Alexander Ivanovich Marinesko

Commander of the submarine S-13 of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet, posthumous Hero of the Soviet Union (5 May 1990), Captain 3rd Rank. Born on 15 January 1913 in Odessa, to a Romanian father, Marinescu, and a Ukrainian mother; the surname was russified when he entered the service. He trained at a seamen's school and a merchant marine college, worked on merchant ships and was then transferred to the navy. He commanded the submarine M-96 and, from 1943, S-13. On 30 January 1945, in the Bay of Danzig, he sank the liner Wilhelm Gustloff, which was carrying personnel of a submarine training division, auxiliary staff and refugees from East Prussia. The death toll is estimated at some nine thousand — the greatest loss of life in the sinking of a single ship in maritime history. The vessel was a legitimate military target: military personnel and a naval command were aboard. The proportion of military to civilian dead remains a matter of historical assessment, and this page does not present any one figure as settled. On 10 February of the same year he sank the transport General von Steuben. He was not made a Hero for that patrol: he had been under investigation for absence from his boat before sailing, and the recommendation was downgraded to the Order of the Red Banner. In 1945 he was reduced in rank and discharged. In 1949 he was convicted on a charge later held to be unfounded and served a sentence in Kolyma. He died in Leningrad on 25 November 1963. The title of Hero of the Soviet Union was conferred in 1990, twenty-seven years after his death.