Underwater assassination attempt on Nikita Khrushchev. Death under the cruiser Nikita Sergeevich loved quirks

The British kept this “underwater secret” for more than half a century. And only relatively recently, a message appeared on the pages of The Times that the British Ministry of Defense officially confirmed the fact that in October 1955, in Portsmouth harbor, divers from a special reconnaissance and combat unit carried out an operation to examine the hydroacoustic equipment of the Soviet cruiser Sverdlov. , who arrived in England on a friendly visit.

Then, in the mid-1950s, a unique espionage epic took place in the sea off the British Isles.

Amazing encore

The “Mistress of the Seas” was stung to the very heart. For centuries, the British habitually believed that their warships were the best in the world. But suddenly the Russians had a miracle cruiser!

The project of Soviet designers under the code designation “68 bis” turned out to be very successful. The first artillery cruiser of this series, called Sverdlov, publicly demonstrated its unique capabilities shortly after its launch. Arriving in April 1953 at the Speedhead Roadstead to participate in the naval parade on the occasion of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II of England, the Soviet ship, in front of the astonished British eyes, moored in their signature fertoing method - how! If, according to the standards of the Royal Navy, 1 hour and 20 minutes were allotted for such mooring, if the American and French ships that arrived before the Sverdlov spent more than two hours on fertoing, and the Swedes did not even have four, then the Soviet sailors completed it in 12 minutes!

Do the Russians really have special rudders on their cruisers or some kind of super-original propulsion control system?!

As if to mock the puzzled islanders, “Sverdlov” two years later, during his next visit to Great Britain, again demonstrated unprecedented agility. Passing as part of a squadron through the Belt Strait, clogged with thick fog, our ship suddenly left the general formation, turned away from the deep-sea fairway, crossed a sandbank at full speed and then again took its former place in the wake column with amazing accuracy and speed.

Such an amazing maneuver was recorded by NATO surveillance radars and caused great concern among Western admirals. They were inclined to believe that the newest Russian ship was thus conducting “in conditions as close as possible to combat” tests to break through cruisers from the Baltic Sea to the vastness of the Atlantic. (In reality - here’s a joke! - on the Sverdlov’s navigation bridge they simply made a mistake when plotting the course.)

Be that as it may, British experts came to an unequivocal conclusion: Russian cruisers built according to the 68-bis project clearly surpass in their capabilities all ships of a similar class sailing under the flag of the empire. So, we need to find out the secrets of the cunning Russian shipbuilders!

Cruiser "Ordzhonikidze"

The price of carelessness

Attempts to “decipher” the design features of the new Soviet ship were made by the British even during the first visit of the Sverdlov to Foggy Albion.

Then, among the numerous guests, a former British naval attache, expelled several years earlier from the USSR, entered the cruiser under the guise of a newspaper correspondent. This gentleman was very active in clicking his camera in all the nooks and crannies of the cruiser that he could reach.

However, we had our own countermeasures to counter their tricks. The scout was quickly identified, and then, as if by chance, he was invited to another festive feast in the wardroom. There, the ex-attache could not resist the temptation to drink. Soviet security officers, experienced in this matter, quickly got the Englishman drunk with vodka to the point of insanity and freely confiscated all the photographic films with “secrets” from him.

During the Sverdlov's mooring in the harbor of the Portsmouth naval base in the fall of 1955, there was also a danger of espionage attacks from the owners. And most of all one should be wary of their combat swimmers. After all, since the war, the British had an excellent submarine assault group - the 12th flotilla of the Royal Navy under the command of Captain Crabbe.

However, according to intelligence information received by our counterintelligence officers, it was in mid-October, when the Soviet squadron moored off the British Isles, that the base of the notorious 12th flotilla in Portsmouth was empty. This means there are no combat swimmers nearby. Therefore, the command of our squadron did not worry too much about the enhanced security measures for cruisers and destroyers. During the entire week of stay in a foreign port, not a single command was given from above to conduct a diving inspection of the bottoms of ships.

Only now, many years later, after the publication of The Times, can we say with confidence: our naval commanders made a serious mistake in 1955. The English “frog people” managed to outwit the Russian sailors and their guardians from the Soviet counterintelligence. The inspection of the underwater part of the Sverdlov by enemy saboteurs passed without interference.

However, it did not give the desired results. British experts were never able to fully understand the secrets of Soviet cruisers. Further “field studies” were needed.

The British had an opportunity for them within a few months: in April 1956, another Soviet convoy arrived in England, led by the cruiser Ordzhonikidze, built according to the same 68-bis project. True, this time the espionage actions were fraught with especially major international troubles: after all, the leaders of the USSR Khrushchev and Bulganin arrived on the cruiser on an official visit to England.

But there was a man who was not afraid to take risks - the same captain Lionell Crabb, who for many years led the 12th flotilla of the Royal Navy.

Cruiser "Ordzhonikidze"

With grenades or a dagger?

Apparently, it was he and several of his soldiers who so successfully searched the bottom of the Sverdlov underwater, discovering there some original elements of the cruiser’s hydroacoustic equipment. Now the main object of study was to be the rudder and propellers of the “Sverdlovsk twin” Ordzhonikidze. However, this time the most experienced “frog man” still made a mistake.

“My archive contains a record of the memories of one of the Ordzhonikidze crew members, a mechanical engineer,” the late historian and writer, retired captain of the 1st rank Oktyabr Bar-Biryukov shared information during a meeting with an MK correspondent. “He said that once, while staying in an English port, one of the watchmen suddenly noticed how a man in a diving suit appeared near the side.

