There are many legends about damned places and houses where people are trapped by various misfortunes. But this sometimes happens with ships. Some of them seem to be haunted by mysterious rock from the very beginning …
Unhappy "Moscow"
Failures invariably pursued all Russian ships with the name "Moscow". It is known that the first ship with this name was built even under Peter I. But for some reason he almost did not have a chance to swim, and under Empress Anna Ioannovna it was completely dismantled for firewood. Soon, another 66-gun ship with the same name was built. But the next "Moscow" suffered the same fate …
Many years later, another 66-gun "Moscow" set sail. Near the Baltic port of Liepaja, the ship was thrown onto the stones. The ship sank and half of the crew died.
At the beginning of the 19th century, the 74-gun "Moscow" sailed in the Mediterranean with the squadron of Admiral Senyavin. But for some reason she did not swim for long: they suddenly decided to sell it to the French. In the Patriotic War of 1812, the ship was repeatedly used in battles with the Russian fleet …
At the end of the same century in the Red Sea the passenger steamer "Moscow" mysteriously crashed. It is curious that the sea at that time was completely calm … The catastrophe was accompanied by numerous human casualties.
The next strange event associated with the name "Moscow" happened in June 1941, shortly after the start of the Great Patriotic War, in the area of the Black Sea port of Constanta. The Soviet destroyer Moskva was mistakenly attacked by a Russian submarine. As a result, the ship sank, almost the entire crew died.
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Many years have passed since the war. In the Soviet Union, construction began on a new super-heavy anti-submarine cruiser Moskva. However, the ship was never completed. This was prevented by the uniform devilry: “either helicopters exploded on board the unfinished ship, then fires broke out, and finally an epidemic of suicides occurred among the sailors …
In addition, sailors began to meet a stranger in an outdated sailor's uniform in the holds of a cruiser under construction. The stranger did not answer the questions, and everyone decided that it was a ghost. He was nicknamed "the white sailor". The appearance of the phantom sowed panic among the crew members.
In the end, a whole commission was created whose tasks were to analyze the situation on the "Moscow": officials who did not believe in anything irrational suspected sabotage. But after listening to stories about the ghost and not receiving any evidence of malicious intent, the higher management decided not to finish building the "damned cruiser." It was sold to India, where the ship was taken apart and used as scrap metal.
But soon the guards missile cruiser of the Black Sea Fleet "Slava" was renamed to "Moscow". After that, accidents began one after another on board the ship … In the end, the cruiser was put out of action. There were no funds for its repair, and it stood idle for many years.
The ship was going to be written off every now and then, but in the end it was nevertheless repaired, and in August 1999 it returned to service. Nothing more bad happened to the cruiser, and in 2016 Moskva even topped the list of the best ships of the Black Sea Fleet. It looks like the "curse" has ceased to work …
William Porter
The destroyer William D. Porter left base in Norfolk in November 1943 under the command of Lieutenant Wilfred Walter to join the escort of the battleship Iowa, in which the American delegation, led by President Roosevelt, was to travel to the famous Tehran conference.
While sailing, Willie Dee collided with another destroyer. Then one of the depth charges accidentally fell off him. The explosion was so strong that all loose objects, as well as one sailor, were washed overboard from the ship.
On November 14, the president proposed a demonstration exercise that included a simulated torpedo attack on the presidential battleship. At the same time, the torpedoists had to first remove the primers from the torpedo tubes - propelling charges. But Willie D.'s torpedo driver Lawton Dawson for some reason forgot to do it. A combat shot rang out.
Fortunately, the destroyer managed to transmit a radiogram to Iowa, and the battleship changed course, avoiding the torpedo charge. However, a version was born immediately that the shot was fired on purpose, and its purpose was to kill Roosevelt!
The destroyer along with the entire crew was arrested. Soon the sailors appeared before a military court in the Bermuda port of Hamilton.
The investigation revealed that the cause of the "torpedo attack" was Dawson's inattention. Captain "Willie Dee" Walter and several other officers were demoted, and Dawson was sentenced to 14 years in hard labor. True, then the president himself pardoned him.
Alas, the misfortunes that followed "William Porter" did not end there. So, while patrolling the waters near the Aleutian archipelago, he again fired by mistake from a large-caliber gun. The shell hit the headquarters of the American garrison, located on one of the islands.
When the destroyer as part of the air defense forces fought in the area of the island of Okinawa, he managed to shoot down, in addition to Japanese, three American planes. On June 10, 1945, Willie Dee managed to knock out a Japanese bomber. He fell into the sea, but the pilot managed to detonate one of the bombs. The ship began to heel to the right side and quickly filled with water. The crew moved to the approaching landing barge, and the ship sank forever at a depth of about 800 meters off the coast of Okinawa.
Väinämöinen
But the Finnish battleship "Väinämöinen", on the contrary, had the glory of the "conspiracy". The length of the vessel was about one hundred meters, the displacement was three thousand tons. In 1939, during the war between the USSR and Finland, the battleship in the area of the Hanko naval base was attacked by three Soviet bombers at once. But all attacks were unsuccessful. Later, the report wrote that "due to the high altitude of the bombing, the target was not hit."
Three days later, as many as thirty Soviet aircraft rushed to attack the battleship. Although experienced pilots were at the controls, not a single bomb hit Väinämöinen again. All charges went into the water …
The next attempt to sink the Väinämöinen was carried out at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. 132 military aircraft took part in the operation. More than thirty bombs were dropped on the ship, each weighing at least a ton. The pilots watched with satisfaction as the ship heeled, overturned and sank.
However, they rejoiced early: after some time, aerial reconnaissance reported that Väinämöinen was unharmed! A terrible mistake: the Soviet pilots mistook the Finnish air defense cruiser Niobe for him!
In 1947, the USSR was able to buy the legendary battleship from Finland. The name was changed to Vyborg. He sailed under it as part of the Soviet Navy until he was written off "by age" …