Word: naval
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Peter's successors frittered away the fleet, but when Catherine the Great came to power in 1762, she began a massive rebuilding program. To find enough officers to command her new ships, Catherine collected foreign naval men almost as fast as she collected lovers. Among them was the American Revolutionary War hero, John Paul Jones, who, despite his bravery and gift for quick phrasemaking, had risen no higher than captain in the U.S. Navy. In return for an admiral's rank, Jones took command of a Russian sailing fleet composed of four battleships, eight frigates and assorted smaller craft that...
Throughout the 19th century, Russia remained the world's third largest naval power (after Britain and France), but it was a largely untested one. The testing came in the 1904-05 war with Japan. In the straits of Tsushima, the Japanese met a fleet of 37 Russian ships and sank or captured all but four of them. It was the last time the Russians fought a naval engagement on the high seas...
...woman, named Larisa Reisner-Raskol-nikova, and refused to allow the sailors to organize their own self-ruling local governments. As a result, the Baltic Fleet suddenly mutinied in 1921. Lenin crushed the revolt, but he never forgave the navy. He demoted it to the inglorious position of "naval forces of the Red Army" and decreed a new strategy that called for only a defensive fleet whose main weaponry would be submarines...
...started building big warships again, but only 15 cruisers had been completed by the time he died in 1953. The new chief in the Kremlin had no sympathy for Stalin's plans. Nikita Khrushchev fired Stalin's navy chief, Admiral Kuznetsov, and brought in Gorshkov, who by then was naval chief of staff...
...resisted the missile enthusiasts in the Kremlin, kept alive the concept of surface ships. Then Khrushchev decided to put missiles in Castro's Cuba?and the whole game changed. The humiliation of their backdown under the guns of the U.S. Navy impressed on the Soviet leaders the value of naval power. Shortly after the crisis, Khrushchev sent an order to the admiral: Create a surface fleet...