Advertising on the portal

Batov Pavel Ivanovich. Twice Hero of the Soviet Union. Batov Pavel Ivanovich in campaigns and battles

Batov Pavel Ivanovich

On campaigns and battles

Publisher's abstract: Twice Hero of the Soviet Union Army General Batov P.I. began military service in the tsarist army. Participated in the civil war, fought in Spain. During the Great Patriotic War, he happened to command troops in the Crimea, and then he led the 65th Army, with which he went from Stalingrad to Szczecin. The author acquaints the reader with the concept and implementation of a number of outstanding operations, shares his thoughts on the qualities of a commander, on the art of military education, on the fiery party word that inspires people and leads to a feat. The new edition of the book was undertaken due to numerous requests from readers.

Before the great battle

Between Don and Volga

Operation Ring

From the Kursk Bulge to the West

You are wide, Dnipro!

In the swamps of Polesye

Operation "Bagration"

To the borders of Poland

Narevsky bridgehead

On the coast of the Baltic

Forcing the Oder

Instead of an epilogue

Notes

To my fighting friends

soldiers, officers, generals

With deep love and respect, I dedicate.

New assignment. - Separate 51st Army. - The plan of defense of the Crimea. September battles at Perekop. - Counterattack of the task force. - Ten days in the inter-lake. - Chatyrlyk river. - Departure. - Evacuation of Kerch.

In the fall of 1941, I had to participate in the battles for the Crimea at Perekop and the Ishun positions. The Crimean peninsula was then defended by a separate 51st army. She can be accused of many mortal sins: we did not hold Crimea. However, the following must also be said: this army, hastily created, poorly armed, for thirty-four days held back one of the best armies of the Nazi Wehrmacht. The Germans suffered heavy losses, and most importantly, time was won for the evacuation of the Odessa group of troops to the Crimea, without which the long-term defense of Sevastopol would hardly have been possible.

The trouble with the 51st Army was that, firstly, it had no combat experience and was not technically equipped enough; secondly, the forces and capabilities that it had at its disposal were sometimes used ineptly, without taking into account the prevailing situation. Nevertheless, her troops heroically defended the isthmuses, honestly fulfilling their duty. First of all, I have in mind the 156th division under the command of General Platon Vasilyevich Chernyaev and the 172nd division (in the Crimean account - the third), which during the battles was trained by an excellent officer, Colonel Ivan Grigoryevich Toroptsev, and in the most difficult days for her he headed a strong-willed , enterprising and brave Colonel Ivan Andreevich Laskin. They did their best. Let me quote from a letter from a former artillery sergeant, and now dean of the philological faculty of the pedagogical institute of Ordzhonikidze, G. I. Kravchenko: began the difficult days of the war - a feeling of love for its commanders, political workers, who fully deserved the deepest respect of the people. It is flattering for officers to leave such a memory in the sensitive heart of a soldier ... And I took up my pen to present to the reader the testimonies of an eyewitness and participant in those cruel battles, bitter for us at their end, to tell about wonderful people who selflessly fought for their native land. There is also their share in the great victory of our people over Nazi Germany. A big share!

By the way, I’ll say right away: Erich Manstein, who commanded the 11th German Army in the fall of 1941, turned out to be an extremely biased and unscrupulous memoirist. In the Crimean chapters of the book Lost Victories, he exaggerated at least four times the number of our troops defending the Perekop Isthmus and Ishun positions; for example, he credited us with three divisions from the 9th Army, which was withdrawing from behind the Dnieper along the northern bank of the Sivash (we would have been happy if we had actually received them at that time); his fantasy was especially played out when describing the abundance of modern military equipment with which our troops were allegedly equipped. I will only refer to the following anecdotal information: in the battles for Perekop and the Turkish Wall, the fascist general writes without hesitation, 10 thousand prisoners, 112 tanks and 135 guns were captured. If General Chernyaev had then had such forces, it is unlikely that Manstein would have worn the short-term laurels of the "conqueror of the Crimea." The battles were indeed the most difficult for both sides, but in them only one of our divisions, the 156th, with its regular artillery, opposed the fascist troops in the main attack sector. She forced the enemy to respect himself so much that, in order to justify the heavy losses, Manstein is forced to use a clear falsification of facts. Below you will see how events actually unfolded.

