Operațiunea de Ranfluare a Monitorului „Mihail KogăLniceanu” 9 August – 2 Decembrie 1956
The Refloating of the Monitor Ship „Mihail Kogalniceanu” August 9 - December 2 1956

Summary/Abstract: The beginning of the twentieth century was a busy one for the endowment with ships for the Romanian Navy. In 1905 the minister for War, general Grigore Manu had just received some 12 milion lei for the acquisition of ships and armaments. The Naval Director, lieutenant commander Petre Demetriade, ordered 4 monitor ships (the new „Kogalniceanu” class) at the Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino (The Naval Shipyard of Triest) in the Austro-Hungary (today in Italy) and also eight motor torpedo boats in England. During the difficult period of august 1944, the „Kogalniceanu” monitors were divided into two groups: 1st River Group, with „Alexandru Lahovary” and „Lascar Catargiu” and the 2nd River Group – „Ion. C Bratianu” and „Kogalniceanu”. In the morning of August 24, two of monitors („Lascar Catargiu” and „Mihail Kogalniceanu”) were badly damaged by the Soviet ai raids and sank later in the Danube Delta. After 12 years on the bottom of the river „Mihail Kogalniceanu” was refloated thanks to some serious efforts of the new regime and in no small measure to the work done by an unknown figure – a former Tsarist officers that settled in Romania, Nicolae Pavlovici Lubomirov, that held the rank of captain and was born at Petersburg. Among the documents of the Romanian National Naval Museum that were donated by his wife, we found a series of reports from Lubomirov to the central authorities about the stages of the refloating process and the difficulties he had to overcome. Because the documents basically speak for themselves, we chose to present some of them in extenso, as they are the best sources available at the moment about the refloating of the ship.

• Details
• Contents