Cruiser Varyag — the most celebrated ship of Tsarist Russia in the Russo-Japanese War, and a meme.
The nature of the phenomenon
The cruiser, which took part in the defense of Port Arthur against the Japanese, became famous through patriotic folklore as the embodiment of a unit's heroic destruction in battle along with its crew.
In reality, the crew survived, the ship was scuttled by its own men, and was subsequently raised. The Varyag actually met its end on the other side of the world — in the Irish Sea. The songs about the Varyag, which lie at the root of the confusion, are translations from German.
Construction
The flush-decked armored-deck cruiser Varyag was laid down 105 years ago at the yards of one of the largest shipbuilding enterprises in the United States — the William Cramp and Sons shipyard in Philadelphia — on an order from the Admiralty of the Russian Imperial Navy. The design, developed in Russia, envisaged a further development of the Aurora-class cruisers in the direction of enhanced squadron characteristics: improved seakeeping and speed, decking and side armor belt faced with lightweight Krupp steel plates, and an increased number of 152-mm main-battery guns.
The Varyag was launched on October 19 (31), 1899. Her crew of 21 officers and 559 petty officers and sailors, headed by Captain 1st Rank Behr and Senior Officer Captain 2nd Rank Kraft, arrived in Philadelphia aboard a Russian mail steamer. Work then began on installing equipment and preparing the vessel for sea trials and gunnery tests.
By mid-January 1901 the cruiser was fully fitted out. She displaced 7,022 tons; her engines developed 16,000 hp, allowing her to reach a speed of 23 knots (42.6 km/h). The Varyag carried enough coal to steam 4,290 miles (7,945 km) without refueling at 10 knots (18.5 km/h). Her armament comprised twelve 152-mm main-battery guns, twelve 75-mm anti-torpedo-boat guns, eight 47-mm anti-submarine guns, two 37-mm anti-aircraft guns, two 63.5-mm landing guns, six above-water torpedo tubes, and 22 mines.
A birth defect
The Varyag passed her gunnery trials successfully, but during the speed trials the yard, eager to push the ship up to the contracted speed, burned out the boilers — a defect that would make itself felt throughout the cruiser's operational life. As a result, despite excellent seakeeping and stability, the cruiser could not exceed 20 knots, which had a significant bearing on how she was used in the fleet: she operated independently, outside the squadron. During the trials, however, this fault did not show itself.
The heroic day. The deck log
The morning of January 27, 1904 arrived. In the Central State Archive of the Russian Navy, in fond 870, file No. 30584, the deck log of the cruiser Varyag has been preserved. It is thus possible, with a high degree of reliability, to follow the unequal battle fought by Rudnev and his crew.
Here, then, is the chronicle of that day which entered forever into the history of the Russian Navy — and not only the Russian: three-quarters of the Varyag's crew were Ukrainians from Volynia Governorate of the Russian Empire, that is, from Ukraine.
6:00. Reveille. Half an hour later — prayers and breakfast. At the same time, a Japanese cruiser and two destroyers weighed anchor and departed. By 7:00 all Japanese vessels had left the Chemulpo roadstead. On the cruiser, the crew fell in, the stern ensign and masthead flags were hoisted, morning quarters were held, and steam was raised in boilers Nos. 16, 17, and 18. At 8:00 the cruiser's commander received the captain of the French cruiser Pascal aboard. He informed Rudnev that a meeting of the captains of all foreign vessels was being convened on the cruiser Talbot.
9:30. The meeting was opened by Bailey. At the same moment, Rudnev was handed a package received from the Russian consul at Chemulpo, Polyanovsky. Inside was an ultimatum from Admiral Uriu: "In view of the hostile actions presently existing between the governments of Japan and Russia, I respectfully request that you leave the port of Chemulpo with the forces under your command by noon on January 27 (February 9), 1904. Otherwise I shall be obliged to open fire upon you in the port. S. Uriu."
Rudnev rose and read the ultimatum aloud in English, then translated it into French. Those present were silent. Then Captain 1st Rank Bailey drew the captains of the French and Italian cruisers aside into a separate cabin. He told them that if the Russians did not leave the roadstead, the British, French, and Italian cruisers would depart from Chemulpo by 16:00. Both captains silently agreed. They then returned to Rudnev and announced their decision. Captain 1st Rank Rudnev replied that he would put to sea and fight the Japanese, but asked his colleagues to escort the Varyag and the Koreyets to the sea lanes. Bailey answered: this was impossible, as it would constitute a violation of neutrality.