I ended up in the Crimea unexpectedly, just before the start of the war. On June 13 - 17, 1941, exercises were held in Transcaucasia, where I was the deputy commander of the district.

I just returned from them - I find out that I was ordered to urgently arrive in Moscow. The chief of staff of the district, General F.I. Tolbukhin, prepared all the necessary information and materials on the needs of the Transcaucasian Military District for the report to the People's Commissar and a brief memorandum. We had convincing evidence that large strike groups of fascist German troops were concentrating near the western borders of our country. As they say, there was already a smell of a thunderstorm, so I considered it necessary to dwell in particular on the conclusions on the situation and on the information we had about the situation on our borders.

After listening to the report, Marshal S. K. Timoshenko informed me that I had been appointed commander of the Crimean ground forces and, at the same time, commander of the 9th Corps. At the same time, the marshal did not say a word about what the relationship with the Black Sea Fleet should be, what to do in the first place if it is necessary to urgently bring the Crimea to readiness as a theater of military operations. He only casually mentioned the mobilization plan of the Odessa Military District, which organizationally included the territory of the Crimea, and let me go, saying goodbye warmly and wishing me success in my new duty station. It was June 20, 1941.

At the Simferopol airfield, I was met by the chief of staff of the 9th Rifle Corps, Colonel N. P. Barimov, with several staff commanders. At some distance stood a prominent general with the Order of the Red Banner on his chest. As it turned out later, when he introduced himself, it was the commander of the 156th division, General P.V. Chernyaev.

The sun had set, and Simferopol was resting from the exhausting heat. Life in the city flowed serenely, in the behavior of both civilians and military people there was not the slightest sign of expectation of disturbing events. So, at least, it seemed at first glance. The chief of staff said that Chernyaev's division was the only unit of rifle troops that was truly put together and trained.

Even in the Crimea there was the 106th division, formed quite recently in the North Caucasus on the basis of territorial units and barely half staffed. The Crimean troops also included the 32nd Cavalry Division, commanded by a very experienced commander, Colonel A.I. Batskalevich, the Simferopol Quartermaster Military School, and the Kachin Air Force Military School. The rear units of the Odessa Military District and local military authorities were deployed on the peninsula.

The 106th division is in good standing,” Barimov reported. - Experienced commanders and political workers crept up there, to match their divisional commander, Colonel Pervushin. Despite his youth, this is a very capable, talented commander. Yes, General Chernyaev knows him better. Alexey Nikolaevich Pervushin was not so long ago his one hundred and fifty-sixth deputy ...

The divisional commander replied that he could only give a flattering review.

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

Early military career

Pavel Batov began his military career on the battlefields of the First World War. As an 18-year-old volunteer, in 1915 he was enrolled in the training team of the 3rd Life Guards Rifle Regiment. He went to the front the following year, served as the commander of the intelligence squad, showed courage and was twice awarded the St. George Cross. After being wounded and cured in a hospital in Petrograd, he was assigned to a training team to train ensigns at the school, where the 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 as a commander of a platoon of machine gunners, then as an assistant to the head of the Rybinsk military registration and enlistment office, served in the apparatus of the military district in Moscow. Starting in 1919, he commanded a company in the combat units of the Red Army.

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

Spanish Civil War

Colonel Batov Pavel Ivanovich in 1936, under the name of Pablo Fritz, was sent as a military adviser to the Spanish Republican Army, to the 12th International Brigade under the command of the famous General Lukács, under whose name the Hungarian revolutionary Mate Zalka fought. 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 next to him in the back seat and was seriously injured, nevertheless survived.

Oddly enough, but probably this tragic episode played a role in the fact that Batov was not touched during the Yezhovshchina period, when, after being wounded, he returned to his homeland in August 1937. It is no secret that almost all military advisers who visited Spain, together with their leader Antonov-Ovseenko, were destroyed upon returning home. The Stalinist satraps did not like the people who fought side by side with the anarchists, Trotskyists, adherents of bourgeois democracy, who were many in the Spanish international brigades. But Batov, as they say, passed this cup, since it was clearly politically unprofitable to blame a person whose blood was literally mixed with the blood of General Lukacs, who became one of the symbols of resistance to fascism.

pre-war time

From August 1937, Batov successively commanded the 10th and 3rd rifle corps, participated in the campaign against Western Ukraine in September 1939, then the military merits of the commander were marked by his promotion to division commanders, and then to lieutenant general. In 1940 he was appointed deputy commander of the Transcaucasian Military District.

