Allied Warships

S-3

Submarine of the S (Stalinec) class

NavyThe Soviet Navy
TypeSubmarine
ClassS (Stalinec) 
Pennant 
Mod1st group (Type IX) 
Built byBaltiyskiy Zavod (Leningrad, U.S.S.R.) / Yard 189. 
Ordered 
Laid down25 Apr 1934 
Launched30 Apr 1936 
Commissioned8 Jul 1938 
Lost24 Jun 1941 
History

Baltic fleet.

Sunk by artillery, hand grenades and depth charges of the German motor torpedo boats S-60 and S-35 near Ujava beacon. S-3 had been refitting at Libau (Libava in Russian) at the outbreak of the war and was unable to submerge.

Nevertheless, her Commanding Officer refused to destroy the boat, took the crew of S-1, workers of naval yard (nearly 100 men in total) and tried to burst through to Ust-Dvinsk at night on 24 June. Unfortunately, the slowly moving (5 knots at best) submarine was spotted by two German motor torpedo boats. Their first torpedo salvo missed and the opponents engaged each other in an artillery duel. The motor torpedo boats had quick-firing 20 mm automatic cannons and, utilizing their preference, raked S-3 crew with fire (the reciprocal fire caused light damage). Then the German crews attacked the submarine with hand grenades and finally S-60 dropped one depth charge just ahead the sub's course (and, maybe, fired two torpedoes, that tore S-3 into three pieces). After the submarine had sunk, The Germans took some survivors on board. Some sources says that 20 people were taken by Germans, another reports only 3 survivors, and some sources show that most of the survivors were machine-gunned in water.

 

We don't have any commands listed for USSR S-3


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