Pekka Hakala, Helsingin Sanomat
Officer Cadet Fyodor Paramonovich Yeryomenko stood on the deck of the Soviet Baltic Fleet destroyer Volodarski and peered out to sea.
It was largely a vain exercise, since the Gulf of Finland was pitch-black in the dark August night.
The sun had gone down two hours earlier. The sea was choppy with new and old waves - a swell left over from the morning's storm that had blown from the north-east and new waves kicked up by a gradually strengthening breeze from the south-west.
It was Thursday August 28th, 1941. The time was approaching 23.00, and Yeryomenko was counting down the minutes until the end of his watch.
The Orfey-class destroyer Volodarski, launched in 1914 in St. Petersburg as the Pobiditel, had left the Estonian capital Tallinn just after sunset, at the tail end of a long flotilla of Soviet troopships, merchantmen, and naval escorts heading towards Leningrad and safety.
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