The famous icebreaker "Chelyuskin" was built in 1933 in Denmark by order of the Soviet government. At first, the new ship was called “Lena” (the fact is that it was intended for travel between Vladivostok and the mouth of the Lena River). In Chelyuskin it was renamed on the eve of the famous polar expedition. The ship met all the most modern standards of its time. Its displacement was 7.5 thousand tons.
Unique mission
The outstanding characteristics that distinguished the Chelyuskin icebreaker attracted the attention of 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 the sake of his plan. In 1932, he crossed the path from the White to the Barents Sea on the ship "Alexander Sibiryakov".
The icebreaker Chelyuskin for this enthusiast has become a means to develop his research success. Schmidt convinced 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, the Chelyuskin was primarily a cargo ship. Designers did not fit it for extreme navigation among the polar ice. This led to the future loss of the ship.
Travel preparation
The adventurous goal of the Chelyuskin icebreaker’s campaign inspired many enthusiasts who devoted their lives to exploring the North. However, even among enthusiastic voices, legitimate questions were raised about the suitability of the ship for a future expedition. One of these skeptics was the ship's captain Vladimir Voronin. Having studied Chelyuskin, he noted a number of design flaws in front of the official authorities. In the Northern Sea Route, however, they did not pay attention to them.
The icebreaker "Chelyuskin" hit the road on August 2, 1933. On the ship that sailed from Murmansk there were 112 people. Some of them were not directly related to the expedition. So, one of the surveyors took on board a pregnant wife. The ship itself was heavily overloaded, as additional cargo, an reconnaissance seaplane and several prefabricated houses intended for settlement on Wrangel Island were placed on board.
In the Kara Sea
Having passed the Strait of Matochkin Shar, the icebreaker Semyon Chelyuskin ended up in the Kara Sea, where the first formidable ice floes awaited him. The ship overcame these obstacles without any problems. However, the longer the expedition went, the harder the crew was to continue the journey.
In the Kara Sea, the ship came across a large uninhabited island, not indicated on any map. Studies have explained this strange set of circumstances. The “new” island turned out to be the island of Solitude. It was discovered back in the 19th century and re-visited in 1915 by the expedition of Otto Sverdrup. It turned out that on the maps Solitude Island was as much as 50 miles east of its real location. The error was identified by the astronomer-geodesist Jacob Hakkel who worked at Chelyuskin.
Meanwhile, encounters with dangerous ice continued. The first damage was damage to the stringer, after which the frame burst. Engineer Remov came up with a successful construction of wooden mounts that replaced damaged parts, but this did not cancel the fact that Chelyuskin should not have gone alone to the Arctic desert.
To install new parts, the crew unloaded the bow (coal was stored in it). Everyone had to do this painstaking work: scientists, sailors, builders and ship managers. Members of the expedition divided into brigades and on time coped with the task. Later, already during the wintering on ice, this principle of labor organization was again useful to the Chelyuskins.
Prisoners of Ice
September 23 ship was finally blocked. Solid ice surrounded and bound him at about the same place where the ship “Alexander Sibiryakov” had stopped a year before.
Schmidt could not get to the ultimate goal of the campaign, Wrangel Island . Now the expedition of the icebreaker "Chelyuskin" continued in completely new conditions. The ship was moving east along with the drift of perennial ice. November 4, he entered the waters of the Bering Strait. The ice was getting thinner, and the crew separated a path of several kilometers from clear water. It seemed that safe salvation was inevitable.
Not far from the Chelyuskin was the icebreaker Litke. His captain offered to help the ship break out of the ice 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 Chelyuskin icebreaker eventually paid.
The capricious drift changed its direction and sent the ship to the directly opposite side of the Arctic desert. Schmidt, realizing his mistake, had already requested the help of Litka on his own initiative, but it was already too late. Now the crew was awaiting wintering in the lost ice. Moreover, the polar explorers sounded the alarm - no one could vouch for the safety of the ship in the extreme conditions of the Far North. February 13, the new year 1934 the ship really went to the bottom. The physical cause of the death of the Chelyuskin icebreaker was the powerful pressure of the ice breaking through its port side.
Ship evacuation
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 some equipment and tools to the surrounding ice. These things were enough to create at least some kind of temporary camp. During the evacuation, one person died. He was tragically accidentally crushed by a shifted load.
The icebreaker Chelyuskin, whose history ended at five in the evening, left 104 people on the ice. Among them were two children, including the newborn daughter of one of the surveyors. Caught alone with the unfriendly polar world, the crew on the second day sent a message about the disaster to the capital. Communication Cheluskintsy established under the leadership of senior radio operator Krenkel. Relatively close, on Cape Wellen, was the coast station, which transmitted the message. When Otto Schmidt was on the emergency Sibiryakov one year before, he found himself in a similar situation. There were no coastal stations yet, and communication was established through crabfishes in the Sea of Okhotsk.