Considering that the top officials of the state were on the cruiser, the ship’s commander did not dare to act independently and immediately passed this information on to Khrushchev’s security chief.

He ordered his security guys to throw hand grenades at the scuba diver. Then the order was given to examine the bottom of the Ordzhonikidze: suddenly the enemy saboteurs had left some dirty tricks there. But the ship's divers did not find anything suspicious under water. They didn’t even find the body of the blown up submariner...

A different version can be found in other sources. Allegedly, on that day, April 18, having noticed an unknown swimmer in the area of ​​the stern of the cruiser, the command was given from the bridge to turn the propellers several times. These huge blades simply swept the scuba diver towards them... And no grenade explosions, no noise.

Of course, the USSR sent an official protest to the British government. And in response they received a formal apology and a categorical statement that the authorities of the United Kingdom had nothing to do with the incident - this provocation, they say, was organized by some third party.

The very next day, reports appeared in English newspapers that a dangerous “sports adventure” involving diving under a Russian cruiser was started by a certain amateur scuba diver, whose suit suddenly depressurized during the swim, which led to death.

Only 10 days after the incident, the British Admiralty officially announced the disappearance of the famous submariner who led the detachment of “frog people,” Captain Crabbe.

It was said that Crabb had already been dismissed from service at that time and was acting as a civilian, performing “work on checking the technical condition of secret underwater equipment near Portsmouth” for a private company.

However, such explanations did not satisfy everyone. There was even a parliamentary inquiry sent about the Captain Crabbe story. British Prime Minister Anthony Eden had to make a special trip to Parliament on this occasion and warn deputies that disclosing the circumstances of Crabb's disappearance was contrary to state interests.

The hype around the famous swimmer-saboteur rose again a year later. In the spring of 1957, fishermen on the southern coast of England, near the town of Chichester, discovered the remains of an unknown person wearing a diving suit floating in the water. The corpse was missing its head and both arms, but several people invited for identification still identified the deceased as Lionell Crabbe. However, there were also obvious inconsistencies: the leg size was not the same, the hair on the body was a different color than that of the commander of the 12th flotilla, and there was no scar on the left knee from the wound received by the captain during the war.

However, on July 4, 1957, a new grave appeared in the Portsmouth cemetery. On the monument crowning it is the inscription “Commander Crabbe.”

50 years later, at the end of 2007, another page appeared in this complicated story. The news agency reported the news: the man who personally cut the throat of the legendary commander had been discovered. Former diver Eduard Koltsov discovered a half-century-old secret: it was allegedly he, then a 23-year-old Soviet special forces soldier, who killed the British “frog man.” According to Koltsov, he was part of the crew of sailors who arrived on the Ordzhonikidze in England, and one day received an order to check what suspicious movements were noticed near the cruiser.

“I saw the silhouette of a diver in uniform, who was fiddling with something on the starboard side, in the area of ​​the ship’s ammunition storage,” Koltsov recalled. “When I swam closer, I saw that he was attaching a mine.” In the ensuing battle, the Soviet sailor allegedly managed to finish off the enemy saboteur. For his bravery he was awarded the Order of the Red Star. In addition, as a souvenir of that event, Koltsov even kept the knife that he used then.

As we see, there are many variants of this “saboteur” story, but which of them corresponds to reality remains unclear. Moreover, there are still no irrefutable facts regarding Crabbe's death. There were even suspicions that the famous diver remained alive.

Adventures of an Englishman in Russia

A few years later, the wife of the “frog man” suddenly received an envelope in the mail with a small photograph inside, said Oktyabr Bar-Biryukov. - In the picture, she was able to see: in the center of a group of people in Soviet military uniform, her Lionell was standing!.. After that, the woman received several more anonymous messages reporting that her husband was alive.

Mystic? Monstrous prank? The English writer and researcher John Hutton thought not at all. He published a book dedicated to Commander Crabbe, where he tried to prove that the famous submariner-saboteur was secretly taken to the USSR.

On that ill-fated day, April 18, Crabbe was allegedly not destroyed at all. Immediately after discovering an unknown scuba diver under the Ordzhonikidze, several Soviet divers descended from the cruiser and the neighboring destroyer Smotryashchiy, who were able to subdue the saboteur in the water and lift him onto the deck.

Then the submariner was injected with powerful doses of sleeping pills, keeping him virtually unconscious. Some time after the Ordzhonikidze entered the open sea, heading towards the Soviet shores, a helicopter hovered over the cruiser, onto which a limp body was lifted in a basket (this process was allegedly observed by the crew of a Danish frigate located in that area).

Crabbe was airlifted to Szczecin, Poland, and from there to Moscow. Here, comrades from the competent authorities spent some time processing the commander and eventually persuaded him to cooperate, informing him that in his homeland he would still be considered dead when the body of the “understudy” was fished out of the water.

After some time, Lieutenant Lev Korablev arrived in the Pacific Fleet for service. He was involved in special training for Marines, spoke Russian with a clear accent and never told anyone about his life and family.

Many years later, in 1976, someone who knew Crabbe before seemed to have even met him in Bolkenhagen, on the territory of the then GDR, where the old submarine ace trained divers.

Is it true? Today nothing can be said for sure. After all, the official authorities of England, with their above-mentioned statement, only slightly lifted the curtain on the espionage story that took place almost 60 years ago.

Fifty-five years ago, on October 29, 1955, at 01:30 minutes 48.5 seconds, a strong explosion occurred in Sevastopol Bay under the bow of the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet, the battleship Novorossiysk. After 2 hours 45 minutes, the battleship capsized and sank. 611 people died, hundreds of people were injured, shell-shocked and maimed. A major tragedy occurred in the Soviet navy, but for almost thirty years all its circumstances were kept in the strictest confidence.

