Icebreaker Feodor Litke

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The icebreaker Feodor Litke (SKR-18/) was a Soviet ship which was active in the Arctic during the 1930s. It was originally the Canadian icebreaker Earl Grey and its Russian name was chosen in honour of Feodor Litke, the Arctic explorer, geographer and tutor of Grand Duke Constantine Nicholaievich of Russia's son.

In 1934, icebreaker Feodor Litke became famous in the USSR because it achieved the first accident-free, one-season passage of the Northern Sea Route from west to east. In the following season it escorted the first freighters through the passage in the opposite direction.

Since then, hundreds of vessels have completed the passage in both directions.

During Operation Wunderland, on the 20th August 1942, German submarine U-456 (Lt. Captain Teichert) tried to sink Feodor Litke off Belushya Guba in the Barents Sea by firing torpedoes at it but was unsuccessful.

After a long career, the icebreaker Feodor Litke was scrapped in 1960.

[edit] The 1934 expedition

Feodor Litke among ice floes.

The leader of the Litke expedition was Captain D.S. Dublitskiy, while Captain N.M. Nikolayev was in command of the ship. Professor V. Yu. Vize was in charge of the scientific programme. Feodor Litke sailed from Vladivostok on 28 June 1934 and passed the Bering Strait on the morning of 13 July. She was considerably delayed by ice at the De Long Strait but on 2 August she was able to enter the Laptev Sea.

As she approached the Taymyr coast Feodor Litke again encountered ice. By the evening of 11 August, while she was manoeuvering among heavy floes, the Feodor Litke perceived the masts and funnels of three trapped ships close to the Komsomolskaya Pravda Islands. These were the Pravda, the Volodarskiy and the Tovarich Stalin. They appeared dead ahead, but between Litke and them lay 10 km of unbroken fast ice. Battering heavily the ice for one week, the Feodor Litke succeeded in breaking the freighters free after carving a 10 km channel with so much effort that its hull suffered grievous damage. Then the freed freighters separated, Feodor Litke escorted the Tovarich Stalin and both headed west through the Vilkitsky Strait towards Arkhangelsk. Meanwhile the Volodarskiy headed east towards the mouths of the Lena and the Pravda southwards to Nordvik.