Imperial Aleksander III

Type:
Battleship
Class:
Borodino
Builder:
Baltiysky Zavod (Baltic Works)
St. Petersburg, Russia
Pennant Number:
N/A
Ordered:
April 26, 1889
Launched:
August 3, 1901
Keel Laid:
May 23, 1900
Completed:
November 1903
Fate:
Sunk at the Battle of Tsushima May 27, 1905 by Japanese warships.

778 men lost, no survivors.


Commanding Officers (Information not available)


Combat Victories (None)


Ship's History (Wikipedia)
Construction began on Imperator Aleksandr III, named after Tsar Alexander III, on 5 September 1899 at the Baltic Works in Saint Petersburg. The ship was laid down on 23 May 1900 and launched on 3 August 1901. In August 1902 she was in Reval for the visit of the German Kaiser, Wilhelm II, and took part in combined fleet maneuvers with ships from the German navy. She was completed in November 1903 at the cost of 13,979,000 rubles.

On 15 October 1904, Imperator Alexandr III set sail for Port Arthur from Libau along with the other vessels of the Second Pacific Squadron, under the overall command of Vice Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky. Rozhestvensky led his squadron, including Imperator Alexandr III, down the Atlantic coast of Africa, rounding Cape Horn, and reached the island of Nosy Be off the north-west coast of Madagascar on 9 January 1905 where they remained for two months while Rozhestvensky finalized his coaling arrangements. The squadron sailed for Camranh Bay, French Indochina, on 16 March and reached it almost a month later to await the obsolete ships of the 3rd Pacific Squadron, commanded by Rear Admiral Nikolai Nebogatov. The latter ships reached Camranh Bay on 9 May and the combined force sailed for Vladivostok on 14 May. While exact figures are not available for Imperator Aleksandr III, it is probable that the ship was approximately 1,700 long tons (1,700 t) overweight as she and her sisters were overloaded with coal and other supplies; all of which was stored high in the ships and reduced their stability. The extra weight also submerged the waterline armor belt and left only about 4 feet 6 inches (1.4 m) of the upper armor belt above the waterline.

Rozhestvensky decided to take the most direct route to Vladivostok using the Tsushima Strait and was intercepted by the Japanese battlefleet under the command of Vice Admiral Togo Heihachiro on 27 May 1905. At the beginning of the battle, Imperator Alexandr III was second in line behind Rozhestvensky's flagship, Knyaz Suvorov. Very little is known of the ship's actions during the battle as there were no survivors from the ship and visibility was poor for most of the battle, but Captain W. C. Pakenham; the Royal Navy's official military observer under the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, noted that she was set on fire early in the engagement.

She did initially follow Knyaz Suvorov when that ship's steering was damaged about a half-hour after the Japanese opened fire at 14:10 but turned north when her captain, Nikolai Bukhvostov, realized that Knyaz Suvorov was out of control. Togo tried to concentrate his fire on the crippled Knyaz Suvorov around 16:00, but Bukhvostov turned Imperator Alexandr III straight for the Japanese battleline in a successful attempt to focus their attention on his ship. He was successful, but she was badly damaged in the process. Observers noted that her bow was badly damaged and that there was a large hole in the forward hull on the port side. When the shooting resumed around 18:00, the Japanese concentrated their fire upon the ship and her sister, Borodino. Imperator Alexandr III sheered out of line to port around 18:30 and capsized, but did not sink until 19:07; there were no survivors.



Page published Feb. 23, 2021