An item referred to the magazine le Yacht dated 4 September 1937 reporting that at Moscow, Russia the icebreaker Joseph Stalin was launched. Displacement 11.000 tons and a length of 106 metres. Horsepower 10.000 hp. Was to be fitted out with two catapults.
Note
1. Belonged to the Leader-class with a displacement of 11,000 tons as dimensions 351 x 75,5 x 30,5’. The two steam engines with diesel electric propulsion and ten boilers supplied 10,500 hp allowing a speed of 15 knots. The coal bunker capacity was 3,000 tons. Her crew numbered 142 men minimum. The armament consisted of 2-13cm guns, 4-7,62cm anti aircraft guns, 2 machineguns and maximum 3 small floatplanes. She was launched at the Ordzonikidze yard , St. Petersburg, Russia on 14 August 1937, commissioned in 1938, renamed Sibir around 1956 and broken up in 1973. In 1938 was she for the first time used in an Artic expedition. On 18 January 1940 freed she the Russian icebreaker Sedov between Greenland and Svalbard. The Sedov was at that moment used as a Drifting Polar Station. In 1940 she and the Lenin assisted the German merchant raider Komet which ship went from Gotenhafen via the Artic Ocean passages and the Bering Straits towards the Pacific. The Komet was in advance disguised as the Soviet icebreaker Semyon Dezhnev and was later renamed Donau.
