enigma coding machine. Marinesko and his crew had to drop a commando detachment on the coast of Narva Bay, in the south of Finland. The mission failed; half of the commandos didn’t return, and those that did came back empty-handed. Still, Marinesko received the Order of Lenin, a prestigious military recognition, and was promoted to a higher rank.
This pattern of rising and falling from grace marked Alexander Marinesko’s career. A change in command would change everything for Marinesko.
On October 15, 1942, two Finnish submarine chasers spied the S-13 while it was charging its batteries on the surface of the Baltic Sea. The Russian submarine, still under Captain Pavel Malantyenko’s command, dove to escape. It hit the sea floor. The impact severely damaged the submarine’s rudder and destroyed its steering gear. Defying the odds, the S-13 escaped and made it back to Kronstadt, the naval base off Leningrad’s coast. The Soviet naval leadership relieved Malantyenko, and gave the sub’s command to Alexander Marinesko early in 1943. Once again he would captain the latest Soviet model submarine, the only one of 13 type S (Stalinets) that would survive the war.21
He picked up the repaired S-13 in Hanko, Finland, and his first mission with the sub occurred in October 1944. He took position near the Hela peninsula in the Baltic Sea, a place where Nazi naval communication lines snaked through the water like electric eels. On one patrol, Marinesko’s keen eye spotted the small transport ship Siegfried, and he fired four torpedoes. Not one reached its target. He surfaced the submarine and opened fire with his cannons. Marinesko reported 15 hits and a sunken ship. A torpedo from the S-13 did hit the Siegfried but didn’t sink it. In fact, the Siegfried reached Danzig.22
This tendency to embellish his naval exploits would come to haunt Marinesko. But on the night of January 29, 1945, Marinesko prepared for combat. His submarine was fitted with torpedoes, grenades, and antiaircraft armaments. The S-13 and its crew were ready for two months at sea. Alexander Marinesko had received reports that the Soviet army was on a major offensive in East Prussia, pushing back the Germans daily. He was advised to be on the lookout for German sea transports. The crew was on high alert but they didn’t know the details of the situation. Aside from Marinesko, no more than five other crew members, including the radio operator, would have known what was in the dispatches.23
In November Alexander Marinesko was ordered to move the sub from Hanko, Finland, to Turku, located on the southwest coast of Finland. The narrow channel between the two harbors was infested with mines. The S-13 normally carried a complement of 12 torpedoes; it took only 4 on this mission. In case something happened and the submarine sank, the Soviet navy wouldn’t lose all those weapons. The boat could only move between 2 knots and 4 knots per hour. After arriving, Marinesko got orders to sink anything German. He decided to head for Gotenhafen, home of the Wilhelm Gustloff and the center of Operation Hannibal. The German navy was concentrated there and until now the Soviet navy had avoided this part of the Baltic Sea. Marinesko didn’t ask permission to do this. He simply acted with the signature decisiveness that his crew relied upon.
As the last rope slid from the Wilhelm Gustloff in Gotenhafen, Captain Alexander Marinesko patiently waited at Stolpe Bank, off what is now the Polish coast. The bank, 24 miles long and 10 miles wide, runs east-west. Knowing there were enemy ships in the vicinity, Marinesko seized the initiative. It had been three weeks without a single worthy target in sight.24
Around 8 P.M. the first officer on the S-13 submarine saw the lights of the Gustloff loom into sight. Marinesko ordered the submarine to follow the once-grand ocean liner for some distance before repositioning his boat and slipping into his strategic position.25
Like their enemy, Soviet officers and soldiers were taught that the more Germans they killed, the better, and it mattered not one whit whether those on board were soldiers or women and children. In their eyes everyone was complicit in this war.
Aerial surveillance showed the thousands of refugees crowding the various Baltic seaports. Russian air force pilots regularly strafed refugee columns, so the Soviets knew that East Prussians were trying to evade the Soviet armed forces.
