Yuri Panteleyev

. Both Yuri and his father sailed to watch the competition. Panteleyev was born on in Saint Petersburg, the son of , a cinematographer. In 1917 Yuri graduated from the Second Saint Petersburg Gymnasium, in the last class to graduate before the revolution. With the upheaval of the revolution, Yuri Panteleyev attended volunteer classes at local sailors' club and in March 1918 enlisted at the age of 16 with a group of sailors assigned to guard the institutions of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Navy in Petrograd. He then took a series of navigational courses, and in November 1918 he was appointed to command of the 1st Naval Education Unit, which from August 1919 guarded the mouth of the River Neva on the line between the Lakhta and Sea Canal dam on the Baltic Sea. In March 1921 he took part in the suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion, commanding a detachment of skiers made up of Komsomol members who carried out reconnaissance of the approaches to Kotlin Island, marking the way for the advancing troops. For this he and nine others of his detachment were awarded the Order of the Red Banner. Panteleyev then took the course for navigators, followed by practical experience as assistant captain on the Soviet sailing merchant ship Lauristin during a voyage to Estonia in summer 1921. ==Navigator and Black Sea officer==

In May 1922 Panteleyev was appointed junior navigator of the battleship Marat, and advanced to senior navigator in April 1923. He was sent to Moscow in December 1923 to take further specialist courses in navigation. From December 1923 to February 1925 he studied the Higher Special Courses of the naval command staff, which included practical experience with a voyage aboard the Vorovskiy, which ended in Vladivostok on 20 November 1924, having sailed through the North Sea, past Gibraltar, through the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the Strait of Malacca, visiting many of the local ports. After graduating from the Academy Panteleyev was sent to serve in the Black Sea Fleet as navigator aboard the submarine Politruk, until July 1925. He would spend the next five years serving on the Black Sea. , Panteleyev's ship from July 1925 to April 1926 From July 1925 to April 1926 Panteleyev was senior assistant to the commander of the destroyer Shaumyan, and then from April 1926 to December 1928 he was senior navigator of the cruiser Chervona Ukraine. His next posting, until October 1930, was an assistant to the head of the combat training department of the Black Sea Fleet. He returned to his studies in October 1930, enrolling in the Naval Academy and graduating in April 1933. Panteleyev was then appointed assistant sector chief of the Combat Training Directorate of the Naval Forces, and in June 1933 became chief of the 1st sector (operational and combat training) of the headquarters of the Northern Military Flotilla, also acting as the flotilla's chief of staff from 25 September to 21 March 1934. During this time a number of warships were transferred from the Baltic Fleet to the White Sea via the White Sea–Baltic Canal. ==To the Baltic Fleet==

In April 1935 Panteleyev returned to the Black Sea Fleet as the commander of the 1st submarine brigade until November 1936, and then until August 1938 as commander of the 2nd submarine brigade. In summer 1938 he was transferred to the Navy Commissariat and from August 1938 to October 1939 was member, and then deputy chairman of the State Commission for the Acceptance of Ships. It was at this time that Admiral Ivan Yumashev, then commander of the Pacific Fleet, requested that Panteleyev serve as commander of his minesweeping brigade. Panteleyev agreed, but the appointment was blocked by Naval commissioner Nikolai Kuznetsov, who anticipating trouble with Finland, arranged with Stalin to appoint Panteleyev as chief of staff of the Baltic Fleet. Minsk, Panteleyev's ship during operations in the Gulf of Finland during the Soviet-Finnish War In October 1939 Panteleyev became acting chief of staff of the Baltic Fleet, and in June 1940 was confirmed in post, holding this position until 29 August 1941. During the Soviet-Finnish War the Baltic Fleet deployed submarines and patrol ships in the Gulf of Finland, while carrying out air reconnaissance and providing supporting fire against fort artillery. Panteleyev personally carried out reconnaissance of the island of Kopisari, at the entrance to the port of Kotka. His detachment, consisting of the destroyer leader Minsk, two destroyers and several supporting vessels approached the island, but came under fire from a Finnish battery. The Soviets were unable to suppress the Finnish guns and had difficulty in firing on coastal targets because of a lack of spotters to observe the fall of shots. During the battle a shell fragment fell into the fur collar of Panteleyev's coat, a fragment he kept as a souvenir. Promoted to rear admiral on 4 June 1940 Panteleyev was one of the officers based at the fleet headquarters at Tallinn as the possibility of war with Nazi Germany became ever greater. ==Great Patriotic War==

Defending Leningrad under a smoke screen during the Soviet evacuation of Tallinn The Navy was one of the only branches of the Soviet military to be at full readiness when the German invasion of the Soviet Union began. It had been placed at readiness No. 2 on 19 June, and at midnight on 21 June commander in chief of the navy Admiral Kuznetsov moved it to readiness No. 1. As Baltic Fleet chief of staff, Panteleyev was heavily involved in bringing the fleet to war readiness. Panteleyev rejoined the Navy Commissariat between September and October 1941, and on 4 October was appointed commander of the Leningrad Naval Base. On the Volga In April 1942 Panteleyev became Assistant Chief of the Main Naval Staff. His attestation written about this time recorded that he was "lively and energetic ... loves naval service, a good commander-sailor." In March 1945 he was appointed commander of the White Sea naval defence area, holding the position until after the war, when in July 1946 he became Chief of the Combat Training Directorate. ==Postwar career==

Pacific command Panteleyev served as Chief of the Combat Training Directorate until April 1947, when he briefly became Deputy Chief of the Main Naval Staff, until July 1947, and then Chief of the Operational Directorate of the Naval General Staff until April 1948. He then became commandant of the Naval Academy, before becoming commander of the 5th Fleet in August 1951. The 5th Fleet had been by splitting the Pacific Fleet into two separate commands, the 5th and 7th Fleets, in 1947. In August 1951 the fleets were recombined into a single Pacific Fleet, with Panteleyev continuing as its commander until January 1956. Academic life and later years destroyer , in 2012 From April 1967 Panteleyev served as a professor-consultant to the Naval Academy's Academic Council, retiring in March 1968. He had written several non-fiction books during his career, including Naval Armaments of the Baltic Countries (), published in 1933; The Underwater War and the Merchant Fleet () in 1934, and a biography of Admiral Stepan Makarov, published in 1949. In 1965 he published The Sea Front (), and in retirement in 1974 published his memoirs Half a Century in the Navy (). He continued his love of yachting, and in 1958 was awarded the title of Master of Sports. The final part of his memoirs, Sail is my life () appeared posthumously in 1984. Over the course of his career Panteleyev received the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner four times, the Order of Nakhimov First Class and the Order of the Patriotic War First Class, as well as the Order of the Red Banner of Labour, the Order of the Red Star three times, and the British honour of Companion of the Order of the Bath. Panteleyev died on 5 May 1983 and was buried at the Serafimovskoe Cemetery in Leningrad. He was honoured after his death with the naming of the Udaloy-class destroyer , which since 1992 has been part of the Pacific Fleet. ==Notes==