An eyewitness to the terrible tragedy was the commander of the 6th mine-caliber battery of the Novorossiysk LC, a graduate of the ChVVMU named after. P.S. 1953 Zhilin Karl Ivanovich, future rear admiral. Then he was able to swim out of the water funnel himself and save the young sailor.

Many memoirs and monographs have been written about this terrible tragedy, many books and brochures have been published, more than a hundred reports have been prepared, and hundreds of volumes of various documentation have been collected. The authors of many works, setting out their version of what happened,
rush from one extreme to another, trying to convince readers that they are right.

As a boy, I witnessed the terrible nightmare that occurred on the night of October 29, 1955. In my boyish memories there remains the Sevastopol Bay illuminated by the rays of searchlights and a long whale lying on its side - we saw this from Chastnik Street. Then - a crowd of people on the Grafskaya pier, crying, screams, sirens of cars, patrol officers who pushed away onlookers and demanded that they go home. Then we watched the funeral of Novorossiysk residents at the Kommunard cemetery.

For some reason, wrapped in white sheets, they were buried in mass graves at night. And in the morning only the flat damp ground reminded of the night's incidents. But now this is already distant history. This is described in detail in book 3 Secrets of the Sea from the series Secrets of Sevastopol.

Six months have passed since the terrible night in Sevastopol, but the city and the fleet continued to be haunted by stories and eyewitness accounts of the events of the tragic death of the battleship Novorossiysk. The topic of the mysterious death of the Soviet battleship continued to excite the imagination of counterintelligence officers, the leadership of the KGB, diplomats and representatives of other special services and departments of both the Soviet Union and foreign ones.

By a “strange coincidence”, six months later in April 1956, a state visit of the USSR party and government delegation to Great Britain, led by Khrushchev and Bulganin, took place. The trip did not involve the signing of any agreement and was declared a “goodwill visit.”

But an interesting fact is that the visit to London was planned not, as usual, on a government plane, but on a warship. Why?

Looking ahead, I note that the visit to England was overshadowed by a strange episode: a British submariner tried to examine the hull of a Soviet cruiser.

The will of the guests was undoubtedly good. However, they set off for the shores of Foggy Albion on the battle cruiser Ordzhonikidze.

They don’t go on visits in tanks. However, it was the cruiser, armed with the most modern artillery of various calibers at that time, that was supposed to play the role of a symbol of the power and inaccessibility of the USSR.

Regarding the use of the cruiser, there was another reasoning, so to speak, of a tactical nature. The time was uncertain, and the ship named after the fiery Sergo with bottomless cannon barrels could in any case guarantee the safety of the delegation. And for greater confidence, the cruiser was accompanied by two destroyers - “Smotriashchiy” and “Perfect”.
“We agreed with the British government that we would arrive to them on a warship,” Khrushchev wrote in his memoirs. - We wanted to arrive on a cruiser because we believed that when we got to the port city, we would have our own temporary support base there
base".

The Soviet delegation, in addition to N.A. Bulganin and N.S. Khrushchev, a group of scientists and cultural figures entered, in particular Academician I.V. Kurchatov, Minister of Culture Mikhailov, aircraft designer A.N. Tupolev, Deputy Foreign Minister Gromyko, Khrushchev’s son Sergei.

However, on the eve of departure, another passenger suddenly joined the group of departing passengers. Incredible, but true: a serviceman from a capitalist country climbed onto the deck of the highly classified flagship of the Soviet battle fleet.
“When we set off,” we read in Khrushchev’s memoirs, “the British Embassy in Moscow offered to take with us a British military attache. True, some people had objections: we will sail on a warship, the ship is new, military
the attache will certainly be interested in him and will be able to reveal some of our military secrets.

Such a judgment, of course, was nonsense, inspired by the mores of Stalin's times. The military attache with the rank of colonel turned out to be a very nice person.

When they set out to sea, a small gala dinner was held, to which the British attaché was also invited. It turned out that he was well versed in alcoholic beverages and drank so much that he no longer had time to inspect the ship. He barely made it to his cabin and slept soundly all day.”

“During a memorable trip to England, I had the opportunity to see Nikita Sergeevich almost every day,” said Miroslav Grigorievich Dyachok, a former foreman of the first article of the radio technical service of the cruiser.
- Bulganin, silent and unapproachable, usually sat in the wardroom - his own and the captain of the ship - Captain 1st Rank Stepanov.

In contrast, Khrushchev was on the ship as well as on land. He visited all corners of the cruiser - cockpits, galleys, captain's bridge - and everywhere he talked with the sailors, was interested in the details of their service. His appearance, manner of communication, and penchant for jokes encouraged conversations and provoked frankness.
- Where are you from? - he once asked one of the sailors.
- From Ukraine, from Lvov.
- Lviv is a beautiful city. I was there both before the war and after. Ternopil suffered, it was destroyed to smithereens, but Lviv was saved. Drohobych, Borislav, Transcarpathia - I’ve been there too. Do you know such a city as Sokal?
- Certainly. This is a two to three hour drive from Lviv.
- That's what I know. My wife, Nina Sergeevna Kuharuk, is your fellow countrywoman. She comes from
village from near Sokal. Now it has gone to Poland...”

On that memorable day, April 17, the entire crew of the cruiser solemnly lined up on deck to congratulate Nikita Sergeevich on his birthday. He gave an impromptu speech that lasted more than two hours. He spoke interestingly and spiritedly about international relations and the inevitable end of capitalism.

