[4] They could carry 480 long tons (490 t) of fuel oil[2] which gave them a range of 3,000 nautical miles (5,600 km; 3,500 mi) at a speed of 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph).

[7] Regina Maria, named after Queen Marie of Romania, was ordered on 13 November 1926 and was laid down by Pattison[8] in 1927 at their shipyard in Naples, Italy.

[3] The ship was assigned to the Destroyer Squadron,[9] which was visited by King Carol II of Romania and the Prime Minister, Nicolae Iorga, on 27 May 1931.

The heavy and accurate Axis fire caused Moskva and Kharkov to begin to withdraw while laying down a smoke screen.

[10] Massively outnumbered by the Black Sea Fleet, the Romanian ships were kept behind the minefields defending Constanța for the next several months, training for convoy escort operations.

On the nights of 22/23 and 24/25 June, Regina Maria, Regele Ferdinand and Mărășești covered the laying of defensive minefields off Odessa.

On 14 November the German 2,793-gross register ton (GRT) oil tanker SS Ossag was torpedoed and damaged by the submarine L-23 at the entrance to the Bosphorus as she was being met by the sisters.

[14] On 20 April 1943, the submarine S-33 sank the largest freighter in the Romanian merchant marine, the 6,876 GRT SS Suceava, despite her escort of Regina Maria and three German minesweepers.

[15] Successful Soviet attacks in early 1944 cut the overland connection of the Crimea with the rest of Ukraine and necessitated its supply by sea.

They put a skeleton crew aboard to operate her pumps and to stabilise her before a pair of tugboats arrived the next morning to tow her to Constanța.

Adolf Hitler suspended the evacuation on 27 April, but relented on 8 May after further Soviet attacks further endangered the Axis forces in Sevastopol as they closed within artillery range of the harbour.

Regina Maria made two trips to evacuate Axis troops and was part of the last convoy to reach Sevastopol on the night of 11/12 May.

Regina Maria and Mărășești covered the minelayers as they sealed off the gap that led to Sevastopol in the minefields defending Sulina on the night of 25/26 May.

[17] Before being renamed Letuchiy on 20 October, the ship was commissioned into the Soviet Navy[6] on 14 September as part of the Black Sea Fleet, along with her sister.