Hasse Wind 46 Posted October 6, 2012 On 11 October 1914, the German submarine U-26 torpedoed the Russian armoured cruiser Pallada near the town of Hanko on the southern coast of Finland. The ship blew up and quickly sank, taking the whole crew (about 600 men) with her to the bottom. It was the first Russian warship to be sunk in the Great War. Now the wreck has been discovered by Finnish divers. Pallada lies in three pieces, all upside-down, at a depth of 50-60 metres. You can see some great pictures of the sunken ship in this article. It's in Finnish, but you can click the photo and browse all the pics without knowing the language. Pallada in 1911: Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Slartibartfast 153 Posted October 6, 2012 Just read about this ship and she did lead a short but interesting life... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Olham 164 Posted October 6, 2012 The sinking of ships always strikes a melancholic string in me. What a waste of constructing and building hours, what a waste of useful materials, to be sunk within minutes. Some of these ships were only built to make one single "Feindfahrt" (battle cruise"), and to be shot to pieces on it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
HumanDrone 4 Posted October 8, 2012 (edited) I know what you mean; the amount of waste, suffering, cruelty and death we've inflicted on one another across recorded history is incomprehensible - will we never learn? I just had another trip to Montevideo, where the Admiral Graf Spee lies scuttled, and I've flown past the wreckage of the USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor - look at the tremendous waste in just the sinking of HMS Hood and the retaliatory sinking of the Bismark, and horrifying abandonment of the survivors... and in the past century, not millions, but 10's of millions, perhaps 100 million lives lost to the butchery and barbarity of war, pogroms, "purges" - it seems any excuse to hate, grab power, or grab riches will do. The US Civil war was a bloodbath of the first rank; and it had to be even worse before firearms - can you imagine being hacked to death with a broadsword? And still we have the likes of Joseph Kony running around dealing the cruelest pain, death and despair one can imagine - hacking a mother's breasts off so that she cannot nurse her infant among other things. I cannot believe in evolution just on that basis- it's an insult to the apes! ;) Sheesh. Just today, though, I had a glimmer of hope that some sense may begin to prevail... God help us. Edited October 8, 2012 by HumanDrone Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Flyby PC 23 Posted October 11, 2012 What strikes me is the lottery of it all. Take Hood and Bismark. Hood with many years of service to her credit blown to pieces. Bismark destroyed on her maiden voyage, in no small part by King George V who believe it or not was an even younger ship than Bismark, but survived the war, and became a training ship and scrapped in 1957. I don't think it was a waste of time to build such ships, but war had made them vulnerable and thus obsolete. I'm not a naval chap at all, but when you see pictures of the Royal Navy fleet with their big ships steaming line astern , it's a mightily impressive sight. I suppose WW1 was their hayday, because battleships in WW2 didn't really have the answers for aircraft and submarines. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
HumanDrone 4 Posted October 16, 2012 Well, Flyby, it's not a waste in that something had to be done. Aggression must be met and stopped, and all that. It's just that war itself is such a horror, and ultimately, and unnecessary waste of lives, time, and materials. They are truly impressive feats of engineering and workmanship, though. I got to tour a WWII aircraft carrier in Corpus Cristi, Texas, and yow! What a piece of work! Really something. But I couldn't Finnish the article our friend posted! (Ba-dump-tiss!) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