On behalf of the crew, he was presented with a gift - a model of our cruiser.
What was most surprising was that no one was following Khrushchev’s heels or breathing down his neck. That is, unlike other officials, he somehow did not recognize personal security.”

At Porstsmouth, Soviet warships moored at the military port's southern railway pier.
The history of Portsmouth has been inextricably linked with the history of British navigation for many centuries. The settlers, who sailed from the city on eleven ships on May 13, 1787, founded the first European colony on Australian soil. This expedition also marked the beginning of the sending of prisoners to the fifth continent. One of the traditional sectors of the city economy was formed by the enterprises of the logistics system of the Royal Navy. During the Industrial Revolution, this industry became the engine of regional economic development. In 1802, the Portsmouth Block Mills Company opened the world's first mass production line for hoists for installation on British warships in Portsmouth. During this period, the Portsmouth shipyards were one of the largest industrial complexes on the planet.

During World War II, Portsmouth's businesses carried out defense contracts, which made the city a target for the Luftwaffe. Many city buildings were damaged by the bombing, and the town hall was completely destroyed. During excavation work, builders still find unexploded aerial bombs. On June 6, 1944, allied troops were loaded onto military transport ships in Portsmouth harbor. North of Portsmouth, in the Southwick House estate, the headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief of the Expeditionary Forces, Dwight Eisenhower, was located.

After the end of the Second World War, Portsmouth underwent several large-scale urban planning projects, involving the clearing of slums and rubble and the construction of housing. One of them, the Leigh Park area, is one of the largest in Europe. A significant part of the townspeople moved to new residential areas on the city outskirts, in Buckland, Landport and Portsea. Many buildings built in the post-war decades were subsequently criticized for not matching the historical and architectural appearance of Portsmouth; at the end of the century, some of these houses were demolished.

In 1959, restoration work on the town hall building was completed. This time, the Queen of Great Britain took part in the ceremony dedicated to its opening.

V. Ivanov with the mayor of Portsmouth

The author of the book “Secrets of Sevastopol” visited Portsmouth in 1994, where the mayor of the city showed me (then I was the vice-mayor of Sevastopol) the British naval base, and introduced the legendary sailing and steam ships to the port infrastructure. A modern, clean and very beautiful closed sea port, where next to Admiral Nelson’s sailing ship “Victoria” there are missile corvettes and large warships, many tourists from around the world, shops, cafes, restaurants.

But let's go back to 1956. Khrushchev got acquainted with the country with interest and visited several cities. Bulganin and Khrushchev were received by Queen Elizabeth II of England.

At one of the gala dinners held in honor of the Soviet guests, a place next to Khrushchev was reserved for Churchill, and they talked for almost an hour and a half.

And while loud toasts at the festive table were accompanied by the clinking of crystal glasses, an alarm sounded on the cruiser Ordzhonikidze.

An eyewitness to the events, retired captain 1st rank Viktor Mukhortov, spoke about what happened on the cruiser “Ordzhonikidze”:
- In April 1956, a detachment of Soviet ships consisting of the cruiser "Ordzhonikidze", the secretary of the party organization of which I was at that time, and the destroyers "Smotryashchy" and "Perfect" were on a visit to England. He brought there a large party and government delegation of the USSR - the first secretary of the CPSU Central Committee N.S. Khrushchev, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR N.A. Bulganin, the country's leading aircraft designer A.N. Tupolev, nuclear scientist I.V. Kurchatov and other officials.
Early in the morning of April 19, the watchman of one of the destroyers noticed how someone surfaced at the side of the cruiser and immediately sank. This was immediately reported to the ship's commander, who transferred it to the cruiser. A suspicion arose that British intelligence officers were trying to conduct a secret inspection of the ship's bottom and propellers, since the cruiser had a high speed - 32 knots and very good maneuverability. Sabotage was also not excluded - installing a mine under the bottom so that when the cruiser entered the North Sea, it would explode. The death of the ship with the government delegation could be explained by the fact that the cruiser was blown up by a wartime mine.

Appropriate security measures were taken and the British authorities were notified. Soon, on one of the islands near Portsmouth, a corpse was found in a light diving suit, which was identified as the ace of underwater sabotage operations of the British Navy combat swimmer, Lieutenant Commander Lionel Philip Kenneth Crabb, a former famous underwater swimmer who fought with Italian scuba divers and saboteurs in the Mediterranean Sea during the Second World War. world war.

A scandal erupted in English government circles over the so-called “Crabbe case.” British Prime Minister Anthony Eden was forced to speak in the House of Commons and declare that the government was not informed by the intelligence services about Crabbe's operation and could not authorize it. The Labor Party, which was in opposition at the time, condemned the British government for the act of spying during the friendly visit of Soviet ships and demanded an investigation.

On April 19, 1956, the British Navy announced that Crabb "did not return from an experimental dive to test some submersibles in Stoke Bay, Portsmouth."

I personally heard one military propagandist who claimed that when the underwater diver was discovered, a command was given, and the cruiser turned the screws, which destroyed the saboteur. After the lecture, I approached the lecturer and tactfully explained: in order for a cruiser at anchor to be able to turn the screws, four hours of preparation are needed, and in an emergency - two hours. During this time, the saboteur would have sailed long ago in the direction he needed.”

Recently, a clarification has emerged of the event that took place on April 19, 1956 in Portsmouth under the cruiser Ordzhonikidze. The RenTV channel showed a documentary film, “Revelation of the Sea Devil,” in the preparation of which I also took part. Its main hero was Eduard Koltsov. In his interview, Koltsov said that at that time, at the age of twenty-three, he was an underwater reconnaissance officer. When the cruiser's acoustician discovered a suspicious object under the bottom of the ship, the head of the reconnaissance group called Koltsov and instructed him to go under the water and act according to the circumstances.