The initial period of the Second World War

Batov began the war as the commander of the Crimean 9th Corps, later transformed into the 51st Army, in which he became deputy commander. The army fought desperately with the Germans at Perekop and in the Kerch region, but was defeated, and in November 1941 its remnants were evacuated to the Taman Peninsula. Batov, promoted to commander, was entrusted with its reorganization.

In January 1942, he was sent to the Bryansk Front as commander of the 3rd Army, and then transferred to the front headquarters to the post of assistant commander.

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

On 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, commanded by K.K. Rokossovsky. Batov remained its commander until the end of the war.

He helped plan the Soviet counteroffensive during Operation Uranus to encircle the German 6th Paulus. His army was the key strike force in this offensive and the subsequent operation "Ring" to destroy the German group surrounded in Stalingrad.

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

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

After the war

During this period, Batov held various leadership 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 GSF in Germany, the next year - the commander of the Carpathian military district. During this period, he participated in the suppression in 1956. Later he commanded the Southern Group of Forces, was deputy chief of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces. Batov retired as an active general in 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 close friends with Marshal Rokossovsky until the latter's death in 1968, and was given the task of editing and publishing his former commander's memoirs.

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

Russia continues to remember its faithful son. Pavel Batov, a ship built in 1987 and assigned to the port of Kaliningrad, plows the seas and oceans.

Born on June 1, 1897 in the village of Felisovo, Rybinsk district, Yaroslavl province, in a peasant family. In the autumn of 1908, he was hired as a "boy" in the fruit and gastronomic shop of the merchant Leonov in St. Petersburg. In 1915, as an external student, he took exams for 6 classes of a real school. During the First World War, he volunteered for the front, where he showed great ability as a commander of a reconnaissance squad. In 1917 returned to his native village after being seriously wounded.

In 1918 he volunteered to join the Red Army. Participated in the civil war as a red commander on the Eastern Front. After the war, in 1923, Batov was appointed head of the regimental school. Then - the commander of the Moscow Proletarian Division. In 1927 he graduated from the courses "Shot" and joined the ranks of the Communist Party.

Participated in the Civil War of the Spanish people of 1936-1939, in the entry of Soviet troops into Western Ukraine and Western Belarus in 1939, in the war with Finland in 1939-1940. During the Great Patriotic War, he was commander of a rifle corps, deputy army commander, assistant commander of the Bryansk Front.

From October 1942 P.I. Batov was appointed commander of the 65th Army, which was part of the Don Front. The army acted in the direction of the main blows: in the battles of Stalingrad, Kursk, on the Dnieper, they liberated Belarus, Poland, one of the first crossed the Oder, participated in the Berlin operation. For the skillful leadership of the army troops during the crossing of the Dnieper, the capture and retention of the bridgehead on its right bank and the courage and courage shown at the same time, on October 30, 1943, Lieutenant General Batov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Pavel Ivanovich was awarded the second Gold Star medal on June 2, 1945 for exemplary leadership of troops in the Belarusian operation, during the crossing of the Vistula, the assault on Danzig (Gdansk, Poland) and the capture of Stettin (Szczecin, Poland).

In 1950 graduated from the Higher Academic Courses at the Military Academy of the General Staff, commanded the troops of the Carpathian, Baltic military districts and the Southern Group of Forces. In 1962-1965. He was Chief of Staff of the Joint Armed Forces of the Warsaw Pact member states. In 1955 he was awarded the title of "General of the Army". Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of several convocations. In 1970-1981. Pavel Ivanovich - Chairman of the Soviet Committee of War Veterans.

Since 1972 - Honorary citizen of Rybinsk, since 1983. - Yaroslavl region.

Awarded:

  • eight orders of Lenin,
  • Order of the October Revolution
  • three orders of the Red Banner,
  • three Orders of Suvorov I degree,
  • Order of Kutuzov I degree,
  • Order of Bohdan Khmelnitsky I degree,
  • Order of the Badge of Honor,
  • medals,
  • honorary weapon,
  • foreign orders.

