Pre-Dreadnought Battleship Navarin

[Brian James]

One of Class, the unusual four funneled Pre-Dreadnought Battleship Navarin pictured at Nagasaki in December 1901...Built at Franco-Russian Works, St Petersburg and commissioned in June 1896...She was assigned to the Baltic Fleet and spent the early part of her career deployed in the Mediterranean and in the Far East. She participated in the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 before returning to the Baltic Fleet in 1901. Several months after the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War in February 1904, she was assigned to the 2nd Pacific Squadron to relieve the Russian forces blockaded in Port Arthur. During the Battle of Tsushima in May 1905, she was sunk by Japanese Destroyers which spread twenty-four linked mines across her path during the night. Navarin struck two of these mines and capsized with the loss of most of her crew. Some 70 men were able to abandon ship before she sank, but only three were alive when they were found 16 hours later. One man was rescued by a Japanese Torpedo Boat while the other two were rescued by a British merchant ship. The rest of her crew of 674 officers and enlisted men were lost.