Marinesko would have carefully calculated whether he would, from his initial waiting position, be able to carry out the task. “The Captain of the sub must always strive persistently to destroy the enemy. Only when it is impossible to use weapons may the attack be limited to a demonstration in order to contain the enemy.”26 He’d also have made doubly sure to avoid getting closer to other Soviet submarines; to do so would have risked revealing his presence to the enemy.27
The waters around the gravel-rich Stolpe Bank reached just under 100 feet deep at most, making this a chancy attack in shallow water. Yet it presented Marinesko’s first opportunity to demonstrate his prowess in almost a month. He knew if he returned to port without a kill, he could very well end up in Siberia. Observing the Wilhelm Gustloff, Marinesko probably couldn’t fathom why the former KdF cruise liner wasn’t maintaining a zigzag pattern. He also likely wondered why the ship’s navigation lights were illuminated. A veteran submarine captain, Marinesko would determine his position of attack based on whether the Gustloff moved in a zigzag pattern or straight ahead.28
As he lurked in the water tracking his target, Marinesko might have thought about the rules of engagement employed by his German enemy. By November 1939 it was clear the Germans were going to ignore international law regarding sea warfare.
“Rescue no one and take no one with you. Have no care for ships or boats. Weather conditions and the proximity of land are of no account. Care only for your own boat and strive to achieve the next success as soon as possible! We must be hard in this war. The enemy started the war in order to destroy us, therefore nothing else matters,” said Admiral Karl Dönitz during the Nuremberg Trials.29
Soviet submarines similarly regarded any German ship a viable target. Ostensibly submarine captains were to carefully study the silhouettes of enemy ships and were supposed to enter the measurements of enemy ships they might encounter during patrol into their maneuvering tables.30 In that way, on the basis of precise estimates, commanders such as Marinesko “could strike blows against the enemy in a brave, audacious, and unexpected manner.”31
When Alexander Marinesko first spotted the Gustloff, he was sailing on its ocean side. As the S-13 neared the Gustloff, Marinesko increased his speed and circled the ship. He carefully slid his sub between the Baltic coast and the ship and cruised parallel to it. Now less than 5,000 yards away, the S-13 was closing on the Gustloff.
For any ship in the Baltic, this was a risky maneuver because the waters are so shallow. Marinesko knew plenty of submarines had previously been caught in antisubmarine netting or because the shallow waters prevented submarines from diving. In addition, between 1941 and 1944, Finland had been on the side of Germany. During that time, the Germans and the Finns had completed more than 100 mine-laying operations in the Baltic Sea to jam up the Soviet navy.
Four torpedoes waited in the S-13’s torpedo tubes. Each torpedo was painted with an epitaph: “For the Motherland,” “For Stalin,” “For the Soviet People,” and “For Leningrad.”32 Torpedoes can blast holes up to 20 feet wide or more in a typical ship’s hull, which is made of steel an inch or less thick.
For most, if not all, of World War Two, Soviet submariners fired only a single torpedo, or perhaps two at most, at a target.33 It wasn’t until about 1944 that they shifted to volley firing, launching torpedoes in succession with a six-to-ten-second interval and at a constant lead angle. By that time the fan method, or salvo firing, was introduced, which that meant a submarine could discharge several torpedoes at once.
Unbeknownst to those aboard the Wilhelm Gustloff, the S-13 had been following it for more than two hours before Alexander Marinesko ordered his crew to fire the torpedoes. The submarine captain was now less than 2,000 yards from his target. The S-13’s engines were about to max out; its tower broke through the surface of the water. The tower hatch was closed, but if it had to dive quickly, the torpedoes might explode.
According to some reports, German ships in the area had detected the S-13 and even dropped depth charges at it. Submarines are actually vulnerable to sinking. Their low profile makes it hard for other ships to see them when they are on the surface; they can be accidently rammed and sunk if the ship goes unseen or can’t change course. Only if the craft doesn’t split apart on the way down can the crew stand a chance for rescue. If the water isn’t too deep, and if rescuers can get there before oxygen runs out, sometimes the submariners can be saved.34 Submarines are supposed to be able to withstand extremely high pressure when submerged. Nonetheless, its inner pressure hull may be vulnerable to collision damage. That means a submarine can actually crack under what seems to be a light impact with another vessel.35
Marinesko, diligent under the waves, borderline brash on the surface, saved his ship. And that is why Marinesko’s crews loved him even when the high command didn’t.
Marinesko’s maneuver on January 30 was a decidedly risky attack in shallow water. It was also the first time Marinesko had launched an attack in almost a month. He looked forward to a clean kill. Yet, he knew when the moment came to order his crew to fire the torpedoes, he had to remain cool, steady, and even aloof. He knew if he returned to port without a kill he could very well end up in Siberia.
So the sailor from Odessa slid his submarine along the port side of the Gustloff. The boat went unnoticed. Four torpedoes were positioned and ready to strike. He was a heartbeat away from becoming a hero.