Pavel Ivanovich Batov (May 20 (June 1), 1897, Filisovo village, Yaroslavl province - April 19, 1985, Moscow) - Soviet military leader, twice Hero of the Soviet Union, army general, participant in the First World War, Civil in Russia, Civil in Spain, Soviet -Finnish and World War II, deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR 1-5 convocations.

Pavel Ivanovich Batov was born on May 20 (June 1), 1897 in the village of Filisovo, Rybinsk district, Yaroslavl province, into a poor peasant family. Russian. He graduated from the 2nd grade of a rural school. At the age of 13, due to the extreme poverty of his family, he left for St. Petersburg, where he got a job in the trading house of the Leonov brothers. For 5 years he worked as a loader and a peddler of purchases and orders in the apartments of wealthy citizens. Despite the difficult working conditions, he passed the exams for six classes as an external student and planned to continue his studies.

World War I. P. I. Batov in the tsarist army, 1916

A year after the outbreak of the First World War, Pavel Batov entered the service in the tsarist army. In 1916 he graduated from the training team and was sent to the front, where he became the commander of the intelligence squad. For distinction in battles, he was awarded two St. George's crosses and two medals. In the autumn of 1916, returning with a "tongue", he was seriously wounded in the head and sent to Petrograd for treatment. In 1917 he graduated from the ensign school training team and in the same year, with the rank of junior non-commissioned officer, completed his service in the imperial army.

Russian Civil War

In 1917, after being wounded and shell-shocked, P.I. Batov came to his native village on vacation for three months.

After the October Revolution in August 1918, P.I. Batov voluntarily joined the Red Army and was first appointed commander of a machine-gun platoon of the 1st Soviet Rifle Regiment. Soon he was appointed assistant military leader for march formations at the Rybinsk military registration and enlistment office, then assistant military leader of the Reserve Command Staff of the Moscow Military District. Participated in the suppression of the Romanovo-Borisoglebsky peasant uprising against the Soviet regime. Since 1919, assistant company commander, then company commander. As part of the 320th Infantry Regiment, he participated in battles against the troops of Baron Wrangel and the liberation of Crimea.

Interwar period

After the end of the Civil War, P.I. Batov commanded a battalion in the Moscow Proletarian Rifle Division. In 1927 he graduated from the Shooting and tactical advanced training courses for the command staff of the Red Army "Shot". In the same year he joined the ranks of the CPSU (b). Since 1931 - chief of staff, and since 1934 - commander of the 3rd rifle regiment of the Moscow Proletarian rifle division. Hero of the Soviet Union G.V. Baklanov, who at that time served under the leadership of Batov, admitted in his memoirs that the latter influenced his choice of profession.

And then, when I decided my fate by choosing a profession, none other than Pavel Ivanovich Batov helped to understand this, so to speak, theoretically, speculatively. It was he who, in the first year of my service in the Moscow Proletarian Division, often involving me in staff work, revealed to me the high and noble meaning of the activity of a career commander, the military profession.

Spanish Civil War

From December 1936 to August 1937, under the pseudonym Pablo Fritz, he was on a business trip in Spain, where he took part in the fight against the Franco regime on the side of the Republicans. He served as a military adviser in the 12th International Brigade of Mate Zalka, then as an adviser to the Teruel Front. During one of the reconnaissances, P.I. Batov was seriously wounded. Upon his return to the USSR, he was awarded the Orders of Lenin and the Red Banner and was appointed commander of the 10th Rifle Corps. From August 1938 he was commander of the 3rd Rifle Corps. In this position, he participated in the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940. and in the campaign to liberate the western regions of Belarus and Ukraine.

From April 1940 he was deputy commander of the Transcaucasian Military District.

