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Sergey Gorshkov

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Sergey Gorshkov
Birth nameSergey Georgiyevich Gorshkov
Born(1910-02-26)February 26, 1910
Kamianets-Podilskyi, Russian Empire
DiedMay 13, 1988(1988-05-13) (aged 78)
Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Allegiance Soviet Union
Service / branch Soviet Navy
Years of service1927-1985
RankAdmiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union
CommandsBlack Sea Fleet, Soviet Navy
Battles / warsWorld War II
AwardsHero of the Soviet Union Hero of the Soviet Union

Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Sergey Georgiyevich Gorshkov (Template:Lang-ru) (February 26, 1910 – May 13, 1988) was a Soviet naval officer during the Cold War who oversaw the expansion of the Soviet Navy into a global force.

Biography

Born in Kamianets-Podilskyi, Gorshkov grew up in Kolomna. Gorshkov joined the Soviet Navy in 1927. He graduated from the Leningrad M.V. Frunze Higher Naval School in 1931, and gained command of surface boats in the Black Sea in 1932. During World War II he distinguished himself in landings on the Kerch Peninsula and commanded a destroyer squadron at the end of the war. In 1948, he became Chief of Staff of the Black Sea Fleet, soon he assumed its full command. He was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Navy by Nikita Khrushchev in 1956, and under Leonid Brezhnev oversaw a massive naval build-up of surface and submarine forces, creating a force capable of challenging Western naval power by the late 1970s.

Gorshkov is often associated with the phrase "'Better' is the enemy of 'Good Enough'" ("Лучшее - враг хорошего") which is reputed to have hung on the wall of his office as a motto. Similar sentiments have been attributed to Clausewitz and Voltaire. The motto appears in the Tom Clancy novel, The Hunt for Red October. The phrase is also attributed to Admiral Gorshkov in Norman Polmar's Guide to the Soviet Navy (1983, 3rd edition).[1] That is one year prior to Clancy's first published date for "Hunt" by the Naval Institute Press.

Honours, Awards and Decorations

Soviet awards

Gorshkov has been commemorated by various monuments and namings:

  • Monuments installed in Kolomna (author - sculptor L. Kerbel) and Novorossiysk
  • Memorial plaque on the Russian Navy Headquarters building in Moscow
  • Memorial plaque on the headquarters building of the Black Sea Fleet
  • Central Hospital of the Navy
  • School number 9 in Kolomna, from which he graduated in 1926, street and school in the district
  • the Railway Kupavna, Moscow Oblast[clarification needed]
  • Feasibility of the Lyceum[clarification needed]
  • A neighbourhood of Novorossiysk
  • Central Sports Club of the Navy
  • The Admiral Gorshkov award (Russian Navy, 2006)
  • A Kiev-class aircraft carrier (Admiral Gorshkov, renamed INS Vikramaditya now sold to India)
Foreign awards
Military offices
Preceded by Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Navy
1956-1985 		Succeeded by

Notes

  1. ^ Polmar, N: Guide to the Soviet Navy, p. xii (upper left corner), 1983.
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