Early Naval Career
Rozhestvensky graduated from the Sea Cadet Corps in 1868 and the Mikhailovsky Artillery Academy in 1873. he initially served with the Baltic Fleet as a gunnery officer. In 1876 he transferred to the Black Sea Fleet. During the Russo Turkish War he served on board the gunboat Vesta. On June 10, 1877 six torpedo boats, five of which were armed with spar torpedoes, attempted to attack four ironclads of the Turkish Navy. The then Lieutenant Rozhestvensky volunteered to lead the first attack against the Turkish warships, but his torpedo boat became caught up in the rope boom defenses that protected the enemy ships. The attack was beaten back by Turkish gunfire which destroyed one torpedo boat and the remaining boats withdrew, leaving the enemy ironclads intact. In July 1877 while still assigned to the Vesta, he engaged and damaged a Turkish warship, the Fethi-Bulend, and Rozhestvensky was awarded the Order of Saint Vladimir and Order of St George for this action.
In 1883 to 1885 Rozhestensky was seconded to the newly formed Bulgarian Navy. He returned to Russian service and was senior officer on the battery ship Kreml and the cruiser Gerzog Edinburgski. He then commanded the clipper Naezdnik and gunboat Grozyachiy. In 1891-93 he was naval attache in London. In 1894 he commanded the Vladimir Monomakh which was part of the Russian Meditarranean squadron under the command of Admiral Stepan Makarov. In 1896-98 he commanded the coast defence ship Pervenets. In 1898 he became commander of the gunnery school of the Baltic Fleet. In 1900 he commanded the salvage operation for the Admiral Graf Apraksin. In 1902 he was appointed Chief of the Naval Staff and proposed a plan for strengthening the Russian Navy in the Far East.
Read more about this topic: Zinovy Rozhestvensky
Famous quotes containing the words early, naval and/or career:
““Never hug and kiss your children! Mother love may make your children’s infancy unhappy and prevent them from pursuing a career or getting married!” That’s total hogwash, of course. But it shows on extreme example of what state-of-the-art “scientific” parenting was supposed to be in early twentieth-century America. After all, that was the heyday of efficiency experts, time-and-motion studies, and the like.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)
“It is now time to stop and to ask ourselves the question which my last commanding officer, Admiral Hyman Rickover, asked me and every other young naval officer who serves or has served in an atomic submarine. For our Nation M for all of us M that question is, “Why not the best?””
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“I began my editorial career with the presidency of Mr. Adams, and my principal object was to render his administration all the assistance in my power. I flattered myself with the hope of accompanying him through [his] voyage, and of partaking in a trifling degree, of the glory of the enterprise; but he suddenly tacked about, and I could follow him no longer. I therefore waited for the first opportunity to haul down my sails.”
—William Cobbett (1762–1835)