Rudnev rose. He said in French: "So my ship is a piece of meat thrown to the dogs? Very well — if a battle is forced upon me, I will accept it. I have no intention of surrendering, however large the Japanese squadron may be." An awkward silence fell over the cabin. Rudnev left.
10:00. The commander returned to his ship. He resolved to break out of the harbor into the open sea and there, after giving battle, attempt to make for Port Arthur to the northwest. However, Vsevolod Rudnev did not know about the Japanese attack on Port Arthur, nor about the heavy damage inflicted on the Russian battleships by Japanese torpedoes — he would learn of this from French newspapers already aboard the cruiser Pascal. And the fact that the Varyag's artillery was virtually powerless against the Japanese, since the shells were unsuitable for hitting the enemy, was something neither the commander nor his comrades in arms ever learned.
10:15. "The commander assembled the officers in the wardroom, informed them of the commencement of hostilities, and gave each his instructions. The officers unanimously resolved that in the event of failure they would blow the ship up and under no circumstances surrender the cruiser to the enemy. A detonating cartridge with a Bickford fuse was subsequently prepared in the mine magazine..." The task of setting off the explosion was assigned to the cruiser's paymaster, Midshipman Nikolai Chernilovsky-Sokol. "The decision to attempt a breakout and to accept battle on the roadstead was considered preferable: 1) the narrow roadstead afforded no room to maneuver; 2) in complying with the Japanese admiral's request there was a faint hope that the Japanese would let them out of the roadstead and the straits and give battle at sea, which was preferable, since in the straits they would have been obliged to hold fixed courses and consequently could not have made full use of all means of attack and defense."
And so the decision was made: every effort must be made to force the narrows of the roadstead, gain the open sea, and there attempt to make for the northwest, toward Port Arthur. Had Rudnev known that Port Arthur was already blockaded, he would have had to break out to the southeast and, rounding the Korean Peninsula, make for Vladivostok. But history has no subjunctive mood.
10:40. The ship's bell struck — "wine and dinner."
11:00. The crew and the band fell in on the quarterdeck. Rudnev stepped forward and said: "Today I received a letter from the Japanese admiral announcing the commencement of hostilities and demanding that we leave the roadstead by noon. We are of course going to attempt a breakout and will engage the squadron, however strong it may be. There can be no question of surrender. We shall yield neither the cruiser nor ourselves, fighting to the last possible moment and the last drop of blood. Carry out your duties precisely, calmly, without haste — especially the gun crews, remembering that every shell must do damage to the enemy. In case of fire, extinguish it without fuss, informing me... Let us go boldly into battle for faith, Tsar, and Fatherland — hurrah!" A mighty "hurrah!" rolled three times over the cruiser's deck. It was echoed by a "hurrah!" from the Koreyets. It was heard on the foreign vessels, and heard too by the Japanese, who had already seized Chemulpo.
Serving on the Koreyets as a civilian employee was a peasant from the Kiev region, cook Krishtofonko. The Koreyets's commander, Captain 2nd Rank Belyaev, offered to put him ashore, as Krishtofonko had taken no oath and his participation in the battle was not required. But the cook refused to leave the ship. He answered: "If we die, then all together, Your Honor. I will fight alongside you." The commander assigned the cook as a shell-carrier at the stern gun.
11:10. The order rang out: "All hands, weigh anchor!" Ten minutes later the Varyag was already moving slowly past the English and Italian cruisers toward the roadstead exit, with them on her port beam. The Koreyets followed on the port beam, sheltering behind the cruiser's powerful side, which was dressed with all its signal flags. Sailors and officers had put on clean underclothes, dress uniforms, and their decorations; the ship's band played the national anthem. "On the English and Italian cruisers, the crews and honor guards on deck sent them off with cries of 'Hurrah!' On the Italian cruiser they played our anthem." Fifteen minutes later, general quarters was sounded. "The Japanese squadron, comprising six cruisers and eight destroyers, was deployed in a line of bearing from Iodolmi Island toward the northern channel, covering both sea exits." The enemy lay to the southwest, with the cruisers in the van and the destroyers behind them. "According to information from foreign vessels," the enemy's squadron included the cruisers Asama, Naniwa, Takachikho, Chiyoda, Akashi, and Niitaka.
