Icebreaker "Chelyuskin": history and destiny

The famous icebreaker "Chelyuskin" was built in 1933 in Denmark at the request of the Soviet government. First, a new vessel was named "Lena" (the matter is that it was intended for travel between Vladivostok and the mouth of the Lena River). In "Chelyuskin" it was renamed already on the eve of the famous polar expedition. The steamer corresponded to all the modern standards of its time. Its displacement was 7.5 thousand tons.

Unique mission

The outstanding characteristics that distinguished the icebreaker "Chelyuskin" attracted the attention of the Soviet polar explorer Otto Schmidt. This geographer and mathematician dreamed of conquering the Northern Sea Route, a route leading to the Pacific Ocean along the northern shores of Eurasia. Schmidt was ready for anything for his design. In 1932 he was on the ship "Alexander Sibiryakov" overcame the path from the White to the Barents Sea.

The icebreaker "Chelyuskin" for this enthusiast has become a means to develop his research success. Schmidt persuaded the Main Directorate of the Northern Sea Route to use the ship in his new experimental journey. The problem was that, despite all its modernity, "Chelyuskin" was primarily a cargo ship. The designers did not adapt it for extreme navigation among the polar ice. This led to the future death of the ship.

Preparing for a trip

The adventurous goal of the icebreaker "Chelyuskin" hike inspired many enthusiasts who devoted their lives to exploring the North. However, among the enthusiastic voices there were regular questions about the suitability of the ship for the future expedition. One of these skeptics was the captain of the ship Vladimir Voronin. Having studied Chelyuskin, he noted a number of design flaws before the official authorities. In the Northern Sea Route, however, no attention was paid to them.

The icebreaker "Chelyuskin" set off on August 2, 1933. On the ship sailed from Murmansk there were 112 people. Some of them were not directly connected with the expedition. So, one of the surveyors took a pregnant wife on board. The ship itself was heavily overloaded, since an additional cargo, a reconnaissance seaplane and several prefabricated houses intended for settlement on Wrangel Island were placed on its board.

In the Kara Sea

Passing the Matochkin Shar passage, the icebreaker Semyon Chelyuskin was in the Kara Sea, where the first formidable ice floes were waiting for him. These obstacles were overcome by the ship without any problems. However, the longer the expedition took, the heavier the crew was to continue the journey.

In the Kara Sea, the ship stumbled upon a large uninhabited island, not indicated on any map. The studies carried out explained this strange combination of circumstances. The "new" island was an island of Solitude. It was opened in the XIX century and was visited again in 1915 by Otto Sverdrup's expedition. It turned out that on the maps, the Island of Solitude was as much as 50 miles east of its real location. The error was determined by the astronomer-geodesist Yakov Gakkel who worked at the Chelyuskin.

Meanwhile, meetings with dangerous ice continued. The first damage was damage to the stringer, after which the frame burst. Engineer Remov invented a successful design of wooden fasteners, replacing the damaged parts, but this did not abolish the fact that the "Chelyuskin" should not be sent to the arctic desert alone.

To install new parts, the crew unloaded the fore-hold (it contained coal). This hard work had to do everything: scientists, sailors, builders and business managers of the ship. Members of the expedition were divided into brigades and coped with the task in time. Later, already during the wintering on the ice, this principle of organizing labor was again useful to the Chelyuskinites.

Ice Captives

On September 23 the ship was finally blocked. Solid ice surrounded and pinched it approximately at the same place where the ship "Alexander Sibiryakov" stopped a year before.

To reach the ultimate goal of the march, Wrangel Island, Schmidt could not. Now the expedition of the icebreaker "Chelyuskin" continued in completely new conditions. The ship moved to the east along with the drift of perennial ice. On November 4, he entered the water area of the Bering Strait. The ice was getting thinner, and from the clean water the crew separated the path a few kilometers. It seemed that a safe salvation was inevitable.

Not far from the "Chelyuskin" was the icebreaker "Litke". His captain offered to help the ship escape from the icy captivity. But Otto Schmidt refused to support, hoping that the ship itself could be free. This time the scientist made a fatal mistake, for which the whole crew of the icebreaker "Chelyuskin" eventually paid.

The capricious drift changed its direction and sent the ship to the opposite side of the arctic desert. Realizing his misstep Schmidt already on his own initiative asked for help from Litke, but it was too late. Now the crew was waiting for the winter in the lost ice. Moreover, the polar explorers sounded the alarm - no one could vouch for the safety of the vessel in the extreme conditions of the Far North. February 13, the new 1934 ship really went to the bottom. The physical cause of the death of the icebreaker "Chelyuskin" was a powerful head of ice that broke his left side.

Evacuation from the ship

A few hours before the denouement, when it became clear that the ship would go to the bottom, a hasty evacuation of people began. The team managed to transfer part of the inventory and tools to the surrounding ice. These things were enough to create at least some temporary camp. During the evacuation one person was killed. By tragic accident, it was crushed by a shifting load.

The icebreaker "Chelyuskin", whose history ended at five in the evening, left 104 people on ice. Among them were two children, including a newborn daughter of one of the surveyors. Once alone with an unfriendly polar world, the crew on the second day handed over to the capital a message about the crash. Communication Chelyuskin established under the leadership of the senior radio operator Krenkel. Relatively nearby, at Cape Wellen, there was a coast station, which transmitted the message. When Otto Schmidt a year before was on the emergency "Sibiryakov", he was in a similar situation. Coastal stations were not yet, and communication was established through the crab in the Sea of Okhotsk.

