Official Number
Class: Icebreaker
Pennant No: N.N4 / N.A8
Laid down:
Builder: Sir W.G. Armstrong, Whitworth & Co Ltd, Walker-on-Tyne
Launched: 16 August 1916
Into Service: 3 August 1918
Out of service: 19 November 1921
Fate:
Official Number
Class: Icebreaker
Pennant No: N.N4 / N.A8
Laid down:
Builder: Sir W.G. Armstrong, Whitworth & Co Ltd, Walker-on-Tyne
Launched: 16 August 1916
Into Service: 3 August 1918
Out of service: 19 November 1921
Fate:
Items of historic interest involving this ship: –
Background Data: She was one of two icebreakers, one being built while the other had already been delivered, for the Russians which were seized by the British during the Russian Revolution. Both were however returned to their rightful owners at a later stage under a Trade Agreement
Career Data:
16 August 1916 launched by Sir W.G. Armstrong, Whitworth & Co Ltd, Walker-on-Tyne as Yard Nr 904 named SVIATOGOR for the Imperial Russian Navy. Named after a Russian warrior of myth.
February 1917 completed
3 August 1918 Seized by the Royal Navy when found scuttled as a blockship at Archangel and was salvaged
5 October 1918 at Archangel commissioned into the Royal Navy
10 October 1918 to 13 October 1918 at Archangel collier Clearpool alongside loading 600 tons of bunker coal
25 November 1918 sailed Archangel to Murmansk arriving 27 November 1918
12 May 1919 sailed Murmansk to Dvina River with HMS CYCLOPS and RFA BACCHUS (1) all three were stuck hard and fast by ice estimated 12 ft thick and 183 miles from Archangel & 20 miles out from the nearest land. Two ice breakers were wirelessed for from Archangel to assist getting the three of them through the ice field
1 November 1919 pennant No changed
11 November 1921 returned to Russian Government under the Krasin Trade Agreement
21 November 1921 arrived at Grangemouth from Rosyth
1928 renamed KRASIN after the politician and diplomat Leonid Borisovich Krasin.
11 July 1928 rescued seven survivors from the airship ITALIA which had crashed and broken in two, forty eight days earlier with the Italian General Umberto Nobile onboard..
25 July 1928 assisted the new German liner MONTE CERVANTES which had been damaged by ice on an Arctic cruise with 1500 passengers and 325 crew aboard and was taking in water. The liner made for Spitzbergen where the icebreaker’s crew repaired the damage.
1932 crossed to the Eastern Pechora Sea to rescue LENIN and her crew after she had become icebound.
1933 became the first ship to reach the northern shore of Novaya Zemlya
1941 was in the Pacific when Germany invaded Russia and she crossed the Pacific, transitted the Panama Canal for repairs on the East Coast of the USA before proceeding to the U.K. where she was armed with 4 x 76 mm heavy A.A. guns, 7 x 20mm Oerlikons and 10x machine guns.
3 March 1942 sailed Halifax in Convoy HX 178
26 April 1942 sailed Reykjavik in Convoy PQ 15 as one of the escorts which also contained RFA GRAY RANGER
5 May 1942 Convoy PQ 15 arrived Murmansk. After arrival there she became part of the standing Russian escort for the Arctic Convoys
29 July 1942 Sailed Molotovsk in Convoy with the British oiler HOPEMOUNT which was chartered to the Russian Government and the icebreaker LENIN, passed South of Novaya Zemlya and entered the Kara Sea
16 August 1942 The Convoy was spotted by a seaplane from the German pocket battleship ADMIRAL SCHEER in the Vilkitski Strait, between Bolshevik Island and the Russian mainland. Ice and mist however, frustrated the German ship from making an approach
31 August 1942 the Convoy reached Tiksi Bay safely and anchored there
August 1953 to June 1960 rebuilt and re-engined at VEB Mathias-Thesen-Werft, Wismar under the East German war reparations program..
1972 converted into a research / drilling ship.
1977 renamed LEONID KRASIN.
1989 converted to a research / museum ship and name reverted to KRASIN. She is the only icebreaker maritime museum commemorating the Arctic Convoys.
1998 owners became the International Fund for the History of Science, Murmansk
2011 still extant and is open to the public at St Petersburg