Soviet submarine S-13

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The Soviet Submarine S-13
	Career
Ordered:
Laid down:	19 October 1938
Launched:	25 April 1939
Commissioned:	31 July 1941
Decommissioned:	7 September 1954
Fate:
Homeport:	Kronstadt
Stricken:	17 December 1956
General Characteristics
Displacement:	840 tons surfaced, 1070 tons submerged
Length:	77.8 m
Beam:
Draft:
Propulsion:	4000 hp diesel engines, 1100 hp electric motors
Speed:	19.5 knots surfaced, 9 knots submerged
Range:
Complement:	50 officers and men
Armament:	six torpedo tubes (four forward, two aft), 12 torpedoes, one 100 mm (four-inch) gun, one 45 mm cannon
Motto:

S-13 was a Stalinets-class submarine of the Soviet Navy. Her keel was laid down by Krasnoye Sormovo in Gorky on 19 October 1938. She was launched on 25 April 1939 and commissioned on 31 July 1941 in the Baltic Fleet, under the command of Captain Pavel Malantyenko. [1] In the first half of September 1942, under Malantjenko's command, S-13 sank two Finnish ships, Hera and Jussi H, and a German ship Anna W, totalling 4042 tons.

On 15 October 1942, caught on the surface while charging her batteries, S-13 was attacked by the Finnish submarine chasers VMV-13 and VMV-15. During her crash dive, the submarine hit bottom, severely damaging her rudder and destroying her steering gear. The following depth charge attack worsened the damage, but S-13 escaped and made it back to Kronstadt.

During the next three years, Malantyenko was relieved by Alexander Marinesko and S-13 was repaired and returned to sea.

Under the command of Marinesko, then 32, on 30 January 1945, at Stolpe Bank off the Polish coast, S-13 sank the 25,484-ton German liner Wilhelm Gustloff, overfilled with refugees, with three torpedoes. Recent estimates calculate that over 9,000 people were killed, the worst loss of life in maritime history.

Soon after that, S-13 fired at the T-36, a torpedo boat that had come to the aid of the Wilhelm Gustloff. Although overloaded with 564 shipwrecked persons from the Gustloff, the captain of T-36 was able to dodge the torpedo.

On 10 February 1945, S-13 sank the German hospital ship General von Steuben.

In spite of being seen in the West as war criminal who had murdered refugees, Marinesko hoped to be awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union. He left the navy in early 1946, embittered. He was posthumously awarded the title in 1990.

S-13 was decommissioned on 7 September 1954 and stricken on 17 December 1956.

Stalinets-class submarine

S-1† | S-2† | S-3† | S-4† | S-5† | S-6† | S-7† | S-8† | S-9† | S-10† | S-11† | S-12† | S-13 | S-14 | S-15 | S-16 | S-17 | S-18 | S-19 | S-20 | S-21 | S-22 | S-23 | S-24 | S-25 | S-26 | S-27 | S-28 | S-29 | S-30 | S-31 | S-32† | S-33 | S-34† | S-35 | S-36 | S-37 | S-38 | S-39 | S-45 | S-46 | S-47 | S-48 | S-49 | S-51 | S-52 | S-53 | S-54† | S-55† | S-56 | S-57 | S-58 | S-101 S-102 | S-103 | S-104 |

List of Soviet and Russian submarines List of Soviet and Russian submarine classes