Stepan Makarov

Stepan Makarov was Russia's most inventive naval officer of the nineteenth century and died with his flagship at Port Arthur. Born in Nikolaev in 1849 to a warrant officer, he entered the naval school at Nikolaevsk-on-Amur and was commissioned young, without the aristocratic connections that normally governed advancement. He made his reputation twice over as an engineer and as a commander. After the sinking of a warship in 1869 he studied unsinkability, proposing a system of watertight compartments, drainage and damage control that became standard practice. During the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 he converted a steamer into a carrier for small torpedo boats and used them in night attacks against Turkish warships, sinking one in January 1878 — among the first successful torpedo attacks in history. He commanded the corvette Vityaz on a circumnavigation from 1886 and published an oceanographic study of the Pacific that won the Academy of Sciences prize. He also wrote on naval tactics, arguing for offensive action, speed and initiative rather than defensive caution. He conceived and drove the construction of the Yermak, launched in 1898 and the first true polar icebreaker, designed to ride up onto ice and break it with the ship's weight rather than ram it. It worked, and every icebreaker since uses the principle. He took it into the Arctic to test the concept of a northern sea route. He was sent to command at Port Arthur in February 1904 after the Japanese surprise attack, and restored the fleet's morale in weeks. On 13 April 1904 his flagship Petropavlovsk struck mines and sank in minutes, killing him and most of the crew.

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