Russian cruiser Pallada (1911)

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Career

Built by:	Admiralty Shipyard, Saint Petersburg, Russia
Laid down	August 1905
Launched:	November 10, 1906
Commissioned:	February 21, 1911
Fate:	Sunk by the German submarine U-26 in the Gulf of Finland on October 11, 1914.
General characteristics
Displacement:	7,800 tons (standard), 8340 tons (max)
Length:	443 feet
Beam:	57.5 feet
Draught:	22 feet
Speed:	21 knots
Range:	3900 nautical miles @ 10 knots
Complement:	573 (597 at sinking)

The Pallada was the last of the four Bayan class armored cruisers in the Imperial Russian Navy. She was named after the earlier Russian cruiser captured by the Japanese during the Russo-Japanese war (1904-05) and saw service as part of the Russian Baltic Fleet in early stages of the World War I.

On August 26, 1914, Pallada, along with the cruiser Bogatyr, played critical role in capturing German naval codebooks from the light cruiser Magdeburg which ran aground near the island of Odensholm in the Gulf of Finland. The codebooks, transferred by the Russians to their British allies, proved to be an invaluable asset to British naval intelligence later in the war.

Less than two months later, on October 11, 1914, she was torpedoed by the German submarine U-26. The torpedo explosion detonated the ship's ammunition, and within a few minutes the cruiser disappeared into the water along with all 597 crewmembers becoming the first Russian warship sunk during the war.