The cap of a sailor from the battleship "Admiral General Apraksin"

The original sailor cap is in satisfactory condition. It was found in the ground along with several dozen shoulder straps (some of them are also presented on our website), after which it was painstakingly restored in our workshop for several months. We managed to collect the main part of the tape (the tips were lost), as well as restore the shape of the crown and the rim. The leather lining is original, the collar had to be replaced with another one, also made of old leather. Guaranteed to be an authentic item with a very interesting history of the ship. 

"Admiral General Apraksin" ("Okinoshima") is a coastal defense battleship of the Russian Imperial and Japanese Imperial fleets. In the Russian Navy, it was named after F. M. Apraksin. In the Japanese Navy, it was named after the city of Okinoshima. It was laid down at the New Admiralty in St. Petersburg on May 20, 1895 as part of the enhanced shipbuilding program adopted in 1890. It was built according to the project of the battleship Admiral Ushakov, becoming the third ship of this type. In February 1895, it became clear that the "Admiral-General Apraksin" has a strong overload: the draft exceeded the design by 0.3 meters. As a measure to reduce overload, the shipbuilder D. V. Skvortsov proposed to abandon the turret installation and reduce the thickness of the entire side armor. His proposal was rejected and the Marine Technical Committee decided to reduce the number of guns of the main caliber to three. By the beginning of 1896, the Apraksin's readiness for the hull was brought to 54.5%. The launch of the ship took place on April 30, 1896, and the first trial of the machines took place in the autumn of 1897. During the tests of the new battleship, the poor quality of hull work was noted.

On August 14, 1899, the Admiral-General Apraksin set sail for Copenhagen. At this time, Nicholas II visited the capital of Denmark. On September 14, the battleship left foreign waters and arrived in Kronstadt two days later. On September 21, he ended the campaign without disarming in order to go to Libava after finishing the finishing works.

On November 12, 1899, "Admiral General Apraksin" left Kronstadt for the winter in Libava and at 3 a.m. in a heavy snowstorm jumped out on the rocks at the southern tip of the island of Gogland. It was not possible to get off the shoal on their own, and an hour later water appeared in the bow stoker, which was rapidly arriving. In December, the ship found itself in ice captivity and communication with it was mainly maintained by the icebreaker Ermak. In January 1900, for the rapid exchange of telegrams with a ship in distress, a wireless communication station was installed on the island of Gogland, which allowed for the first time in Russia to exchange messages at a distance of about 46 km with a similar station on the island of Kutsalo.

At the end of January 1900, Rear Admiral Z. P. Rozhestvensky was appointed head of rescue operations on Gogland, who attracted mining specialists to participate in the rescue of the ship. Only after the successful completion of the demolition work, Ermak managed to remove the battleship from the stones on April 11, 1900. Repair of damage to the battleship by means of the Kronstadt port, completed in 1901, cost the treasury more than 175 thousand rubles, not counting the cost of rescue work.

The campaigns of 1902-1904 "Admiral General Apraksin" spent in a Training artillery detachment, taking part in exercises and maneuvers. In November 1904, Admiral General Apraksin, together with Admiral Ushakov and Admiral Senyavin, was assigned to a Separate detachment of ships of the future Third Pacific Squadron for immediate passage to the Far East - to strengthen the Second Pacific Squadron.

The battleship launched a new campaign on December 22, 1904.  On February 2, 1905, "Admiral General Apraksin", as part of a Separate detachment of Rear Admiral N. I. Nebogatov, left Libava for the Far East. Together with the detachment, the battleship made a long transition to the Tsushima Strait, where, as part of the Second Pacific Squadron, it took part in the Battle of Tsushima. In the first phase of the battle, "Admiral General Apraksin" tried to shoot at the Mikasa from a distance of 56 cables, but soon his senior gunner, Lieutenant G. N. Taube, with the permission of the commander, transferred fire to the Nissin. At 16 o'clock, the battleship began to receive hits: a 203-mm shell from the cruisers of the squadron of Vice Admiral H. Kamimura hit the aft turret at the embrasure of the 254-mm gun, the shell burst lifted the roof and made it difficult for the turret to rotate, although it did not penetrate the armor. Shell fragments killed one and wounded several gunners, and the commander of the tower, Lieutenant S. L. Trukhachev, was shell-shocked, but remained at his post. A 120-mm shell hit the cabin. Another shell of unknown caliber demolished the gaff, fragments of others disabled the wireless telegraph antenna network. In total, 2 people were killed and 10 injured on the Apraksin. During the night, the battleship repelled the attacks of Japanese destroyers and managed to keep up with the main forces of N. I. Nebogatov's detachment. In total, on May 14 and on the night of May 15, the battleship fired up to 153 254-mm shells and up to 460 120-mm shells.

On the morning of May 15, a detachment consisting of the squadron battleships "Emperor Nicholas I", "Eagle", the coastal defense battleships "Admiral General Apraksin", "Admiral Senyavin" and the cruiser "Emerald" was surrounded by superior enemy forces. According to eyewitnesses, N. G. Lishin said on the bridge: "Well.. Busted in... we will die." The officers and crew of the battleship, according to historians and eyewitnesses, were ready to fight to the last and die. One of the gunners of the battleship, without waiting for an order, fired a gun, but the fire was stopped due to the fact that the signal for surrender rose on the Emperor Nicholas I. All the ships of the detachment followed the admiral's signal (except for the cruiser "Emerald", which managed to escape from the enemy) and soon Japanese prize teams were landed on them. Shortly before, on the orders of Lieutenant Taube, the gunners threw overboard the locks of small guns and sights. "Apraksin" with a prize crew was sent to the Japanese port.

Quickly commissioned and renamed Okinoshima, the ship participated in the capture of Sakhalin by Japanese troops. After the war, the battleship was assigned to Sasebo as a training ship. At the beginning of the First World War, it was used to participate in the capture of Qingdao (as part of the second division of the coastal defense battleships of the second squadron), and then until 1915 it performed patrol functions, and later it was partially disarmed and used as a floating barracks for cadets. The Okinoshima was deleted from the lists in 1926 (according to other sources, in 1922). Then it was a blockhouse and in 1939 it was dismantled for metal.

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