Conning Tower of the Guards Submarine L-3

This is the conning tower of the minelaying submarine L-3 Frunzovets, the only part of the vessel to have survived. The boat fought in the Baltic from the beginning of the war, and on 1 March 1943 she was awarded Guards status.

L-3 was laid down in 1929 at the Baltic Shipyard in Leningrad and launched in 1931. She belonged to Series II of the Leninets-class submarine minelayers, designed under chief designer B. M. Malinin. According to confirmed records, her mines and torpedoes destroyed 18 enemy transports, auxiliary and fishing vessels and 7 warships, among them the transport Goya, sunk in April 1945. The boat was commanded by Captain 3rd Rank P. D. Grishchenko and, from 1943, by V. K. Konovalov, who was made a Hero of the Soviet Union. During the war the crew received 423 orders and medals.

In 1949 the boat was renamed B-3 and later converted into a training vessel; in 1971 she was struck off the navy list and broken up, and only the conning tower survived. It was set up as a memorial in Liepāja and, after the troops were withdrawn from the Baltic states, brought to Moscow, where it entered the museum's collection for the 50th anniversary of Victory. The tower bears the number L-3, a naval ensign and an inscription naming the commanders; behind it is a platform with a gun.