Gavriil Vasilevich Zhukov

Born Mar. 12 (24), 1899, in the village of Berezovyi Gai, in what is now Volzhsk Raion, Kuibyshev Oblast; died Jan. 8, 1957, in Odessa. Soviet military commander, vice admiral (1944). Member of the CPSU from 1919.

Zhukov joined the navy in 1918 and fought in the Civil War on the Eastern Front. He graduated from a naval command staff school in 1925 and from an artillery class of the advanced command staff courses in 1927. Commander of the cruiser Maksim Gorky from 1937 to 1939, Zhukov was from 1939 to 1940 commander of a detachment of training ships of the Baltic Fleet and commandant of the Northwestern Fortified Region of the Black Sea Fleet. In March 1940 he was appointed commander of the Odessa Naval Base and in this capacity took part in the defense of Odessa in 1941, during the Great Patriotic War. Appointed in December 1941 deputy commander of the Black Sea Fleet for the ground defense of Sevastopol’, the main base of the fleet, Zhukov was one of the leaders of this city’s heroic defense. Zhukov’s other posts included commander of the Tuapse Naval Base (from 1942), commander of the Odessa Naval Base (1945), command posts in the Pacific Fleet (1946–48), and the head of the Black Sea Higher Naval School (from September 1948). He retired in 1951 for reasons of health. Zhukov was awarded three Orders of Lenin, four Orders of the Red Star, the Order of Nakhimov First Class, and medals.