The Great Patriotic War

A few days before the start of the Great Patriotic War, P. I. Batov was urgently summoned to Moscow, where the People's Commissar of Defense S. K. Timoshenko informed him of his appointment "to the post of commander of the Crimean ground forces and at the same time commander of the 9th corps." In this position, in the initial period of the war, he organized the antiamphibious defense of the Crimean peninsula. By the decision of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command of August 14, 1941, the 51st Separate Army was created on the basis of the 9th Rifle Corps. Colonel General F. I. Kuznetsov was appointed commander of the army, and P. I. Batov was appointed his deputy. In the second half of September, when the advanced units of the 11th German Army approached the Crimea from the north, by the decision of F.I. Kuznetsov, Batov headed the task force designed to launch counterattacks. He led the actions of the troops in repelling the attempts of German troops to break into the Crimea through the Perekop isthmus.

November 19 - December 1941 (after the evacuation of the army from the Crimea) - Commander of the 51st Separate Army. He supervised the preparation of the army for the Kerch-Feodosiya landing operation.

At the end of December 1941, after the death of P. S. Pshennikov, P. I. Batov was appointed commander of the 3rd Army of the Bryansk Front. At that moment, the army, with the forces of five rifle divisions, took up defenses east of Orel at the turn of the Zusha River. In January-February 1942, by order of the front commander Ya. T. Cherevichenko, the 3rd Army launched a series of offensive operations, however, having suffered heavy losses, it did not achieve success. In his memoirs, Batov writes about this period:

It was a difficult time, from the moral side it can be no less difficult than in the days of the defense of Crimea. The duty of a soldier is to follow orders. However, a sense of duty forced in this case to protest. Our relations with Cherevichenko became strained.

In February 1942, P. I. Batov was relieved of his post as commander of the army and appointed acting assistant to the commander of the Bryansk Front for formations. In September of the same year, he was appointed to this position. Since at that time there were no other sources of replenishment, his task was to check the front-line rear in order to identify the possibility of replenishing combat units. As a result of this work, several thousand fighters were gathered in the rear of the front, armies and divisions, who could be sent to combat positions without prejudice to the activities of the rear services.

Battle of Stalingrad

In the autumn of 1942, the Battle of Stalingrad broke out in the southwestern direction. On September 30, the Don Front was formed here under the command of Lieutenant General K.K. Rokossovsky. At his request, Batov was appointed commander of the 4th Panzer Army, which became part of the new front. Took command on 14 October. By this time, the army occupied a defense with a length of 80 km on a small bend of the Don from Kletskaya to Trekhostrovskaya and consisted of nine divisions. The commander began his acquaintance with his subordinates with a visit to the advanced positions located on the Kletsky bridgehead. To check the battle formations and study his troops, he visited the battalions of the first echelon for almost the entire next month. On October 22, 1942, the 4th Tank Army was reorganized into the 65th Army, which Batov commanded until the end of the war.

In the second half of October, three fronts of the Red Army, the South-Western, Don and Stalingrad, began preparing an operation to encircle the 6th German Army, which was storming Stalingrad. Within the framework of the Don Front, the 65th Army was assigned the main role. She had to, advancing from the Kletsky bridgehead, break through the German defenses, go to the Peskovatka area and cover the Sirotinsky Wehrmacht grouping from the south-west. Thus, the 65th Army was supposed to cover the left flank of the 21st Army of the neighboring Southwestern Front from a possible counterattack, inflicting the main blow of the entire operation.

During the preparation of the offensive, Batov tried to achieve a clear and precise understanding by each commander of his task in the upcoming operation, ways of interacting with neighbors, artillery, tanks, and infantry. Also, a method was introduced into the practice of working out the details of the upcoming operation on a box of sand, which was a layout of the area with conventional signs of a tactical situation applied.

On November 19, 1942, the troops of the Don and Southwestern fronts went on the offensive. By the end of the first day of the offensive, the troops of the 65th Army advanced 5-8 km forward, but they could not completely break through the enemy’s first line of defense. To increase the pace of the offensive, Batov decided to create a mobile strike group from all the tanks available in the army and several rifle units on vehicles. The calculation of the commander fully justified itself. During the first day, the mobile detachment advanced 23 kilometers deep into the German defenses. Feeling the threat of envelopment, the enemy weakened the resistance in front of the army front. The shock divisions immediately took advantage of this and, having mastered a number of large centers of resistance, began to move forward faster. They were assisted by a mobile group, striking at the flank and rear of the enemy. For more efficient command and control of the troops, the army commander spent almost all the time from November 20 to 23 with a small group of officers in the units fighting.