Koltsov did just that. Soon he noticed the silhouette of a man in a light diving suit, who was installing a mine on the starboard side, exactly where the charging magazines are located. Being careful, our scout approached the saboteur, grabbed him by the boots and pulled him towards himself. When the saboteur’s body floated next to him, Koltsov cut the breathing device with a knife blow, and then the enemy’s throat. He released the swimmer's corpse with the current, removed the mine from the side and dragged it to the corner of the pier, where there were no people, a lot of silt and all sorts of garbage had accumulated. For this feat, Eduard Koltsov received the Order of the Red Star.

That's how we found out what really happened. As for Leonel Crabbe, the English archives about him are classified until 2057. Why? Apparently, the death of many ships is on his conscience and on the conscience of the British government, including, perhaps, our battleship Novorossiysk, which exploded in 1955 in Sevastopol. In any case, at that time Crabbe commanded the 12th Naval Sabotage Group.

This is what Roy Medvedev wrote about this in his book about Khrushchev. “The visit to England was overshadowed by a strange episode: a submariner, on instructions from the intelligence service, tried to examine the cruiser’s hull. When our sailors noticed him, he disappeared under the water and was never seen again.

We protested to the British and explained that our sailors had observed how a diver in special equipment examined the underwater part of our ship. How should this be understood? Many people remembered the tragic death of the battleship Novorossiysk in Sevastopol Bay. We did not exclude the possibility that swimmers could attach magnetic mines to the cruiser, and this could cost us dearly.

So we thought about returning home by plane. But the Tu-104 was just undergoing testing and was unsafe, and it seemed indecent to us to fly the Il-14 after the furor created by the Tu-104.

We did not believe in the possibility of any provocation. Blowing up a cruiser with the head of someone else's government is war. The British will not allow this! And we decided to return home on a cruiser..."

Khrushchev himself remembered this episode: “It turns out that it was some kind of special intelligence officer of theirs - a diver with the rank, it seems, of major. Our intelligence explained its appearance by the fact that the British might have been interested in the cruiser’s propellers and the shapes of some parts of the ship’s hull, which determined its speed.

Intelligence was minding its own business. They were interested in what our ship was like, and they were not satisfied with what the military attache saw.

We didn’t attach much importance to this, although we said that they invited us to visit, while they themselves were rummaging in their pockets. But the scout died, and the press wrote a lot about the fact that we, in all likelihood, captured him and took him to Moscow. Then it was announced that his body had been found. We don’t know for sure who was there. But we had no doubt that it was a scout.”

Says another participant in the trip: “That day I was annoyed because the crew went ashore for an excursion around Portsmouth, and I had to stand watch. However, the annoyance did not last long.

Suddenly, on the radar screens, our service detected some foreign object that was quickly moving from the shore in the direction of “Ordzhonikidze”.

The duty squad responded instantly. Next, I’ll just repeat a line from the order for the cruiser: “an agent of the British intelligence service has been neutralized.”
- What could the British have a goal? Maybe they really just wanted to look at the screws?
- I think that this design, like many others, was more or less known to the British. But they could easily attach a time bomb or a remote-controlled mine near the screws.

But surely one mine could hardly destroy such a powerful ship?
- Of course, the cruiser “Ordzhonikidze” had solid parameters: 210 meters in length, 25 in width, and the height of a twenty-story building! However, if even one mine had exploded far out at sea, and even during a storm, the damaged propellers and steering could have caused a lot of trouble.

You can imagine how awkward the British felt then! And the Soviet leaders were certainly outraged.
- A war of nerves has begun - who will be the first to not stand it in order to announce this incident to the whole world. And the cold-blooded British lost this war.

Believing that attack was the best method of defense, they announced that so-and-so Soviets had destroyed their “peaceful” innocent lover of sea swimming in cold water. And now they must answer for it.

Moreover, they turned to the Hague International Court for support. But it was all in vain! A certain sea area around our cruiser, as is customary, was surrounded by red signal buoys. And everything that was within these
buoys, at that time was considered the territory of the USSR.

So the international court could only, at the request of Great Britain, invalidate international agreements signed long ago.

So, thanks to you and your crewmates, the journey back was smooth. And therefore, the order for the cruiser probably had a few more lines...

All participants in the campaign were thanked for their excellent service. And then they offered help with admission to any university.”
Perhaps the provocation with the British submariner was a planned test of the vigilance of our anti-sabotage forces, perhaps it was a continuation of the series of owls. secret operations of British naval intelligence.

For now it remains a secret.

It is curious that the further fate of the cruiser Ordzhonikidze is connected with the name of Khrushchev. In February 1960, Nikita Sergeevich arrived in Indonesia. During the visit, an agreement was signed on the supply of ships, aircraft, helicopters, tanks and other weapons. Undoubtedly, the most expensive object among them was the cruiser Ordzhonikidze.

Until this day, the USSR had not transferred ships of such displacement to other fleets. On August 5, 1962, the cruiser "Ordzhonikidze" arrived in Surabaya and after the transfer ceremony and renamed "Irian".

On January 24, 1963, he was expelled from the USSR Navy. In 1965, Suharto came to power in Indonesia as a result of a coup. The cruiser was turned into a floating prison for opponents of the new regime.

