Ivan Isakov

Early life

Ivan Isakov was born Hovhannes Ter-Isahakyan in the family of an Armenian railway worker in the village of Hadjikend in the Kars Oblast, then a part of the Russian Empire (currently the Kars vilayet of Turkey). His father died soon after he was born. Afterward his mother raised their three children with her brother. His uncle had dreamed of service in the Navy and had a library of marine literature, which inspired an identical love of watercraft for Isakov. The family later moved to Tiflis, where he studied mathematics and engineering at the local realschule, which Isakov graduated from in 1913.

Military service

In 1917, Isakov moved to Petrograd and entered the Naval Guards School of the Imperial Russian Navy and graduated as a midshipman in March of that year. He briefly saw action against the Germans in West Estonian archipelago (Moonsund archipelago). He continued his service after the October Revolution in the Baltic Sea fleet as a torpedo officer, where he served on several warships, including the Izyaslav, the Riga, the Kobchik and the Korshun. In 1918, he took part in several battles against the German Imperial Navy until the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which effectively ended the war between Russia and Germany, granting the Baltic Sea to the latter. In March 1918, Isakov participated in the Ice Cruise of the Baltic Fleet from the naval base at Helsingfors where Russian warships and icebreakers were transferred from the Baltic to the naval base in Kronshtadt near Petrograd. An authoritative Russian Navy source notes that Isakov completed additional courses in mine-sweeping and mine-laying in 1919 and then served in the Caspian Sea, returning to the Baltic in 1920 and subsequently serving in the Black Sea until the mid-1920s.

In 1920, Isakov was transferred and assigned to the destroyer Deyatelni, which patrolled from the Volga River down to the Caspian Sea and later shelled the positions of Allied interventionist forces in the midst of the Russian Civil War. Noted for his distinction during the battles, he was made the gun battery commander of the destroyer Izyaslav in 1921. From 1922 to 1927, he served as a shtab operative, or member of the deputy chief of staff, of naval forces in the Black Sea Fleet. In 1928, Isakov completed academic courses at the Naval Academy Leningrad and from 1930, he was Chief of Staff of the Baltic Fleet. In 1932, Isakov became the professor and head of the naval art department of the Soviet Naval Military Academy and taught as a professor for five years until he was promoted commander of the Baltic Fleet. From 1938 to 1939, he headed the Naval Academy. Isakov was appointed vice-commissar of naval affairs, and in 1939, he led a naval delegation to the United States with the goal of purchasing new warships. He met with the Secretary of the Navy, but the delegation left empty-handed since the US was unwilling to extend aid to the Soviet Union. Isakov broke away from teaching with the onset of the Winter War and entered active service; he coordinated not only the movement of naval warships in the Baltic Sea but also the ground forces of the Red Army in the Soviet war against Finland. From 1941 to 1943 Isakov was the chief of the Main Maritime Staff. In 1946 to 1947, he was chief of the Main Navy Staff. In 1947 to 1950, he was deputy commander-in-chief of the Navy. In 1950 to 1956, he was deputy Naval Minister. From 1957, he was a member of the Defense Ministry General Inspectorate.

World War II

With the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the Soviet Navy's manpower drastically decreased because men were needed to stave off the advances made by the German armies. Nevertheless, Isakov temporarily served in the Soviet Red Banner Northern Fleet until 1942 when he became a commander in the North Caucasus Front, where German forces were attempting to penetrate the oil fields of Baku. There, he was a member of the North-Caucasian Directive, a military council which planned operations and directed naval forces defending in the region. He was responsible for the successful naval landing by Soviet forces on the Kerch peninsula (the Kerch–Eltigen Operation), then held by German forces. On 4 October 1942, Isakov was injured in a German bombing raid in Tuapse and had his foot amputated, spending the remainder of the war in a field hospital. Nevertheless, Isakov continued to serve in his capacity as chief of staff of Soviet naval forces.

Admiralship and scholarly work

In March 1955, Isakov was promoted to the service rank of Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union, one of only three to hold that rank, but he also managed to find the time for scholarly work. After becoming a professor in 1932, Isakov had spent much of his time researching military naval tactics and strategy. From 1932 to 1933, he had participated in a Soviet military report, which examined German naval, particularly submarine, tactics used during battles in the First World War. He received his Doktor nauk in 1937 after defending his dissertation on the routing of German forces by the Imperial Japanese Navy in the Battle of Tsingtao in 1914. In 1947, Isakov was appointed editor and president of The Atlas of the Sea, a three-volume work on the charting of naval routes, the mapping of the seafloor and the physical landscape of the oceans and the history of naval warfare. The work went on to receive the 1951 Stalin Prize. Other prestigious positions Isakov went on to hold was editor and adviser in the writing of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia. In 1958, he became a Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Isakov became a member of the Writers' Union of the USSR in 1964.

By decree of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union on 7 May 1965, "For his able leadership of the troops, courage, bravery and heroism in the fight against the Nazi invaders, and in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War," Fleet Admiral Isakov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Appraisal and legacy

As a naval commander, Isakov has been described by one military historian as "more a naval practitioner than a theoretician" who "emphasized that the theory of the command of the sea was a rational theory".

Academician Abraham Alikhanov wrote that Joseph Stalin said, "A real admiral of the fleet, Comrade Isakov. Clever, no legs, but a strong head".

Both the Soviet Union and Armenia have issued postage stamps dedicated to Isakov. An avenue in Yerevan is named after him.

Honours and awards

Writings

Isakov had written several books, mainly about naval warfare: