When the message was received at Murmansk, Admiral Golovko could not believe his ears. Would the Germans risk provoking a war with a minor incident like this? Should he take stronger action? He cabled Moscow for instructions and the word came back in no uncertain terms: Protect Soviet interests, and all ships and personnel. The means was left up to him, so he dispatched the heavy cruiser Kalinin and two destroyers, and they rushed east over the White Sea and north towards Port Dikson.
Kranke had immediately reversed his course after the incident, then looped southeast to creep up on the shoreline thinking to observe Russian convoy traffic north of that same port. He lingered in the area all the next day, eventually finding another old Russian icebreaker, the Siberiakov, a veteran of the northern Arctic route with many years service.
Lovingly nicknamed “Sasha” by the hard men of the north, the ship had two teeth, a pair of 76mm guns, along with two 45mm mounts and a couple Oerlikon 20mm flak guns. The lead ship in the “Icebreaker-6” naval team, she was bound for Port Dikson to the south when Admiral Scheer found her.
“Signal that ship to stand down, and tell them that this time we will be sending a boarding party over.” The Kapitan thought he might pinch some signal equipment or code boxes, and it was a good idea. Sasha had played a dual role when not shouldering through the ice floes. The ship had secret listening equipment to monitor Japanese radio traffic when it was at the easternmost terminus of its long Arctic run.
Kranke gave the order to come 15 points to starboard. “We’ll show them our bow,” he explained. “That will keep them in a dark for a little while longer. Fire one warning shot this time. That is permitted under the rules of engagement.”
He watched through his field glasses, seeing the dark uniformed crew scrambling to pull the tarps from their gun mounts and ready for action. As before, he waited until the Russians had sighted and aimed, a patient man as he sat in his armored conning tower.
Sasha’s Captain, Anatoly Kacharava, was enjoying a small nip of Vodka as he pecked away at his typewriter in the ready room, writing the report he needed to submit when the ship made port. He had heard the signal sent by SKR-18 the previous day, and so he was taking no chances when the sighting was shouted out by senior signalman Alexeyev. He immediately ordered the radio room to send the contact information and stood his crew to battle stations. Then he told his radioman to request name and country of origin of the distant ship.
Captain Kacharava was in a real quandary. His ship was laden with supplies for the weather stations, including several hundred barrels of gasoline for the generators that powered their operations. With a top speed of only 13 knots, Sasha was a nice fat target, and very flammable. He had a crew of 104, including his 32 trained naval gunners. Fire crews had taken their stations, ready with hoses as they eyed the gasoline barrels on deck with some trepidation.
“They are ordering us to stop and be searched,” said radioman Sharshavin, talking through the dark brown briar pipe that dangled from his mouth. The Captain wanted to see what he was up against here, and when he raised his field glasses to have a look his mood darkened considerably.
“A large capital ship,” he said. “Send an emergency message to Port Dikson: large cruiser sighted… possibly a battleship from the size of those gun mounts. Country of origin unknown. Send it in the clear! And then request their name and origin again.”
Far to the south the nervous radioman at Port Dikson heard what followed next. “Ship closing range,” he received. “Shooting has begun… we will fight!” Some minutes later. “Siberiakov to any station. We are fighting!” Then again: “German naval ensign spotted! We are damaged, on fire, still fighting…”
Then he heard the powerful wash of a radio jammer clouding over the transmission. “My God,” he said to his senior officer. Has the war started sir?”
“Something has started, Ludkov. Signal all ships in the Kara Sea to adopt radio silence. If the Germans have a warship up there they will be looking for targets. Then get a message off to Archangel and Murmansk-this time in proper code. Tell them there is Russian blood on the Kara Sea. Tell them Sasha is burning!”
Chapter 18
Yes, Sasha was burning, and Port Dikson was burning soon after. Siberiakov fired her two 76mm guns, but to no avail. Kranke was still well beyond range, and when he realized he would not make a harvest of any signals equipment here, he opened fire. Spouts of water were soon straddling the ship, and she was hit.
Captain Kacharava had attempted to lay a smoke screen, running for shore as fast as he could, but to no avail. Shell splinters sheared off the mast and radio antenna on the icebreaker, and cut down men on the decks. Sasha’s chief stoker Vavilov was feeding coal to the boilers as fast as he could, and the sound of the ship’s engines was deafening as they labored.
Admiral Scheer made short work of the icebreaker, and the gasoline on her decks went up like an inferno with Kranke’s third salvo, which set off more explosions on the main deck as the splinters hit the gasoline barrels. Kacharava was struck in the arm, bleeding badly, and soon fell to the deck, lapsing into unconsciousness. Heavy black smoke mushroomed over the ship, and the next German salvo penetrated to the boiler room, stopping Sasha’s fitful engines. Vavilov lay lifeless on the coal dark floor.
Yet topside, the brave Russian gunners continued to man a 76mm battery, firing impudently at the German ship. Krancke closed the range and his forward turret blasted again, finally silencing the enemy gun.
Chief Bochurko knew he must not allow the Germans to board the ship, and he worked his way past the licking flames to the radio room. There he found signalman Alexeyev, and radioman Sharshavin gathering up all the maps, weather data, ice floe reports and other code equipment. They threw everything into a rucksack and hauled it out onto the weather deck.
“No! Don’t throw it into the sea,” shouted Chief Bochurko. “Put it into the fire!” So they heaved the heavy bag down onto the lower deck and watched as it was consumed by the raging gasoline fire. Then the Chief told the two men to get off the ship any way they could, and was last seen taking a ladder down into the dark recesses of the stricken icebreaker. The survivors believed he scuttled the ship, though no one ever really knew what happened to him.
At 15:00 Sasha gave up one last gasp with an explosion amidships, then rolled into the sea. The hiss of hot metal hitting the water was one of the last sounds the survivors could remember. Then they saw the Germans launching boats to rescue them, but stoker Matveyev would have none of it. He was shivering in one of the few lifeboats that made it away from the ship, but when the German boat came alongside, he threw an axe at the first man that tried to board.
There passed the first hand to hand combat of the war between Germany and Russia, with stoker Matveyev gunned down by a German officer wielding a luger, and the other crewmen fighting to resist capture. German Naval infantry leapt aboard the Russian boat, clubbing the sailors with the butts of their rifles. Three leapt overboard to avoid capture, braving the icy waters in the hopes of getting away. When it was over Kranke had fourteen prisoners, among them a man named Zolotov, who was being ferried to a distant weather station to deliver the new code books.
Kranke had hisKriegsmarine Funkaufklarung team interrogated the Russians, but learned nothing of value, so he determined to go after bigger fish, this time by making a raid on Port Dikson to the south. He loitered for a time, then satisfied that there was nothing else to be seen, he moved south, arriving off Port Dikson on July 8th. Little did he know that the course he set would soon bring him afoul of the Russian flotilla that had been hastily dispatched to the region.