Soviet Navy during the war

By June 22, 1941 the Soviet Navy consisted of 4 Fleets and 5 Military Flotillas. They were the Northern Fleet (Commander Arseniy Golovko), the Red Banner Baltic Fleet (Commander Vladimir Tributs), the Black Sea Fleet (Commanders Filipp Oktyabrsky, Lev Vladimirsky and Nikolai Basistiy) it included the Danube and Azov Military Flotillas, the Pacific Fleet, including the North Pacific and Amur Military Flotillas, and the Caspian Military Flotilla. The Naval air force had 2,543 aircrafts, including 2,162 fighters.

The Germans approached the outskirts of Sevastopol, the main base of the Black Sea Fleet on October 30, 1941. To defend it the Soviet Command created the Sevastopol Defense District. Most of the Black Sea Fleet vessels had to operate from the ports of the Caucasus since November 1941. They continued to supply besieged Sevastopol.

The Northern Fleet had to conduct military operations on the vast expanses of the White, Barents and Kara Seas from the very beginning of the war. It actively disrupted the enemy's maritime communications, making it difficult to supply German troops and deliver strategic raw materials (nickel and iron) from Finland and Norway. Allied convoys began to arrive in Murmansk and Arkhangelsk in August 1941. The allied Navy, including the Soviet Northern Fleet in its operational area protected those convoys throughout the entire war.

According to the order of the Soviet State Defense Committee, 25 naval rifle brigades were created to fight on land during the fall of 1941. Altogether the Navy dispatched over 400,000 sailors, petty officers and officers to land fronts during the war. Moreover, Navy marines launched 57 amphibious attacks in 1941-1942 alone. The first landing was conducted by the Danube Military Flotilla on the Romanian Bank of the Danube on June 25, 1941. In total, the Navy conducted more than 100 operational and tactical landings with a total number of personnel more than 250 thousand during the war.

The Soviet shipbuilding industry resumed the deliveries of vessel to the Navy from the middle of 1943. In total, the Navy received 2 light cruisers, 19 destroyers, 54 submarines and over 1,100 light surface vessels and boats during the war. Over 500 ships and boats were supplied by the USA, Great Britain and Canada under Lend-Lease.

The Black Sea Fleet and the Azov Military Flotilla, together with the North Caucasian Front participated in liberation of Novorossiysk, the Taman Peninsula and seizure of the Kerch bridgehead in the summer and autumn of 1943. The Navy played an important role in crushing the enemy troops in the Crimea and the liberation of Sevastopol in 1944.

The Danube Flotilla was newly organized on the basis of the Azov Flotilla when the Red Army approached the Dniester. Its boats took part in the Jassy-Kishinev, Belgrade, Budapest and Vienna offensives.

The Red Banner Baltic Fleet was actively engaged in operations to completely lift the Siege of Leningrad and destroy the enemy in Karelia and on the Baltic shore. The Northern Fleet provided assistance to the Karelian Front in the liberation of the Soviet Arctic and Northern Norway.

On the final stage of the Great Patriotic War in 1945 only the Baltic Fleet, Danube and Dnieper Flotillas were engaged in active combat operations. The Baltic Fleet participated in blockade of the German Army Group Kurland and disrupted enemy communications in the Baltic Sea.

During the Great Patriotic War the Soviet Navy lost 1,014 ships of various kinds, including 314 surface vessels and submarines of 1st, 2nd and 3rd classes, 139 torpedo boats, 128 sea submarine hunter, 77 armored boats, 168 minesweepers, 188 patrol boats and others.