Camp life
Moving to the ice floe, the crew unloaded from the ship not only sleeping bags with tents, but also building materials. Caught on the verge of death, the team showed solidarity and organization, thanks to which the camp managed to establish a fairly decent life. A hut, a kitchen and a signal tower were built.
From the first days of being on the ice, scientific work was not interrupted. Every day, hydrologists and surveyors determined the exact location of the camp. The ice drift did not stop, which means that it was necessary to regularly calculate the coordinates of its location. For this, theodolite and sextant were used. During the entire stay on ice from the crew, only Otto Schmidt was seriously ill, who had pneumonia. Due to an ailment, the head of the expedition was evacuated from the camp not among the last, but 76th.
Crew search
In Moscow, the rescue of the Chelyuskin icebreaker, or rather, the people who sailed on it, was entrusted to a government commission led by a senior party member Valerian Kuybyshev. On the very first day after receiving the distress message, government members sent an encouraging telegram to the north. Nevertheless, even the vigorous assurances of the Central Committee did not cancel the complexity of the upcoming operation.
The polar explorers were so far away that the only way to save them was to use aviation. In a hurry, the best Soviet pilots went to Chukotka. Options for using dog teams or a crosswalk were spotted almost immediately. On their feet on the hummock ice, polar explorers could walk a distance of 10 kilometers per day. With a similar transition of navigator Valerian Albanov to Franz Josef Land, which happened in 1914, only two survived from his fourteen-man team.
The rescue of the crew of the Chelyuskin icebreaker was a unique operation, if only because no Arctic aviation existed not only in the USSR, but in no other country in the world. Among the first pilots who embarked on the search for Schmidt and his people, was pilot Anatoly Lyapidevsky. Before finally finding the Chelyuskinites, the aviator made 28 failed attempts to find the right place. Only 29 times, on March 5, 1934, Lyapidevsky noticed at first below a seaplane, and then people around it.
Now that it was discovered where the Chelyuskin icebreaker sank, the evacuation was in full swing. ANT-4 Lyapidevsky took on board all the women and children (12 people) and transported them to the nearest settlement. However, the first success was followed by the first failure. The engine of the rescue aircraft broke down, after which the operation stalled.
The use of aviation on this, however, was not limited. Airships went north. Also, the Krasin icebreaker and auxiliary all-terrain vehicles tried to break through to the Chelyuskins. 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 airfields for the aircraft they were looking for. Every day, men cleaned the runways in shifts without losing hope of returning home.
Continuation of the rescue operation
The rescue of the Chelyuskin residents from the ice captivity resumed on April 7. Now several famous pilots participated in the operation. Mikhail Vodopyanov will later take part in sending polar explorers to the first drifting station North Pole-1, and Nikolai Kamanin will become the head of the first team of Soviet cosmonauts. There were other legendary pilots among the rescuers: Mauritius Slepnev, Vasily Molokov, Ivan Doronin. Another pilot, Sigismund Levanevsky, himself crashed - he was also sought and rescued.
The icebreaker Chelyuskin, whose history was full of similar stories worthy of a thick novel or expensive movie screening, has become one of the main symbols of its time. This name began to be associated with the unbending spirit and courage of those who helped people return home. The crew stuck in the polar ice was transported to Vankarem - a small Chukchi camp that became the center of the entire rescue operation.
Interestingly, several people from the ship, using the surviving seaplane, reached their cherished goal on their own. The last lost parking lot was left by the captain of the dead ship Vladimir Voronin. On April 13, he ended up in Vancarame. The final days of the operation took place in an increasingly nervous environment - the ice field was gradually collapsing. The day after the rescue of Voronin, a powerful storm destroyed the temporary camp.
Homecoming
In the days of the rescue operation, the crew and the Chelyuskin icebreaker itself, a photo of which fell into all Soviet and many world newspapers, were in the focus of attention of millions of people. Glee over 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 yet 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 before the events in the Far North. Two Americans also received the Order of Lenin (William Levery and Clyde Armstead), who took care of imported airplanes purchased specifically for the operation to rescue the crew who were on the verge of death. The participants in the ice epic were met with glee in Moscow. All adult Chelyuskin survivors of a dangerous winter were awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
Afterword
The death of the ship forced the Soviet leadership to change its attitude towards polar research. After the return of Schmidt to Moscow, the conquest of the Northern Sea Route was announced . Nevertheless, many foreign experts considered the results of the expedition not so rosy. One way or another, but in the USSR the Chelyuskin experience was learned. Since the fleet of icebreakers began to grow by leaps and bounds. Now, these ships were accompanied each time by ordinary cargo ships, which could not independently make their way in the polar desert.
In the Soviet era, several attempts were made to find the legendary sunken Chelyuskin. Two such search expeditions were organized in the 1970s. More fortunate were the participants in the campaign of 2006, which was helped by the administration of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, the main headquarters of the Navy and the Russian Academy of Sciences. Specialists were able to lift some fragments of the ship from the seabed. These artifacts were sent to Copenhagen, where Chelyuskin was once built. After checking the ventilation grille, the experts concluded that it really belongs to the sunken ship.