Nikolai Nebogatov

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nikolai Ivanovich Nebogatov (Russian: Николай Иванович Небогатов,1849-1922) was a Russian Rear-Admiral.

He was in command of numerous Russian warships, such as armored cruiser "Admiral Nahimov", and cruiser "Minin", as the head of the Baltic gunnery school.

In 1905, as the end of the Russo-Japanese War was drawing near he was promoted to rear-admiral, receiving the famous Third Pacific Squadron as the "reinforcements" to Zinovi Rozhdestvenski's Second. This squadron consisted of old battleship "Nikolai I" (Nebogatov's flagship), cruiser "Vladimir Monomakh", and coastal-defense battleships "Admiral Ushakov", "Admiral Senyavin" and "General-Admiral Apraksin", as well as numerous transport ships.

The two squadrons reunited at Indochina. In the famous Battle of Tsushima none of Nebogatov's ships shared the dreadful fate of Rojestvenskii's battleships, and with the fleet commander's missing, and most of the warships sunk or lost, Nebogatov became in charge.

He led, however, the remains of the fleet to a grim end - morning after the battle, 28th May 1905 he surrendered 5 of his remaining warships, battleships "Nikolai I", "Orel", "General-Admiral Apraksin" and "Admiral Senyavin" to the Japanese. Only one cruiser, "Izumrud", that remained with the squadron, escaped through the Japanese lines. Fourth Nebogatov's battleship, "Ushakov" got lost during the night and heroicaly sunk next morning, outpowered and outnumbered.

After his return home from Japan, Nebogatov faced the military court, that sentenced him to 16 years in prison, but only 2 years later he was released by the Tzar's order, some say for his poor health condition. Nikolai Ivanovich Nebogatov died in 1922.