Constantin Costăchescu

Constantin "Bibi" Costăchescu (12 April 1909 – 8 August 1983)

The attack On 1 October 1938, Costăchescu was appointed second in command of NMS Dolphin, and from 1 October 1939 to November 1943, he served as its commanding officer (CO). The sunken Soviet ship was the 1,975-ton cargo Uralets (also known as Uralles).

Romanian historians identified the Russian ship as being the Uralles, 1975-tonne cargo boat, but Soviet archives state that the Uralles was sunk by Luftwaffe bombers in the port of Eupatoria on 29 October 1941. To this day, the identity of the ship remains an open debate.

Costăchescu was awarded the Order of Michael the Brave 3rd class. He was also the recipient of the Order of the Star of Romania, Knight class; the Order of the Crown (Romania), Knight class; and the Iron Cross, 1st class and 2nd class.

After the war After the end of the war, Costăchescu served as an instructor for Romanian submariners and as a professor at the Naval Academy in Constanța, teaching future navy officers spatial geometry. He died in 1983, after being hit by a car, and a hard fall on ice during a cold winter in Constanța. He was buried in the city's Central Cemetery.

Because he fought in the war against the Soviet Union, the Romanian Communist regime never acknowledged his merits.