On this day in 1941 the Germans achieved a first that we'd no doubt normally suspect some other nation had.
The Luftwaffe sank the Soviet battleship Murat with dive bombers. Ju87s, i.e., Stukas, to be more precise.
The Murat was a dreadnought that had entered Imperial Russian service in 1915 as the Petropavlovsk. After sinking, she was partially raised and used as gun battery in the siege of Leningrad.
For what it is worth, the Murat tends to be credited as a victory to Hans-Ulrich Rudel, Germany's most decorated World War Two serviceman. Rudel, interesting, was a ground attack pilot during the war, not a fighter pilot or something that would be generally regarded as being more glamorous. His career was spectacular, but he was only one of two German pilots to hit the Murat, which went down after being hit by just two bombs.
Rudel survived the war, ending up an American POW, but in 1946 fled to Argentina. He was a Nazi and may have feared what remaining in post-war Germany meant at the time. He returned to Germany in 1953 where he was involved in neo Nazi politics, so he never reformed or excused his views.
On the same day, the US Navy launched the USS Massachusetts.
No comments:
Post a Comment