In 1972, "Ordzhonikidze" - "Irian" was dismantled for scrap metal

Ctrl Enter

Noticed osh Y bku Select text and click Ctrl+Enter

Filming of a historical documentary film with the working title “Assassination of Khrushchev”, dedicated to the official visit of the First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Nikita Khrushchev to Great Britain on the cruiser “Ordzhonikidze” in 1956, has been completed.

Among the cruisers of Project 68-BIS, to which the Ordzhonikidze belonged, only the Mikhail Kutuzov survived, so the filming was carried out on a museum ship, which is moored at the sea terminal in Novorossiysk.

The film crew of the United Media Group television studio, commissioned by the Rossiya TV channel, undertook to reconstruct the events of April 1956, when the world was on the verge of a spy scandal. The activities of the special services against the Soviet Navy reached their climax during the visit of the head of the Soviet Union on the cruiser Ordzhonikidze to the port of Portsmouth. The main intrigue of the events is connected with the name of the ace of underwater sabotage operations of the British Navy combat swimmer Lionel Philip Kenneth Crabbe, with his secret mission and subsequent mysterious death.

It is expected that television viewers will be able to see the film on the Rossiya TV channel in the first days of 2009.

An eyewitness to the events, retired captain 1st rank Viktor Mukhortov, told the SV correspondent about what actually happened on the cruiser Ordzhonikidze:

— In April 1956, a detachment of Soviet ships consisting of the cruiser Ordzhonikidze, whose party organization secretary I was at that time, and the destroyers Smotryaschiy and Sovershenny, was on a visit to England. He brought there a large party and government delegation of the USSR - the first secretary of the CPSU Central Committee N.S. Khrushchev, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR N.A. Bulganin, the country's leading aircraft designer A.N. Tupolev, nuclear scientist I.V. Kurchatov and other officials.

Early in the morning of April 19, the watchman of one of the destroyers noticed how someone surfaced at the side of the cruiser and immediately sank. This was immediately reported to the ship's commander, who transferred it to the cruiser. There was a suspicion that British intelligence officers were trying to conduct a secret inspection of the ship's bottom and propellers, since the cruiser had a high speed - 32 knots and very good maneuverability. Sabotage was also not excluded - installing a mine under the bottom so that when the cruiser entered the North Sea, it would explode. The death of the ship with the government delegation could be explained by the fact that the cruiser was blown up by a wartime mine.

Appropriate security measures were taken and the British authorities were notified. Soon, on one of the islands near Portsmouth, a corpse was found in a light diving suit, which was identified as Lieutenant Commander Leonel Crabbe, a former famous underwater diver who fought Italian scuba divers and saboteurs in the Mediterranean Sea during the Second World War. A scandal erupted in English government circles over the so-called “Crabbe case.” British Prime Minister Anthony Eden was forced to speak in the House of Commons and declare that the government was not informed by the intelligence services about Crabbe's operation and could not authorize it. The Labor Party, which was in opposition at the time, condemned the British government for the act of spying during the friendly visit of Soviet ships and demanded an investigation.

On April 19, 1956, the British Navy announced that Crabb "did not return from an experimental dive to test some submersibles in Stoke Bay, Portsmouth." Therefore, many versions and assumptions arose about this. For example, there were rumors that Crabb's comrade in the fight against the Italians, Sidney Knowles, said that Crabb was a double agent and immediately after the war began working for Soviet intelligence. And the operation against “Ordzhonikidze” was used to transport him to the Soviet Union. There were other versions: supposedly when the diver was found near the cruiser, Soviet divers caught up with him and captured him. Then they recruited him, and he began to train Soviet submariners.

I personally heard one military propagandist who claimed that when the underwater diver was discovered, a command was given, and the cruiser turned the screws, which destroyed the saboteur. After the lecture, I approached the lecturer and tactfully explained: in order for a cruiser at anchor to be able to turn the screws, four hours of preparation are necessary, and two hours in an emergency. During this time, the saboteur would have sailed long ago in the direction he needed.

Only very recently has there been clarification of the event that took place on April 19, 1956 in Portsmouth under the cruiser Ordzhonikidze. The RenTV channel showed a documentary film, “Revelation of the Sea Devil,” in the preparation of which I also took part. Its main hero was Eduard Koltsov. In his interview, Koltsov said that at that time, at the age of twenty-three, he was an underwater reconnaissance officer. When the cruiser's acoustician discovered a suspicious object under the bottom of the ship, the head of the reconnaissance group called Koltsov and instructed him to go under the water and act according to the circumstances. Koltsov did just that. Soon he noticed the silhouette of a man in a light diving suit, who was installing a mine on the starboard side, exactly where the charging magazines are located. Being careful, our scout approached the saboteur, grabbed him by the boots and pulled him towards himself. When the saboteur’s body floated next to him, Koltsov cut the breathing device with a knife blow, and then the enemy’s throat. He released the swimmer's corpse with the current, removed the mine from the side and dragged it to the corner of the pier, where there were no people, a lot of silt and all sorts of garbage had accumulated. For this feat, Eduard Koltsov received the Order of the Red Star.

That's how we found out what really happened. As for Leonel Crabbe, the English archives about him are classified until 2057. Why? Apparently, the death of many ships is on his conscience and on the conscience of the British government, including, perhaps, our battleship Novorossiysk, which exploded in 1955 in Sevastopol. In any case, at that time Crabbe commanded the 12th Naval Sabotage Group.

It is curious that the further fate of the cruiser “Ordzhonikidze” is connected with the name of Khrushchev.

