Russian destroyer Samson
Russian Imperial Navy warship
Samson (Самсон) was one of eight Orfey-class destroyers built for the Russian Imperial Navy during World War I. Completed in 1916, she served with the Baltic Fleet and played a minor role in the Battle of Kassar Wiek when the Germans invaded the West Estonian Archipelago in October 1917 (Operation Albion). Her crew joined the Bolshevik Red Fleet during the October Revolution of 1917. The ship was towed from Helsinki, Grand Duchy of Finland, in April 1918 in what became known as the "Ice Cruise" as the harbor was still iced over.
The destroyer was renamed Stalin (Сталин) in 1922. She was transferred to the Pacific Fleet in 1936. The ship played a minor role in the Battle of Lake Khasan in 1938. Stalin briefly served as a training ship in 1940 before being assigned to a submarine unit in 1941. The ship was under repair from late 1941 to early 1943 and was rearmed at the end of the year. She was refitted again in 1945 and resumed her earlier mission as a training ship as World War II was ending in August. Stalin resumed her previous name in 1946 as she was disarmed and converted into a stationary training ship.
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This entry incorporates text from “Russian destroyer Samson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.