Nikolai Smirnov

Born Sept. 22 (Oct. 5), 1917, in the village of Robtsovo, in what is now Parfen’evo Raion, Kostroma Oblast. Soviet commander, admiral of the fleet(1973). Member of the CPSU since 1942.

Smirnov joined the navy in 1937. He graduated from the M. V. Frunze Higher Naval School in 1939 and the Military Academy of the General Staff in 1959. During the Great Patriotic War (1941-45), he was an assistant commander and a submarine commander in the Pacific Fleet from July 1941 to June 1944 and in the Black Sea Fleet from June 1944 to the end of the war. After the war, he served in command positions in the Black Sea Fleet. Smirnov commanded the submarine forces of the Black Sea Fleet in 1956 and 1957 and the submarine forces of the Baltic Fleet in 1959 and 1960. He was chief of staff and deputy commander of the Black Sea Fleet from 1960 to 1964, deputy chief of the Main Headquarters of the Navy from 1964 to 1969, and commander of the Pacific Fleet from 1969 to 1974. He became first deputy commander in chief of the navy in September 1974.

Smirnov was a deputy to the eighth and ninth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and a candidate member of the Central Committee of the CPSU from 1971 to 1976. He has been awarded the Order of the Red Banner, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, the Order of the Patriotic War Second Class, two Orders of the Red Star, the Order for Service to the Motherland in the Armed Forces of the USSR Third Class, various medals, and a foreign order.