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Personal Memoir.New York: Knopf, 1992.GORSHKOV, SERGEIGEORGIEVICH
Gorshkov, Sergei Georgievich
(February 26, 1910–May 13, 1988)
Russian Admiral
F
or three decades
the brilliant, char-
ismatic Gorshkov
supervised the construc-
tion of Soviet naval
forces. Under his able di-
rection the Red Navy
blossomed from a coastal
defense force to the
world’s second-largest
deepwater fleet. Ably
manned and outfitted, it
was a serious challenge
to the United States dur-
ing the last half of the
Cold War.
Sergei Georgievich Gor-
shkov was born in Kam-
enets-Podolski, Ukraine,
on February 26, 1910, the
son of a teacher. In 1927,
he joined the Red Navy
and passed through the
Frunze Naval Academy at
Leningrad in 1931. Adept
as an officer, he quickly secured command of
a patrol boat with the Black Sea Fleet before
moving up to destroyers in the Pacific. When
Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June
1941, Gorshkov, now a
rear admiral, commanded
the Azov Flotilla on the
Black Sea. He spent the
next four years rendering
useful service in that the-
ater, closely cooperating
with Red Army units in
their drive to oust the
hated Nazi invaders. In
1943, Gorshkov planned
and orchestrated military
landings throughout the
Crimean Peninsula, which
resulted in its recapture.
The following spring he
took charge of the
Danube Flotilla and pro-
vided naval support dur-
ing the conquests of Bel-
grade and Budapest.
By the time World War
II ended in 1945, the So-
viet Union possessed one
of the largest and most
powerful armies in the world, but its naval
forces were decidedly inferior to American
and British counterparts. The Soviet naval
forces appeared to be fixed as the junior part-Sergei Georgievich Gorshkov
Naval Photographic Center