“Swim more, fly more! This should be our motto. "
Why, with the huge contribution of the North Sea residents to the Victory and having such awards as four Orders of Lenin and four Red Banners, two Ushakovs of the 1st degree, and many others, Arseny Golovko, the only fleet commander, did not become a Hero of the Soviet Union, remains a mystery.
Among the figures who restored Russia's naval power in Soviet times, who led the fleets during the Great Patriotic War, Admiral Arseniy Golovko occupies a more than noticeable place, whose 110th birthday anniversary falls on 23 June. The Northern Fleet under his command played an important role in the defense of the Soviet Arctic, in the defeat of the Nazi troops in the Far North and the liberation of Northern Norway.
Arseniy Golovko was sent to serve on warships in 1925 at the Komsomol call. After graduating from the Frunze School in 1928, the forge of command personnel of the Navy, the future admiral went through all the stages of becoming a naval officer. He even participated in the war in Spain as an adviser to the commander of the Cartagena naval base in 1937-1938.
In 1940, he was already an experienced naval commander, the country's top leadership knows about this, so the Politburo of the Central Committee without hesitation approves him as commander of the Northern Fleet. The sailors' enthusiasm for mastering the theater of military operations and pride in the fleet were high, but they needed to be directed in the right direction, because the overall picture looked disappointing. The combat capability of the ships is low, the ship-repair base is weak, the ship's mechanisms are worn out, there is a large movement of command personnel on submarines - I had to think about a lot. In strengthening the fleet, the key role belonged to the People's Commissariat of the USSR Navy, and Golovko received this assistance. Objective difficulties remained, for example, in 1940, due to a lack of bases, it was not possible to receive all the ships built for the Northern Fleet.
But there was an area where success was almost entirely decided by people, their energy, diligence, organization and initiative. This is combat training. Wise with the experience of fighting in Spain, Golovko demanded that the commanders build training of personnel taking into account the peculiarities of modern warfare, and avoid simplifications and indulgences. “Swim more, fly more! This is what should be our motto in combat training,”he stressed more than once at meetings and debriefing exercises.
At the first opportunity, the commander himself went to sea. Golovko was particularly concerned about the training of a large detachment of young officers who had recently come to the ships. The admiral knew from his own experience: they become a real commander at sea, in difficult campaigns, in the fight against the elements, dangers, when the feeling of responsibility for the fate of people and a ship is sharpened to the limit.
No matter how weak the Federation Council was in terms of the number of ships and aircraft, Golovko and the Military Council saw their duty to make it strong through excellent combat and naval training, high ideological and political training, discipline and organization of personnel. Time has shown that these day-to-day efforts have yielded results. When the war broke out, the Severomors were on full alert.
The Northern Fleet, commanded by Admiral Golovko from 1940 to 1946, was at its best at the most crucial moment of the war. The forces of the Northern Fleet not only disrupted the enemy's sea communications, held back his onslaught on land, but also guarded the allied convoys.
It must be admitted that Lend-Lease played a significant role in the victory over fascism, and the bulk of the supplies went through the northern ports. In just two years (1943-1944), the Federation Council met 368 and escorted 352 allied transport (excluding its own), and this is hundreds of thousands of tons of military cargo. Only ten transports were lost - less than three percent, an excellent figure.
The victories of the fleet in the war, the skillful management of its activities brought Arseny Golovko to the ranks of the best military leaders and naval commanders of the Great Patriotic War. In 1944, he became a full admiral, but he never received the "Golden Star", although all the North Sea heroes - Heroes of the Soviet Union (82 once and three twice) owe their high rank to the commander. And how many parts and ships were awarded honorary titles and names - all can not be mentioned. The fleet commander invariably assumed responsibility for the actions of his subordinates.
From 1947 to 1950, he was Chief of the Main Staff of the Navy, and from 1950 to 1952, Chief of the Naval General Staff, but did not particularly show himself in this position. Still, staff work requires different skills than team work. And the admiral is returned to the ships. Since 1952, he has been in command of the 4th Naval, then the combined Baltic Fleet. In this position, doing his usual business, he served until 1956, when he was appointed first deputy to Admiral Sergei Georgievich Gorshkov, who was the commander-in-chief of the Navy for almost 30 years (and no matter what they say about him, he is a great naval commander).
In the sixties, the cold war was gaining momentum, the Soviet fleet went out into the ocean, becoming an instrument of big politics. The Arctic is acquiring strategic importance. And the Northern Fleet begins to play the role of one of the first violins. Golovko analyzes the experience of military operations in this maritime theater, works on articles on topical topics, where he emphasizes the special importance of creativity, innovation, initiative in the fight against a potential enemy, urging to be on the alert: “Vigilance is the law of our time, created by the experience of history. And this experience also includes the events associated with the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, which each of us is obliged not so much to remember as to remember. Remember always! . We feel the veracity of these conclusions today, when we are losing all positions in the World Ocean.
Arseny Golovko lived for only 56 years, his heart stopped from the stress that fell to his lot.