In February 1960, Nikita Sergeevich arrived in Indonesia. During the visit, an agreement was signed on the supply of ships, aircraft, helicopters, tanks and other weapons. Undoubtedly, the most expensive object among them was the cruiser Ordzhonikidze. Until this day, the USSR had not transferred ships of such displacement to other fleets. On August 5, 1962, the cruiser "Ordzhonikidze" arrived in Surabaya and after a transfer ceremony and renaming "Irian" on January 24, 1963, it was expelled from the USSR Navy. In 1965, Suharto came to power in Indonesia as a result of a coup. The cruiser was turned into a floating prison for opponents of the new regime. In 1972, "Ordzhonikidze" - "Irian" was dismantled for scrap metal.

Barracuda bite: why the best diver in England did not return from the mission

In England, documents were declassified, which many immediately rushed to call sensational. We are talking about an incident that in the mid-50s actually derailed the “peace process” between Great Britain and the Soviet Union. During Nikita Khrushchev’s “sea” visit, Lionell Crabb disappeared under the bottom of the cruiser Ordzhonikidze, the legendary leader of the reconnaissance and sabotage unit of British submariners. The mystery of his death has been revealed. We are republishing the material from the newspaper “Arguments of the Week”, in which the authors return to this story, taking into account newly discovered circumstances.

The troika that sank the Novorossiysk

Leading expert on the organization of underwater demolition work, Lionel Crabbe, was repeatedly awarded for his courage. His combat swimmers carried out several acts of sabotage against enemy ships using torpedo transporters.

On January 3, 1943, in the port of Palermo in Sicily, British underwater saboteurs sank the Italian light cruiser Ulpio Traiano with a displacement of 5,420 tons and a transport ship. On January 18 of the same year, they managed to damage transport in the Libyan port of Tripoli. And on June 21, 1944, in the port of La Spezia, they sank the heavy cruiser Bolzano with a displacement of 14 thousand tons, which ended up in the hands of the Germans after the surrender of Italy.

After British troops entered Italy, Commander Crabbe also arrived there. He actually saved Mussolini's squad of combat swimmers from destruction. Having learned that the famous Crabbe was in Italy, the commander of the 10th Italian special forces diving flotilla, Alexander Volkov, a descendant of white emigrants, personally came to surrender to his famous colleague. Birds of a feather flock together. Volkov's calculation was justified. With him, Crabb completely restored the detachment of Italian combat swimmers, who then not only advised specialists from the British 12th flotilla, but also participated in combat operations together. Volkov later went to Argentina, where he became the “father of Argentine combat swimmers.”

The third in this “gang” was the American sailor diver Anthony Marslow, with whom Crabbe was friends and visited him in the USA. True, Antonio Marzullo, one of the dons of the Italian-American mafia, impersonated Marslow.

On October 29, 1955, this trio blew up the Soviet battleship Novorossiysk, which posed a particular danger to England. The fact is that the Soviet command wanted to equip Novorossiysk with nuclear weapons. The former Italian battleship Giulio Cesare was ideal for this purpose. Great Britain as an island in this case turned out to be the most vulnerable target for the Soviet Navy.

The newest Soviet cruisers of Project 68 bis repeatedly shocked the British Admiralty. In the first ten days of October 1955, the cruiser Sverdlov, as part of a detachment of Soviet ships, began moving to the British naval base of Portsmouth on a friendly visit. Following the Belt Strait, accompanied by 2 destroyers, in thick fog he accomplished the impossible. The ship briefly went out of order, deviated from the deep-water channel and at full speed crossed a sandbank with a depth of only about 4 m! NATO experts took a gross error in the actions of the crew of the Sverdlov's navigation bridge when making a turn as secret tests of the lead cruiser of Project 68 bis, which were as close as possible to the conditions of a combat breakthrough of Soviet cruiser-raiders into the Atlantic from the Baltic Sea. The Admiralty decided to inspect the bottom of the cruiser at the first opportunity.

When the Sverdlov entered Portsmouth harbor, the British were ready to carry out their plan. True, there was one “but”. "Sverdlov" came to Portsmouth at the invitation of the government, and therefore British intelligence was obliged to leave him alone. The Admiralty came up with an option: if the United States invited a civilian diver to “secretly inspect” the ship, the British authorities could always say that they had nothing to do with it. Crabbe was supposed to be such a diver.

Commander Crabbe's secret dive took place in October 1955. Unnoticed by anyone, he swam under the ship's hull. There was a large round hole on the nose. Inside there was a propeller that could be lowered to different levels to achieve better maneuverability of the vessel. Crabbe managed to find out what was required. He got ashore and went to London to report.

"Ordzhonikidze" was watching the British

But the British wanted a more detailed description. And such an opportunity presented itself to them...

On April 18, 1956, a detachment of Soviet ships arrived in England on an official visit. On board the flagship cruiser Ordzhonikidze (twin brother of the Sverdlov) were Khrushchev, Bulganin, Kurchatov and KGB Chairman General Serov. The ship moored in Portsmouth, after which the steam turbine power plants on the cruiser were turned off. On the evening of the day of arrival, the Soviet leader gave a reception on the ship. Politicians, bankers and other representatives of the country's business circles were invited. Glasses filled with ice clinked. A chamber quartet was playing.

Meanwhile, Crabbe got back to work. The Admiralty's task was formulated as follows. Crabbe must examine the cruiser's propellers and rudder, as well as discover the ultra-modern Ordzhonikidze sonar system, install technical intelligence sensors on the cruiser's hull and try to steal ultra-sensitive equipment installed on the bottom of the cruiser.

