EML Lembit
Stern quarter view of EML Lembit, underway while in service.
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| History | |
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 Estonia
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| Name: | Lembit |
| Namesake: | Lembitu |
| Operator: | Estonian Navy |
| Ordered: | 12 December 1934 |
| Builder: | Vickers and Armstrongs Ltd., United Kingdom |
| Laid down: | 19 June 1935 |
| Launched: | 7 July 1936 13:07 |
| Commissioned: | 14 May 1937 |
| In service: | 1937 - 1940 |
| Homeport: | Tallinn |
| Motto: | "Vääri oma nime" ("Be worthy of your name") |
| Captured: | By the USSR in 1940 |
 Soviet Union
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| Name: | Lembit |
| Operator: | Soviet Navy |
| In service: | 1940 - 1979 |
| Out of service: | 1979 |
| Homeport: | Tallinn, Leningrad |
| Nickname(s): | "Immortal submarine" |
| Honours and awards: |
Order of Red Banner (1945) |
| Captured: | From Estonia in 1940 |
| Fate: | Museum ship from 1979 - Estonian Maritime Museum, but still guarded by the Soviet Navy |
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Estonia
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| Name: | Lembit |
| Operator: | Estonian Maritime Museum |
| Acquired: | From the Soviet Navy, on 27 April 1992 |
| Recommissioned: | (Honorary) "Estonian Navy vessel nr.1" as of 2 August 1994 |
| Decommissioned: | 19 May 2011 |
| Homeport: | Tallinn |
| Honours and awards: |
Estonian Navy vessel nr.1 (1994) |
| Fate: | Pulled out of water on 21 May 2011, restored and now in a museum building. |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Kalev-class submarine |
| Tonnage: | 570 (in its current condition) |
| Displacement: |
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| Beam: | 7.5 m (25 ft) 7.5 m (24 ft 7 in) |
| Draught: | 3.6 m (12 ft) 3.6 m (11 ft 10 in) |
| Propulsion: |
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| Speed: |
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| Test depth: | 120 m (390 ft) |
| Complement: |
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| Armament: |
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EML Lembit is one of two Kalev-class mine-laying submarines built for the Republic of Estonia before World War II, and is now a museum ship in Tallinn. She was launched in 1936 at Vickers and Armstrongs Ltd., Barrow-in-Furness in England, and served in the Estonian Navy and the Soviet Navy. Until she was hauled out on 21 May 2011, Lembit was the oldest submarine still afloat in the world. Her sister ship, Kalev, was sunk in October 1941.
Lembit is a male name in Estonian.
Lembit is the only surviving warship of the pre-war Estonian Navy and in the Baltic countries. Estonia is a maritime nation, and like every country with a long coastline to defend, it has to safeguard its territorial waters. With regard to experience gained and observed during World War I, submarines found their proper application in the pre–World War II Estonian Navy. The collection organised by the Submarine Fleet Foundation in May 1933 developed into one of the most successful undertakings among similar fundraising events nationwide.
In the course of building and testing the two submarines, the Estonian crews received training in Great Britain between 1935-1937. Throughout 1937–1940, Lembit and her sister ship Kalev were the most imposing vessels in the Estonian Navy. Their inactivity in the annexation of Estonia by the USSR was a political decision.
In Spring 1937, Lembit joined the Estonian Navy, where she operated until the Soviet occupation in mid-1940. The submarine carried out one training torpedo attack in her three years of service in the Estonian Navy, but was never used in the minelaying role.
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Wikipedia