According to the pages of the report of the cruiser MOLOTOV, which were sent to me in copy by the famous Russian naval historian Miroslav Morozov, with whom I recently had a fruitful exchange of e-mails on the matter, MOLOTOV was hit by the torpedo at 01.26 (and not at 01.27) of 3 August 1943 and the plane, simultaneously shot down, crashed into the sea near the cruiser at 01.33. That is, after a full seven minutes? If the He.111 falls into flames at the same time or shortly after the explosion of the torpedo we must assume that this happened at 01.26 - 01.27. Unless it was another plane that attacked at 01.33, and it was the one shot down, but in this case it could not hit the MOLOTOV which, at 01.30, had already been reached by a torpedo of the MAS 568. If we insist on the thesis that the MOLOTOV was attacked by the German plane and at the same time the cruiser was hit, it must be said that in the seven minutes spent in the escape maneuver, at 01.33 the torpedo bombers must have been several miles away from the Soviet ship.
In that case it must be agreed that, at the very least, the Soviet timetables, as I have already pointed out, were wrong; or that the German plane attacked and was actually shot down at 01.33, after the MAS 568 had hit the MOLOTOV at 01.30, believing it sank it having noticed, a few minutes after the explosion of its torpedo, another explosion with a large fire that went out in about four minutes. Meanwhile, while the MAS 568 was disengaging, escaping the pursuit of the destroyer KHARKOV, the attacked cruiser was no longer in sight. The KHARKOV (according to his schedule) had sighted the MAS 568, at 01.28, after the torpedoing of the MOLOTOV, and had chased it without success.
It should be considered that the times transcribed on the Molotov could not be exact compared to those of the Italian unit, as they differed by thirteen minutes at the time of the first sighting of the same Mas 568 by the Soviet cruiser. And this is confirmed by the rising of the moon which is reported for both, MOLOTOV and MAS 658, at 11.15 pm on August 2, 1942.

Francesco Mattesini, Rome, 23 October 2020

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