Pyotr Morgunov

Pyotr Alekseyevich Morgunov (Russian: Пётр Алексеевич Моргунов; 25 January 1902 – 29 September 1985) was an officer of the Soviet Navy. He worked in the navy's coastal defence branch and reached the rank of Lieutenant General.

Born into a working-class family in Moscow in 1902, Morgunov joined the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution and fought with the Red forces during the Russian Civil War. He specialised in artillery, undertaking studies in the theory and practice of gunnery, and served in the naval coastal defences in the Black Sea. By the early 1930s he was in command of Armoured Coastal Battery #35 on the Crimean coast, eventually rising to command the region's coastal defences prior to the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Charged with defending Sevastopol from the advancing forces, Morgunov directed the fire of coastal artillery and the building of defences as the Siege of Sevastopol began. Morgunov played an important role in the subsequent months before the city finally fell to Axis forces in 1942.

Morgunov then served as deputy commander of the Black Sea Fleet for ground forces, and then chief of the Black Sea Fleet's coastal defence. He took part in the recapture of Sevastopol in 1944 in the Crimean offensive, and in May he was awarded the Order of Nakhimov, 1st degree, becoming the first of 82 people to receive this in the history of its award. Morgunov became commanding officer of the Black Sea Fleet Coastal Defences after the war, going on to be appointed head of the Coastal Artillery, Naval Infantry and Ground Units Combat Training Directorate, of the Main Combat Training Directorate, of the Naval Staff, and later head of coastal defence for the entire Soviet Navy. Retiring in 1955, he retired and wrote an account of the defence of Sevastopol before his death in 1985. Having received a number of awards over his career, Morgunov was portrayed in film in Sea on Fire, based partly on Morgunov's book. The Ivan Gren-class landing ship Pyotr Morgunov is named in his honour.