Meanwhile, the neighboring 24th Army, which had the task of cutting off the enemy's retreat to the eastern bank of the Don, acted unsuccessfully. Having met stubborn resistance, the army troops were unable to break through the German defenses and were drawn into heavy fighting. Taking into account this circumstance, as well as the successful offensive of the 65th Army, the front commander adjusted the plan of operation and assigned the task of capturing Vertyachim to the 65th Army. From November 24 to 27, despite the strong resistance and counterattacks of the enemy, its troops managed to advance another 25-40 km and reach the Don, and in the battles from November 28 to 30 they captured Vertyachim.

Later, the 65th Army, as part of the Don Front, participated in the operation to destroy the encircled German group. In total, in the Battle of Stalingrad, the army destroyed over 30,000 and captured about 26,500 Nazis.

central front

Soon after the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, the Don Front was abolished, and on its basis, the Central Front was formed northwest of Kursk. The front headquarters was located in Yelets. On February 18, the administration of the 65th Army also arrived here. Here, Batov was given the task of as soon as possible in the conditions of winter impassibility to gather troops, many of which were on the way to the place of concentration, and prepare them for a further offensive.

In February-March 1943, the army, together with other troops of the front, carried out the Sevskaya offensive operation in the northern direction and advanced 30-60 kilometers to the west. During the Battle of Kursk, the 65th Army held the line against the 20th Army Corps in the Sevsk area.

From August 26 to September 30, as part of the Central Front, she participated in the Chernigov-Pripyat operation, defense in the Sevsk region, crossing the river. Desna, the liberation of the city of Novgorod-Seversky, passed with difficult battles about 300 kilometers and by September 30 reached the middle course of the river. Dnieper near the city of Loev.

Pavel Ivanovich Batov began to prepare troops for crossing the Dnieper, using non-standard and regular means of crossing. On October 15, 1943, by 10 o'clock, after a powerful artillery preparation, the 4th battalion captured a bridgehead on the right bank of the river and held it all day. At night, army formations began to cross along the established crossings. Heated battles unfolded for the expansion of the bridgehead, and by October 27, formations of the 65th Army recaptured it along the front for 35 and 20 kilometers in depth. With the capture of strategic bridgeheads on the Dnieper, conditions were created for an offensive in Belarus and the complete liberation of right-bank Ukraine.

In the battle for the Dnieper, the troops showed mass heroism and courage. 438 soldiers, sergeants, officers and generals of all branches of the military were awarded the title of Heroes. The Military Council of the 65th Army wrote a conclusion on each award sheet: "Worthy of being awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union."

In the battle for the Dnieper, the army suffered significant losses in personnel and command staff. Pavel Ivanovich Batov decided to send 100 best Heroes of the Soviet Union to the army courses of junior lieutenants, and wonderful platoon commanders came out of them.

2nd Belorussian Front

Participated in the Kalinkovichi-Mozyr operation and in the Bagration operation.

The troops of the commander P. I. Batov as part of the 2nd Belorussian Front took part in the Vistula-Oder, Mlav-Elbing, East Prussian, East Pomeranian and Berlin offensive operations.

Particularly stubborn battles were fought by the army of P.I. Batov when crossing the Vistula and Oder rivers.

The last volley at the enemy in the zone of the 65th Army was fired by Katyusha volleys at the garrison on the island of Rügen.

The second medal "Gold Star" was awarded to Lieutenant General Batov on June 26, 1945 for exemplary leadership of troops in the Belarusian operation, while crossing the river. Vistula, the assault on Danzig and the capture of Stettin.

After the war

In the postwar period, P. I. Batov commanded the 7th and 11th armies (1945-1950), was the first deputy commander-in-chief of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, commander of the Carpathian and Baltic military districts (1950-58), a senior military specialist in People's Liberation Army of China.

In 1962-65. Batov was appointed chief of staff of the Joint Armed Forces of the Warsaw Pact member states, then transferred to the group of inspectors general of the USSR Ministry of Defense. In 1970-81. was chairman of the Soviet Committee of War Veterans. He was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR 1-5 convocations. He actively collaborated with military publishing houses, wrote books: "In campaigns and battles", "Perekop 1941" and others. In the 70s. for some time he was the host of the TV almanac "Feat".

