Soviet Navy during the war

By June 22, 1941, the USSR Navy included 4 fleets and 5 fleets. They were the Northern Fleet commanded by Arseniy Golovko, the Red Banner Baltic Fleet commanded by Vladimir Tributs, the Black Sea Fleet commanded by Filipp Oktyabrsky, Lev Vladimirsky and Nikolai Basistiy, including the Danube and Azov military flotillas, the Pacific Fleet, including the North Pacific and Amur military flotillas, as well as the Caspian military flotilla. Naval aviation totalled 2,543 aircraft, including 2,162 fighters.

On October 30, 1941, the Germans reached the outskirts of Sevastopol, the principal base of the Black Sea Fleet. The Sevastopol Defensive Region (SDR) was created to defend it. Since November 1941, most of the Black Sea Fleet ships operated from the ports of the Caucasus while supplying besieged Sevastopol.

From the early days of the war, the Northern Fleet had to conduct military operations on the vast territories of the White Sea, the Barents Sea and the Kara Seas. It actively sought to disrupt German maritime transportation, making it difficult for the Nazis to supply their troops and export strategic raw materials, including nickel and iron from Finland and Norway. Starting from August 1941, allied convoys began to arrive in Murmansk and Arkhangelsk. The vessels of the Allies, including the Northern Fleet patrolling its operational area, protected those convoys throughout the war.

In the autumn of 1941, the Soviet State Defense Committee created 25 naval rifle brigades to operate on land fronts. In total, the fleet dispatched over 400,000 sailors, petty officers and officers to land fronts during the war. Moreover, marines launched 57 amphibious attacks from 1941 to 1942 alone. The Danube flotilla landed task forces on the Romanian coast of the Danube on June 25, 1941. It was the first landing. In total, the wartime witnessed over 100 naval operational and tactical landings involving over 250,000 people.

The Soviet shipbuilding industry resumed vessel deliveries to the fleet since mid-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 years. Over 500 ships and boats were supplied by the USA, Great Britain and Canada under Lend-Lease.

In the summer and autumn of 1943, the Black Sea Fleet and the Azov Flotilla, together with the North Caucasian Front liberated Novorossiysk, the Taman Peninsula and seized the bridgehead in the Kerch area. In 1944 they were instrumental in crushing enemy troops in the Crimea and liberating Sevastopol.

When the Red Army cleared access to the Dniester from German troops, the Danube Flotilla re-emerged on the basis of the Azov Flotilla. Its ships took part in the Jassy-Kishinev, Belgrade, Budapest and Vienna offensives.

The Red Banner Baltic Fleet actively engaged in operations to completely lift the Siege of Leningrad and defeat the enemy in Karelia and the Baltic states. The Northern Fleet assisted the Karelian Front in ousting the enemy from the Soviet Arctic and liberating Northern Norway.

Only the Baltic Fleet, as well as the Danube and Dnieper flotillas, engaged in combat operations at the final stage of the Great Patriotic War in 1945. The former participated in the operation to cut off Army Group Kurland and disrupted enemy transportation in the Baltic Sea.

The Soviet Navy lost 1,014 ships of various classes, including 314 surface vessels and submarines (1st, 2nd and 3rdclasses), 139 torpedo boats, 128 sea hunters to track submarines, 77 armoured boats, 168 minesweepers, 188 patrol boats and other vessels in the Great Patriotic War.