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Lost Guns of the General AlekseevThe Cannons from the Russian Battleship were Spread Far and Wide
When the ill-fated White Russian battleship was broken up in Tunisia its guns were sent all over the world, changed hands often, and fought for many new owners.
In 1935, during the scrapping of the star crossed leviathan battleship General Alekseev (ex Imperator Aleksander III, ex-Volga, ex-Volya,ex-Ukraine), the ships main armament of a dozen 12 inch (305 mm) and eighteen 130mm guns were removed and placed in storage at Sidi-Abdullah in Tunisia. Designed by Vickers at the Coventry Ordnance Works in England and cast at the Obuchov foundry in St Petersburg in 1914, the guns were among the largest and most efficient produced anywhere in the world. For five years they languished in the desert while France debated whether to install them, sell them for their scrap metal value or send them back to the Soviet Union. In 1939 it was decided to send the weapons as military aide to the embattled country of Finland which mounted the exact same model of weapon for coastal defense. Three Finnish freighters arrived in Tunisia to transport the weapons. Two of the ships made it through dangerous wartime waters to reach the port of Pestamo and the Finns received eight of the large 12 inch guns but none of the smaller 130 mm guns from these ships. Two of the 12 inch guns were emplaced at Fort Isosaari where they still reside today as museum pieces and two were at Fort Makiluoto but were uncompleted.The Finns used the weapons as coastal defense artillery and railway guns during world war two and kept some of them in working order as late as 1970. The third ship Finnish ship, the Nina, was captured by the Germans in the port of Bergen when they occupied Norway in April 1940. They released the ship back to the Finns but impounded its cargo of four 12 inch guns and 18 of the smaller 130mm’s. The quartet of Russian 12 inch guns were sent to fortify the captured British Channel Island of Guernsey. The battery was spread out in four separate sites along the island’s west coast. The ground was broken on the site in November 1941, and by April of 1942 the guns were ready. They were collectively known as Battery Mirus. The guns covered the whole of the Gulf of St. Malo and a least one was camouflaged to look like a bungalow house. They fired on numerous Allied ships passing anywhere within 51km of the island but made no hits. After the war the guns were scrapped but their emplacements remain a popular tourist attraction in the island. Interestingly enough, some of the General Alekseev’s weapons made their way back to Russia. Finland returned to the Soviet Union three of the 12 inch guns that were made into mobile railway artillery as part of their peace with that country in 1947. The Soviets, well known to never get rid of something that still works, kept them in reserve until 1991 and still maintain them in functioning condition. They are at the Moscow Museum of the Great Patriotic war, the Saint Petersburg Museum of Railroad Transport and the Krasnaja Gorka fortress. You can see detailed pictures of these remaining guns here The 18 smaller 130 mm guns captured by the Germans in Norway remained there through the war. These guns were mounted throughout the Atlantic Wall and referred to as ”Nina”-Geschütze (Nina Guns).They were emplaced at the MKB 9./504 "Nordfjord"coastal artillery fort at Tangane in Norway in May 1941. 'Nordfjord' battery fired at and hit the Royal Navy cruiser 'Kenya' on December 27, 1941 during the British commando raid on Måløy. At the close of the war these weapons were removed and scrapped. The Germans also sent some to Alta Fjord where they provided protection for the hiding place of German battleships Scharnhorst, Tirpitz and others. All of these were scrapped shortly after the end of the war after being used briefly by their new Norwegian owners. So these guns on this one ship served Russia (Tsarist, White Russian, and Soviet), Germany, Finland, France, and Norway over the course of at least four wars…..usually firing at one another. Sources"Black Sea dreadnoughts" Isenberg and Kostrichenko, Novorossijsk, 1998 "MIRUS". The making of a Battery" Colin Partridge and John Wallbridge, The Ampersand Press, 1983 TM-3-12 305mm Railroad Gun webpage at Tanx Heaven by Nick Matveev Warship International: The Guns of the General Alekseev, C.B. Robbins and Ove T. Enqvist, 2/95, 185, § 4/95, 332, § 1/96, 5 The German coastal artillery fortifications at Tangane
The copyright of the article Lost Guns of the General Alekseev in Military History is owned by Christopher Eger. Permission to republish Lost Guns of the General Alekseev in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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