11:45. "The first shot was fired by the cruiser Asama, ...whereupon the entire Japanese squadron opened fire." The Varyag fired a ranging shot from her stern gun, then gave a broadside from her starboard battery with armor-piercing shells. The enemy's third shell demolished the right wing of the forward bridge, starting a fire in the chart room and severing the fore-stay. The first to die were the junior navigating officer, Midshipman Count Aleksei Nirod, and the rangefinder operator; several men were wounded. Rangefinder station No. 1, which determined the range to the enemy for the gunners, was knocked out. The cruiser replied with armor-piercing shells; the Japanese ships used shimosa. The Japanese squadron bracketed the cruiser: gun No. 6 was disabled and all its gun crew killed. Midshipman Gubonin was gravely wounded but continued to direct the fire until he fell. The propellant charges of smokeless powder caught fire but the gun crews extinguished the blaze. Two main-battery guns and three anti-torpedo-boat guns were knocked out. A subsequent Japanese salvo demolished the combat maintop, destroyed rangefinder station No. 2, and disabled two small-caliber guns. An explosion penetrating through a deck hatch set the crew's living quarters ablaze, but it was quickly extinguished. The Varyag lived on and continued to press forward. She was fighting an artillery duel with the Japanese flagship Asama, striving to put her out of action. Meanwhile a Japanese destroyer attacked the cruiser, but the Varyag's first salvo sent her to the bottom. Soon the Asama sheered off as well, and her place was taken by the Takachikho — but within minutes three main-battery shells struck the Japanese cruiser. Dense black smoke also enveloped the cruiser Niitaka. The remaining Japanese vessels, however, showered the Varyag with a hail of shells.
12:05. The cruiser had passed the beam of Iodolmi Island — the open sea was almost within reach — when the steering gear was shot away. A second shell burst near the foremast: splinters flying into the conning tower through the access passage concussed Rudnev in the head, killed the staff bugler and drummer, and seriously wounded the helmsman, Senior Petty Officer Snegirev, in the back; Rudnev's orderly, Quartermaster Chibisov, received a slight wound to the arm. The cruiser had thus been deprived of her command, her steering, and her maneuverability.
Hatless, his uniform stained with blood, the commander stepped out of the conning tower and shouted above the noise of battle: "Men! I am alive. Aim true!" But the loss of maneuverability decided the outcome of the Varyag's first and last battle — Rudnev ordered the ship back to the roadstead, there to be scuttled; she had taken a hole below the waterline on her port side and was beginning to list to port.
12:40. The Japanese, not wishing their shells to strike the foreign vessels, ceased fire. The Varyag stopped her engines and dropped anchor short of the Italian cruiser lying in the roadstead. In an hour of battle the cruiser had fired 1,105 shells, sunk a destroyer, and put three enemy cruisers out of action, but had suffered damage that made it completely impossible to continue the fight. Rudnev now had to destroy the ship and save the crew from captivity.
13:35. After holding a conference with his officers on the upper deck, Rudnev proceeded in a French launch to Bailey, "where he declared his intention to destroy the cruiser as it was completely unfit for service." Bailey raised no objection. At that moment an explosion thundered almost at the very entrance to Chemulpo harbor: the Koreyets was hurled into the air, and, breaking into several pieces, sank rapidly, sending a strong wave across the roadstead. Witnessing this, Bailey asked Rudnev not to blow up the Varyag but to scuttle her instead. Rudnev agreed and left the British ship.
13:50. The commander returned to the ship and informed his officers of the decision reached by himself and the British captain. The officers agreed. Launches and boats from the foreign vessels came alongside. The wounded were embarked first, then the sailors and officers.
15:30. "The entire crew had left the cruiser. The chief and auxiliary engineers... opened the valves and sea-cocks and also left the cruiser." The commander and the boatswain remained aboard to confirm that she was sinking.
15:50. The commander and the boatswain transferred to the launch from the Pascal, which was waiting for them at the gangway. Rudnev carried with him the ship's documents; the boatswain carried the cruiser's stern ensign, the jack. The flag at the masthead was not hauled down. The launch shoved off from the side. "The cruiser Varyag was gradually filling with water and continued to list to port. Her stern was already awash."
