TWO North-East men were honoured by Russia yesterday for their role in the salvage of the sunken submarine Kursk.

Malcolm Dailey, from Stockton, Teesside, and Captain Alexander Macleod, from Amble, in Northumberland, were two of three British men honoured by the Russian government after their operation to raise the 18,000 tonne vessel from the depths of the Barents Sea, in October 2001.

All 118 crew were killed when the submarine - the biggest the world has seen - sunk 200 miles off Norway in August 2000.

An exploding nuclear missile onboard the Kursk is officially blamed for its 360ft plummet to the sea bed.

Yesterday, Mr Dailey, Capt Macleod and Raymond Wallace, from Devon, were presented with Orders of Friendship of the Russian Federation, at the Russian Embassy, in London.

Mr Dailey, 53, the civilian project manager of the operation, said: "It was a major challenge - no operation like this has been successful before.

"When you think of the size of the Kursk, it was the length of the British aircraft carrier, the Ark Royal, and the size of a football pitch."

Married Mr Dailey, who lives in Rook Lane, Norton, with his three children, said: "Normally, when a ship goes down it is considered a grave.

"One of the dilemmas was whether it should be raised in the first place, but I believe the families needed to bury their dead and have somewhere to mourn."

Mr Macleod, 45, captained the diving support vessel, the Mayo, which set out on July 6th, 2001, and remained at the scene of the disaster for three months.

He said: "The divers probably had the worst experiences because they left the mother ship and went down into the Barents Sea.

"The worst part was thinking that, down there, were so many sailors who had been lost."

The operation took 85 days and involved first clearing the seabed around the shattered bow, and then cutting into the submarine's hull.

The Russian Ambassador to the UK, Grigory Karasin, who presented the awards, said the co-operation between the former Cold War enemies was a sign of "renewed times".

He told the men, their families and a gathering of Russian diplomats and military: "There is a saying that a friend in need is a friend indeed. I think this is not only for persons but also for nations."