Air attacks on Kronstadt

21–23 September 1941, Kronstadt, Gulf of Finland

German success; Marat and Minsk sunk in harbour

With Leningrad under siege, the guns of the Baltic Fleet at Kronstadt and in the city were shelling the German lines. The Luftwaffe sent its dive bombers against them. On 23 September two Ju 87s of StG 2, one of them flown by Hans-Ulrich Rudel, hit the battleship Marat with 1,000-kg bombs. Her forward magazine exploded, throwing the forward turret into the air and wrecking the bow, and she settled on the bottom of the harbour; 326 men were killed. The destroyer leader Minsk was sunk the same day. Both were later raised or patched up: Marat's after turrets fired almost 2,000 shells during the siege.