16:10. "The cruiser Varyag submerged, lying completely on her port side." At this sentence the log of the hero-ship broke off.
And so Rudnev did not surrender the cruiser to the enemy, and the crew did not fall into captivity. Of the 535 men who had been aboard before the battle, 30 were killed and 85 sailors, petty officers, and officers were wounded. About a hundred sailors received minor wounds. Two days later, two more bodies of bilge-room sailors surfaced at the spot where the Varyag had gone down.
Outcome of the battle
The unequal battle lasted 50 minutes. During that time the Varyag fired 1,105 shells at the enemy, the Koreyets 52 shells (the gunboat's armament was lighter and she entered the battle toward the end). According to the commander's report, the Varyag's fire sank one destroyer and damaged four Japanese cruisers (Asama, Chiyoda, Takachikho, and the flagship Naniwa); the enemy presumably lost around 30 men killed and around 200 wounded; official Japanese sources maintain that no hits were scored on Japanese vessels and that they suffered no losses or damage.
The Varyag received five underwater hits and lost three 6-inch guns; crew losses — 1 officer and 30 sailors killed, 6 officers and 85 sailors wounded or concussed, and around 100 more lightly wounded. The Koreyets suffered no losses.
In the opinion of the Varyag's captain, the vessel was unable to continue the battle, which was the grounds for returning to Chemulpo. After assessing the severity of the damage, Rudnev states, the remaining guns and equipment were destroyed as far as possible, the ship herself was scuttled by opening the sea-cocks, and the Koreyets was blown up. However, when the Japanese raised the ship in 1905, both the machinery and the greater part of the 6-inch artillery proved to be entirely serviceable, and the vessel proceeded under her own power to Japan. The Russian steamer Sungari was also scuttled.
The Japanese went to some lengths to embellish their victory — newspapers reported that the entire crew of the Varyag had perished.
Foreign newspapers published on February 9, 1904 printed that 17 officers and 456 petty officers and sailors had died aboard the Varyag. Naturally, the Russian newspapers reprinted this as well, since neither Rudnev nor the Russian consul Polyanovsky in Chemulpo could communicate anything to St. Petersburg or Vladivostok — communications were blocked by the Japanese landing force.
The crews of the vessels were taken aboard foreign ships and, having given their word not to take part in subsequent military operations, returned to Russia through neutral ports.
How the Japanese Emperor's decoration of the captain proved unexpectedly useful
The conduct of the Varyag impressed even the enemy: the fact that the Russian sailors had acted in accordance with the canons of samurai honor was exploited for propaganda purposes as an example to emulate.
When Uriu learned that the crews of the Varyag and the Koreyets had been interned aboard foreign warships, he demanded their surrender as prisoners of war. But, to the credit of the Italian and French cruiser commanders — who also put pressure on the Briton — Uriu was flatly refused. The crews of the foreign cruisers were wholly on the side of the Russian sailors, and their commanders did not wish to provoke unrest aboard their own ships. Twenty-four sailors were placed in Red Cross hospitals in Chemulpo. Eight of them died that same day. The following day, two more died of their wounds. All were buried in the Christian cemetery at Chemulpo; the funeral service was conducted by the ship's chaplain; Rudnev, the Russian consul, and the commanders of the foreign cruisers were present, and a rifle salute was fired.
The Japanese present in Chemulpo were tolerant of this, since the Japanese Emperor, struck by the valor of the Russian sailors, had decorated Rudnev with the emblem of the Military Order of the Golden Kite, 4th class, established in 1890 (the order had seven classes). Rear Admiral Uriu received the same order 3rd class, and the commander of the flagship cruiser Naniwa, Captain 1st Rank Kensuke, received the order's emblem 5th class.
Moreover, after the Russo-Japanese War the Japanese government established a museum in Seoul in memory of the heroes of the Varyag and awarded Rudnev the Order of the Rising Sun.
Life after the heroic sinking
Salvage
In 1905 the Varyag was raised by the Japanese, repaired, and commissioned as a 3rd-class cruiser under the name Soya. She was used by the Japanese for training purposes for more than seven years. From March 14 to August 7, 1909, the cruiser made a voyage to Hawaii and North America to practice navigation in blue-water conditions and to train her officer complement. The cruiser continued making such voyages until 1913.
Back home
During the First World War, the Russian Empire and Japan became allies. In 1916 the cruiser Soya (along with a number of other vessels) was purchased back by Russia.