Life of the camp

Moving to the ice floe, the crew unloaded from the ship not only sleeping bags with tents, but also building materials. The collective, which appeared on the verge of destruction, showed cohesion and organization, thanks to which the camp managed to establish a tolerable life. A barracks, a kitchen and a signal tower were built.

From the first days of stay on the ice did not interrupt the scientific work. Every day hydrologists and surveyors determined the exact location of the camp. The ice drift did not stop, which means it was necessary to regularly calculate the coordinates of your location. For this, theodolite and sextant were used. During the entire stay on the ice from the crew, only Otto Schmidt, who had pneumonia, became seriously ill. Because of the ailment, the chief of the expedition was evacuated from the camp not in the number of the last, but the 76th.

Crew search

In Moscow, the salvation of the icebreaker "Chelyuskin", or more precisely, the people floating on it, was entrusted to a government commission headed by a high-ranking member of the party Valerian Kuibyshev. On the first day after receiving the report of the disaster, the government members sent an encouraging telegram to the north. Nevertheless, even the vigorous assurances of the Central Committee did not abolish the difficulties of the forthcoming operation.

Polar explorers were so far away that the only way to save them was to use aviation. In the hurry, the best Soviet pilots went to Chukotka. The options for using dog sleds or walking were removed almost immediately. On their feet on hummocky ice, the polar explorers could walk a distance of 10 kilometers a day. With a similar transition of navigator Valerian Albanov to Franz Josef Land, which happened in 1914, only two survived from his team of fourteen people.

The rescue of the crew of the icebreaker "Chelyuskin" became a unique operation, if only because no Arctic aircraft had existed yet, not only in the USSR, but in no other country in the world. Among the first pilots, who began to search for Schmidt and his people, was the pilot Anatoly Lyapidevsky. Before finally finding the Chelyuskin, the aviator made 28 failed attempts to find the necessary place. Only 29 times, on March 5, 1934, Lyapidevsky noticed below at first a seaplane, and then people next to him.

Now, when the place where the icebreaker "Chelyuskin" sank was found, the evacuation went at full speed. ANT-4 Lyapidevskogo took on board all the women and children (12 people) and forwarded them to the nearest settlement. However, after the first success, the first failure followed. The engine of the rescue aircraft broke, after which the operation stalled.

The use of aviation on this, however, was not limited. Airships went to the north. Also, the icebreaker "Krasin" and auxiliary ATVs tried to break through to the Chelyuskinsky people. Nevertheless, it was the aircraft that made the main contribution to the successful outcome of the polar epic. All the two months of life in the ice, the inhabitants of the camp were engaged in preparing aerodromes for the aviation that they were looking for. Every day, men in shifts cleared the runways, without losing hope of returning home.

Continuation of rescue operation

The release of the Chelyuskinites from the ice captivity was resumed on April 7. Now several famous pilots participated in the operation. Mikhail Vodopyanov will later take part in sending the polar explorers to the first drifting station "North Pole-1", and Nikolai Kamanin will become the commander of the first team of Soviet cosmonauts. Among the rescuers were other legendary pilots: Mauritius Slepnev, Vasily Molokov, Ivan Doronin. Another pilot, Sigismund Levanevsky, himself suffered an accident - he was also found and rescued.

Icebreaker "Chelyuskin", whose history was full of similar stories, worthy of a thick novel or expensive kinekranizatsii, became one of the main symbols of his time. This name began to be associated with the unyielding spirit and courage of those who helped people to return home. Stuck in the polar ice, the crew was transferred to Vankarem - a small Chukchi camp, which became the center of the entire rescue operation.

It is interesting that several people from the ship, using the surviving seaplane, reached their cherished goal independently. The last lost parking was left by the captain of the deceased vessel Vladimir Voronin. April 13, he was in Vancaram. The final days of the operation were going on in an increasingly nervous situation - the ice field was gradually breaking down. The next day after Voronin's rescue, a powerful storm destroyed a temporary camp.

Homecoming

On the days of the rescue operation, the crew and the icebreaker "Chelyuskin", whose photo was in all Soviet and many world newspapers, were the focus of millions of people. Glee about the successful outcome of the polar drama was nationwide. The enthusiasm of ordinary people is easily explained: nothing similar in the history of world aviation and navigation has ever happened.

The pilots who took part in the evacuation of the Chelyuskinites became the first Heroes of the Soviet Union. This highest state award was established just on the eve of the events in the Far North. Two Americans (William Leveri and Clyde Armsted) received orders of Lenin, who cared about imported planes, purchased especially for the rescue operation that was on the verge of the crew's death. Participants in the ice epic were met with glee in Moscow. All the adult Chelyuskinians, who survived a dangerous winter, were awarded the Red Banner Orders.

Afterword

The ship's death forced the Soviet leadership to change its attitude to polar research. After Schmidt's return to Moscow, it was announced that the Northern Sea Route had been conquered . Nevertheless, many foreign experts considered the results of the expedition not so rosy. Anyway, in the USSR the Chelyuskin experience was learned. Since the fleet of icebreakers began to grow on leaps and bounds. Now these ships always accompanied ordinary cargo ships, which could not independently break their way in the polar desert.

In the Soviet era, several attempts were made to find the legendary sunken "Chelyuskin". Two such exploratory expeditions were organized in the 1970s. The participants of the campaign of 2006 were more fortunate, the administration of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, the main headquarters of the Navy and the Academy of Sciences of the Russian Federation helped. Specialists were able to raise some fragments of the ship from the seabed. These artifacts were sent to Copenhagen, where once the "Chelyuskin" was built. Having checked the ventilation grille, the experts came to the conclusion that it really belongs to a sunken ship.