Alexander Marinesko - Biography

Biography

Born in Odessa, Marinesko was the son of a Romanian sailor and a Ukrainian woman. His father had fled to Russia after beating an officer and settled in Odessa, changing the last letter "u" of his name to "o". Alexander trained in the Soviet Merchant Navy and the Black Sea Fleet, and was later moved to a command position in the Baltic Fleet. In the summer of 1939 he was appointed commander of the new submarine M-96. When it entered service in mid-1940, it was declared to be the best submarine of the Baltic Fleet, and Marinesko was awarded a golden watch.

After the German invasion of the USSR in June 1941, the high command of the Baltic Fleet decided that the M-96 should be sent to the Caspian Sea to serve there as a training boat. But this could not be realized because of the German blockade of Leningrad. On 12 February 1942 a German artillery shell hit the M-96 causing considerable damage. The repair required more than four months. Because of the long inactivity, the level of battle training of the crew was low. Marinesko began to find consolation in alcohol, and he was expelled as candidate member of the Communist Party.

During a patrol near the Finnish coast, on August 14, 1942 Marinesko spotted the German heavy artillery barge (Schwerer Artillerie-Träger) SAT-4 "Helena". He launched a torpedo and later reported that he had observed the sinking of the barge. In 1946, the barge was turned over to the Soviet Baltic Fleet as war prize and it was found that her displacement was not 7,000 BRT as claimed by Marinesko, but only 400 BRT. Then Marinesko exposed his submarine to real risk by prematurely returning without any warning to his base. Soviet patrol boats attacked M-96, and a tragedy was avoided by sheer luck. In October 1942, M-96 had to disembark a commando detachment on the coast of Narva Bay. Its task was to attack a German headquarters and capture an "Enigma" coding machine. Although only half of the unit returned, without the machine, Marinesko had performed his task successfully and was decorated with the Order of Lenin and promoted to "Kapitan treti rang" (Major). He was again admitted as a candidate-member to the Communist Party.

In the beginning of 1943, Marinesko was appointed commander of the modernized submarine S-13. Of the 13 units of the type S (Stalinets), series IX and IXbis, only this boat survived the war. Leaving the base in the Finnish town of Hanko in October 1944, S-13 took position near the Hela peninsula, where the main German communication lines passed. Marinesko soon spotted the small transport ship "Siegfried" (563 BRT) and launched four torpedoes, which all failed. He surfaced and opened fire at the ship with his cannon. He reported 15 hits and that, as a result, the ship was sunk. He stated that the displacement of this ship was 6,000 BRT. In fact, the "Siegfried" was hit severely, but managed to reach the harbor of Danzig.

After spending the new Year's night 1945 in Hanko with a Swedish woman, owner of a restaurant, Marinesko disappeared for several days. It was proposed that he be court-martialed as a deserter, and this could be fatal for him. Moreover, fraternisation between Soviet citizens and foreigners was not allowed. But the commander of the Baltic Fleet Admiral V.F.Tributs realized that in such case the S-13 would not be operational for a long time. Therefore, Marinesko was sent on a new mission to prove his abilities.

Marinesko left Hanko on January 11, 1945 and took position near Kolberg on January 13. In the next days his submarine was attacked several times by German torpedo boats. On January 30, 1945, the S-13 attacked and sank the Wilhelm Gustloff.

The Wilhelm Gustloff was evacuating civilians and military personnel. Of the nearly 10,000 people on board fleeing the advancing Soviet army on the Eastern Front, there were between 5,400 and 9,400 casualties in the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, making it the single worst maritime disaster in history. While there are opinions from the far right calling Marinesko's actions a war crime, the vast majority of both legal and military opinion consider it a tragedy of war. According to the internationally accepted rules of war, the ship was a legitimate target, a fact the Kriegsmarine was aware of.

Days later, on February 10, Marinesko sank a second German ship with two torpedoes, the Steuben, this time carrying mostly military personnel, with an estimated total number of 4,267 casualties. Marinesko had maneuvered submerged for four hours, following the enemy by sonar. He was convinced that the target was the light cruiser Emden. Marinesko thus became the most successful Soviet submarine commander in terms of Brutto Register Tonnage (BRT) sunk, with 42,000 BRT to his name.

However, Marinesko was not awarded with the Hero of the Soviet Union title. His commanders refused to trust reports regarding the scale of the hits; in addition, he was deemed a controversial person, "not suitable to be a hero". Instead, after the hits were confirmed, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. Marinesko felt personally insulted, and when staff officers came to present him the order on his submarine, he gave the order to submerge her.

During his next mission from April 20 to May 13 Marinesko did not conduct a single attack, although he was sent to an area with intensive enemy ship traffic. This mission was evaluated as unsatisfactory.

Due to problems with discipline and his alcoholism, in September 1945 Marinesko was removed from submarine command and transferred to shore duty, with a lowered rank, and in November he was discharged from the Navy. In the following years, Marinesko ruined himself. In 1949 he was sentenced to two years for theft in a Kolyma prison camp. He died in 1963 in Leningrad of an ulcer.