On March 22, 1916, a Russian crew arrived at the Japanese port of Kobe and took over the legendary cruiser from the Japanese naval officers.
On April 5, 1916, the *Varyag* arrived at Vladivostok. The ship then faced a long voyage. It crossed two oceans and several seas, and on November 17, 1916, dropped anchor in the harbor of Aleksandrovsk (present-day Polyarny), joining the Imperial Flotilla of the Arctic Ocean under the flag of Rear Admiral A. I. Bestuzhev-Ryumin, commander of the Special Purpose Vessel Detachment.
The cruiser, however, was in need of boiler and engine repairs. Such work could only be carried out by the firm that had built the *Varyag* — the Cramp shipyard in Philadelphia. With the height of Germany's submarine warfare against the Entente powers and the United States in the Atlantic, sending the cruiser to Philadelphia for repairs would have been, to say the least, unwise. The Russian Naval Department therefore arranged to send the *Varyag* to England for repairs. On February 25, 1917, the cruiser weighed anchor and set course for Liverpool. The crew took part in the repair work, and by September of the same year the *Varyag* was to be returned to active service.
Soviet Power as the True Cause of the Sinking
Meanwhile, in Petrograd, the Bolsheviks and the radical left had seized power. The reverberations reached Liverpool. The cruiser's crew raised the red flag, was removed from the vessel and interned, and the repair firm decided to sell the *Varyag* for scrapping to another company, an Irish one.
The transfer of the ship, however, could only take place after the end of the First World War. In early 1922, during the passage to the shipyard of the shipbuilding firm near the town of Lendalfoot, the cruiser ran aground on rocks in the Irish Sea and half-sank 500 meters from the Scottish coast.
Some of the metal structures were removed at that time by local residents. The remains of the ship were blown up.
Interesting Facts
- In the naval battles of the Russo-Japanese War, Russian gunners fired solid shot, while the Japanese used shimosa shells, which exploded even on contact with water and melted metal upon striking an enemy vessel.
During the battle of the *Varyag* with Admiral Uriu's cruiser brigade near Chemulpo, it was discovered that some of the shells fired by the cruiser at the enemy failed to detonate. At the time, no one was in a position to take note of this fact. When, following the Tsushima disaster, an investigation into the causes of the defeat was launched and Academician A. Krylov was brought in as an expert, it emerged that someone in the fleet's artillery directorate had seen fit to increase the moisture content of the pyroxylin in the shells and charges intended for vessels sailing through the tropics to the Far East. It had been assumed that the tropical heat might cause the over-dried explosive to spontaneously ignite. The standard moisture level was considered to be 10–12%, but for the *Varyag*, the 2nd Pacific Squadron of Admiral Rozhestvensky, and the 3rd Pacific Squadron of Admiral Nebogatov, it had been set at 30%. The sailors of the *Varyag* loaded shells into their cruiser's magazines without knowing that upon striking the enemy, only the pyroxylin igniter plug in the shell's fuse would fire, while the pyroxylin packed in the shell body would not explode.
All of this came to light only after the loss of the *Varyag* and the ships of the 2nd and 3rd Pacific Squadrons in the Yellow Sea. Krylov was informed of a most puzzling incident: in 1906, during the sailors' uprising at Sveaborg, after the coastal forts had been shelled by the squadron battleship *Slava*, it turned out that the battleship's gunners had not observed their shells exploding. When the sailors' revolt was suppressed, the gunners, wishing to verify this phenomenon, went ashore. What they saw astonished them: all or nearly all of the shells were intact. The fact was that the battleship *Slava* had also been assigned to the voyage to the Far East, but engine faults were discovered and she was left behind in Kronstadt. Her ammunition, however, had already been loaded.
There was no scandal; the matter was hushed up.
- When in March 1905 Japanese divers raised the cruiser, repaired it, and incorporated it into Vice Admiral Uriu's armored cruiser brigade under the name *Soya*, Togo, with the permission of Emperor Mutsuhito, had the name "Varyag" left on the stern in gold Cyrillic script beneath the Japanese characters.
- On February 8, 1954, the fiftieth anniversary of the battle of the *Varyag* and the *Koreyets* against the Japanese squadron at Chemulpo, a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was issued awarding the Medal "For Valor" to the 15 veteran sailors still alive at that time.