If you believe documents recently declassified in Britain, it turns out something like this. The naval command from Foreign Office, to which British intelligence is formally subordinate, gave the order to cancel the dive. But Crabbe was a patriot and did not follow the orders of the command. That is, he carried out the intelligence operation “privately.” In principle, his motives can be understood: it was the height of the Cold War, and this opportunity could not be missed...

But not everyone on the cruiser relaxed. Behind tightly battened armored hatches sat the highest-class specialists, listening to the sea for many miles around. As the fun on deck reached its climax, one of the lookouts, keeping his eyes on the display of the latest sonar device, recorded a splash of water not far from the cruiser - a sign of a deep-sea dive. At the agreed signal, the immediate response team got to work. Secret monitors showed on the screens the figure of a scuba diver in a thermal suit approaching the bottom of the ship. The scuba diver dived under the keel. The direction-finded target was not lost from sight. Soviet divers literally surrounded the ship...

What happened to the scuba diver is still shrouded in darkness. But the very next day, London newspapers reported about a certain amateur scuba diver Lionell Crabbe, who “...on his own initiative undertook an adventurous venture - to examine the bottom of the Soviet cruiser Ordzhonikidze.” Amateurism cost him dearly. The oxygen supply system could not withstand excessive loads and depressurized. The amateur scuba diver died."

At the same time, other reports appeared in the press opposition to the government. Scuba diver Lionell Crabbe was called a Royal Navy commander, not an amateur.

And finally, on April 29, 1956, the British Admiralty was forced to announce the disappearance of diver Lionel Crabbe, who dived in Portsmouth Harbor next to the Soviet cruiser on which the leaders of the USSR arrived in the UK.

The British Cold War secret is revealed!

The editorial mail, consisting of responses from AN readers, was especially rich this time. The most interesting was the letter from Rostov-on-Don. This was a response to the article “The best diver in England did not return from the mission,” published by us in November, in issues 26 and 27. The author of the letter is E.P. Koltsov, a combat diver of the special forces group "Barracuda", was a participant in a friendly visit to England of three ships of the Baltic Fleet: the cruiser "Ordzhonikidze", the destroyers "Smotryaschiy" and "Perfect". Today he shares his memories, observations and details about how it all happened.

Considering the sensational nature of this material, below is the verbatim author’s text from a participant in this hike.

“….Preparation for the campaign was carried out in the Baltic, in the Mine Harbor of Tallinn. They tried to ensure that there were fewer foreign ships in the nearby Merchant Harbor at this time. The personnel on the ships were selected with special care. Taking into account the fact that the modernized cruiser had secret installations, including those used when mooring the ship. Mooring such a giant as a cruiser requires jewelry.

Operational support of the campaign was carried out by the chief of intelligence, Rear Admiral Tishkov. It was decided, in case any emergency situation arises in England that is unfriendly to us, to fully utilize not only analytical intelligence, but also force. Divers from the elite reconnaissance unit Barracuda were involved. Those initiated into intelligence activities had to know how to distinguish intelligence officers. It was decided to dress them in the uniform of senior sailors, because... all the rest were foremen and a small number of sailors. The personnel, of course, did not know about this.

In Portsmouth, thousands of British people greeted our cruiser with a displacement of 16,000 tons. It was mooring with its stern to the quay wall at a speed of 30 knots. The stern of the cruiser is getting closer to the pier, the engines are running “full backwards”, it seems that the cruiser will crash into the pier. The command “stop the car”, reverse, the command “full forward”, breaking waves, the cruiser froze in place and gently leaned against the pier. The maritime power had never known such masterful mooring before. It was a triumph for the USSR Navy. What happened on the shore is impossible to convey. What a delight there was, some even cried.

When the distinguished guests left the ship, he stood against the wall. Residents and sailors of England were allowed to visit it. Buffet tables were laid on the deck of the cruiser: caviar, balyki, pickles and, of course, Stolichnaya. The next day a cartoon appeared in the newspapers: a stocky Russian sailor dragging two thin and drunken Englishmen, with bottles of vodka sticking out of their pockets.

At that time, the Navy didn’t know the word “steal.”

“….At 02 o’clock in the morning, the acousticians keeping a 24-hour watch reported strange noises on the starboard side. To establish the cause of the noise, a combat swimmer immediately dived into the water from the left side. In such cases, for the purpose of secrecy, he does not have two-way communication, and is forced to make all decisions independently. His life depends on it.

Having descended from the left side, the swimmer entered from the stern to be in the shadow of the pier. He saw a man in a light diving suit attaching a mine in front of the cruiser's powder magazines. Not knowing the saboteur’s weapons and his cover, our swimmer decides to approach the saboteur from below. Having gone to the depths, holding his breath so that air bubbles would not give him away, our swimmer sharply pulled the saboteur by the legs. When his head caught up with the swimmer, he cut the saboteur’s throat with a sharp side blow of the knife, along with the breathing tubes. Crabbe was very short and of a puny build. Our swimmer was even scared at first, thinking that he had killed a child, but after examining his face, he realized that he was an adult man.

Having tightened the diving suit around his throat to create buoyancy, and using the blood to determine the direction of the underwater current, our swimmer sent the corpse downstream. Thus ended the duel of two combat swimmers. The incident was reported to the command. It was decided to keep this case classified. The winner was awarded the Order of the Red Star for exemplary performance of a task involving a risk to life and ensuring the rescue of thousands of people without any fanfare. The acoustician was also awarded.”

As for the mine, it was safely removed and towed to the far end of the pier, where it may still be. Some time later, Crabbe's body was found without a head. The fish, the current and fluctuations of the water completed the job, preventing the death of innocent people and an international scandal.

Stanislav Lekarev, “Arguments of the Week”