Battle of Jibrieni

The Battle of Jibrieni was an attack on 17 December 1941 by a Soviet submarine on an Axis convoy and its Romanian escorts off the coast of the Romanian village of Jibrieni (today Prymorske, Ukraine). The engagement ended with the sinking of the attacking Soviet submarine M-59.

Battle
On 17 December 1941, the Soviet M-class submarine M-59 carried out an attack against an Axis convoy near the coastal town of Jibrieni in December 1941. The convoy consisted of the Hungarian cargo ships Kassa and Koloszvar and the Bulgarian cargo ship Tzar Ferdinand. The three ships were escorted by the Romanian destroyers Regele Ferdinand and Regina Maria, the Romanian gunboats Stihi and Ghiculescu and the Romanian torpedo boats Sborul and Smeul. The attack was unsuccessful, the submarine being subsequently depth-charged at close range by Regele Ferdinand and sunk with all hands.

Submarine identity
According to some sources, M-59 was probably lost several weeks prior in minefields east of Constanța, in late October or early November before the battle took place. Soviet archival documents state that the submarine did not have enough autonomy to operate beyond 8 December on its final patrol.