Hero of the Soviet Union Batov Pavel Ivanovich

Batov Pavel Ivanovich (1.06.1897-19.04.1985) - one of the combat commanders of the Red Army of the Great Patriotic War, a participant in the civil war in Spain, twice Hero of the Soviet Union.

Childhood and youth

Who was born by Batov Pavel Ivanovich? His biography began in the family of Yaroslavl peasants in a village near Rybinsk. After studying for a couple of years in a rural school, already 13-year-old teenager Pavel was forced to start making his living. He goes to St. Petersburg, where he works, as they would now say, in the service sector-he delivers various purchases to addresses. At the same time he manages to engage in self-education, and so he takes examinations for the 6th form of the school externally.

At the beginning of the military career

Pavel Batov began his military career on the battlefields of the First World War. An 18-year-old volunteer, he in 1915 was enrolled in the training team of the 3rd Life Guards Rifle Regiment. On the front he got in the following year, served as commander of the reconnaissance section, showed courage and was twice awarded with St. George crosses. After being wounded and cured in a hospital in Petrograd, he was appointed to the training team to prepare for the school of ensigns, where agitator A. Savkov introduced him to the political program of the Bolsheviks.

Civil War and interwar period

Batov Pavel Ivanovich served for four years in the Red Army during the Civil War, first commander of a platoon of machine gunners, then an assistant to the head of the Rybinsk military enlistment office, served in the apparatus of the military district in Moscow. Since 1919, in the combat units of the Red Army, he commanded a company.

In 1926 he graduated from the officer courses "Shot" and was appointed to command a battalion of the elite military unit - the 1st Rifle Division. He will serve in this unit for the next nine years, rising to the rank of commander of the regiment. During this period, Batov Pavel Ivanovich graduated from the Frunze Academy in absentia.

The Civil War in Spain

Colonel Batov Pavel Ivanovich in 1936, under the name of Pablo Fritz, was sent by the military adviser to the Spanish Republican Army, in the 12th brigade under the command of the famous General Lukács, under whose name the Hungarian revolutionary Mate Zalka was at war. In June 1937, Batov and Zalka, while traveling in a car for reconnaissance in the area of the city of Huesca, came under fire from enemy artillery. At the same time Zalka was killed, and Batov, who was sitting beside him in the back seat and seriously injured, still survived.

Strangely enough, but probably this tragic episode played a role in the fact that Batov was not touched during the "Yezhovschina" period, when, after his injury, he returned to his homeland in August 1937. It's no secret that almost all of the military advisers who visited Spain, together with their leader Antonov-Ovseyenko, were killed when they returned home. Stalin's satraps did not like people who fought side by side with anarchists, Trotskyists, adherents of bourgeois democracy, of whom there were many in the Spanish interbrigades. But Batova, as they say, passed this cup, because to blame someone whose blood literally mixed with the blood of General Lukács, who became one of the symbols of resistance to fascism, was clearly politically unprofitable.

Pre-war time

Since August 1937 Batov consistently commanded the 10th and 3rd Rifle Corps, participated in the campaign against Western Ukraine in September 1939, and then in the Soviet-Finnish war. The combat merits of the commander were noted by his production in the commandos, and then in the lieutenant-general. In 1940 he was appointed deputy commander of the Transcaucasian Military District.

The initial period of the Second World War

Batov started the war as the commander of the Crimean 9th Corps, later converted to the 51st Army, in which he became deputy commander. The army fought desperately with the Germans on Perekop and in the Kerch area, but was defeated, and in November 1941 its remains were evacuated to the Taman Peninsula. Batov, elevated to the commander, was entrusted with its reorganization.

In January 1942, he was sent to the Bryansk Front as commander of the Third Army, and then transferred to the front headquarters as assistant commander.

The Battle of Stalingrad and the subsequent battles of the Second World War with the participation of Batov

October 22, 1042 Batov became commander of the 4th Panzer Army on the outskirts of Stalingrad. This army, soon renamed the 65th Army, became part of the Don Front, which was commanded by K. K. Rokossovsky. Batov remained her commander until the end of the war.

He helped plan the Soviet counter-offensive in the course of Operation Uranus in the encirclement of the 6th German Army, General Paulus. His army was the key striking force in this offensive and the subsequent operation of the "Ring" to destroy the German group encircled in Stalingrad.

After this victory, the 65th Army was redeployed to the northwest into the new Central Front, commanded by the same Rokossovsky. In July 1943 Batov's army fought in the gigantic Kursk battle, repulsing the offensive of the enemy in the area of Sevsk. After the defeat of the Germans during the offensive from August to October, the 65th Army fought more than 300 kilometers and went to the Dnieper, which was forced by it on October 15 in the region of Loeva in the Gomel region.

In the summer of 1944 Batov's army took part in a major strategic operation in Byelorussia in the event of the destruction of the Bobruisk enemy grouping. For several days the German 9th Army was surrounded and almost completely destroyed. After that, Batov received the rank of colonel-general.

Further there were battles in Poland, the crossing of the Vistula, the assault of Danzig and the capture of Stettin. The last volleys of Katyushas of the 65th Army in April 1945 were sent to the German garrison of the island of Rügen.

After the war

During this period, Batov held various managerial positions. He commanded the 7th Mechanized Army in Poland, the 11th Guards Army, headquartered in Kaliningrad. In 1954, he became the first deputy commander of the FGP in Germany, the following year - commander of the Carpathian Military District. During this period, he participated in the suppression of the Hungarian uprising in 1956. Later, he commanded the Southern Group of Forces, he was deputy chief of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces. Batov retired as an active general of the Soviet Army in 1965, but continued to work in the group of military inspectors of the Ministry of Defense, and from 1970 to 1981 led the Soviet Veterans Committee. He remained a close friend of Marshal Rokossovsky until his death in 1968, and was entrusted with editing and publishing his former commander's memoirs.

Batov Pavel Ivanovich, whose books on military theory were widely known, is also the author of interesting memoirs. During his long and interesting life, he accumulated considerable military and human experience. How did Pavel Ivanovich name Batov his memoirs? "In campaigns and battles" - this is the name of his book, which, during the life of the author, has withstood 4 editions.

Russia continues to remember its faithful son. The sea and the oceans are plowed by Pavel Batov, a ship built in 1987 and assigned to the port of Kaliningrad.