Batov served in the tsarist, red and Soviet armies for 70 years.

Pavel Ivanovich Batov died on April 19, 1985. He was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.

A family

P. I. Batov was married to Yuzef Semyonovna. Two daughters were born in the marriage - Margarita and Galina.

Awards

  • two Gold Star Medals of the Hero of the Soviet Union
  • eight orders of Lenin
  • three orders of the Red Banner
  • Order of the October Revolution
  • three orders of Suvorov 1st degree
  • Order of Kutuzov 1st class
  • Order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky 1st class
  • Order "For Service to the Motherland in the Armed Forces of the USSR" 3rd class
  • Order of the Badge of Honor
  • "For military prowess. In commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin"
  • Medal "XX Years of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army"
  • Medal "For the Defense of Stalingrad"
  • Medal "For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945"
  • Medal "For the Liberation of Warsaw", as well as commemorative medals of the USSR and the Honorary Weapon with a golden image of the State Emblem of the USSR.
  • Orders and medals of foreign states:
  • Order of the British Empire Commander's Cross
  • Order of Poland
  • Virtuti Military
  • Order of the "Cross of Grunwald" II degree
  • Commander's Cross
  • Rebirth of Poland
  • Two orders of the People's Republic of Bulgaria II degree
  • Romanian Order of Tudor Vladimirescu 1st class
  • Hungarian Order of the Red Banner
  • Mongolian orders
  • Order of Sukhbaatar
  • Battle Red Banner
  • Order of Merit to the Fatherland in Gold (GDR)
  • 11 medals from different countries.

Pavel Ivanovich Batov is an honorary citizen of the city of Rybinsk (1972) and the Yaroslavl region (1983), the cities of Novgorod-Seversky, Loeva, Rechitsa, Ozerka, the Polish cities of Gdansk and Szczecin.

The English King George VI awarded him the honorary title of "Knight Commander".

Memory

An avenue and a street in Rybinsk, streets in Bryansk, Yaroslavl, Volgograd, Bobruisk, Donetsk, Makeevka are named after P.I. Batov. In Rybinsk, at the Fire of Glory Memorial Complex, a bronze bust was erected to him, and a museum was created in his homeland.

“Hatred of an invader enemy is a sacred and most humane feeling. But it is born with such pain of the heart and torment of the soul that God forbid anyone experience it a second time ... "

Army General Pavel Batov

General Fritz, envied by Field Marshal Montgomery

What does great military leader mean? What meaning do people put into this phrase? How did the legendary Alexander the Great, in addition to his "blue blood", differ from his associates? How were the brains of the great Napoleon Bonaparte arranged in such a strategic-tactical way? How His Serene Highness Prince Golenishchev-Kutuzov thought, in order to forever remain in history a glorified commander. What is more in their fate: luck, advantageous positions or foresight and brilliant knowledge? And how are great military leaders born and is there something in common in their biographies, something that makes them outstanding figures in military operations?

There is a monument to Army General Pavel Ivanovich Batov in Rybinsk. How many of them were - the generals of the Second World War? Dozens, hundreds. Modern youth will remember several names: Zhukov, Rokossovsky, Rybalko ... And even then more by street names. But it was really a brilliant galaxy of military leaders, generals, commanders, for whose military glory, on May 9, veterans still raise a glass and drink it standing up.

Soldiers, as you know, are not born. Even more so with generals. What was so unusual about the fate of Pavel Batov that made him an army general, twice Hero of the Soviet Union? For which he first received two St. George's Crosses, and then eight Orders of Lenin (more than Marshal Zhukov), the Order of the October Revolution, three Orders of the Red Banner, three Orders of Suvorov, the Order of Kutuzov, Bogdan Khmelnitsky, the Patriotic War of the 1st degree, "For service to the Motherland in the Armed Forces of the USSR "of the third degree, not counting medals and foreign awards?

From non-commissioned officer to regimental commander

"... Love your people... Learn to serve them faithfully and truthfully, without prejudice."Army General Batov.

"The tiny village of Filisovo in the Upper Volga region, the poor family of a father who dreamed of a horse all his life." This is how Pavel Ivanovich Batov recalled his childhood.

He was the youngest son in a large peasant family, where every potato counted, and sugar was considered an unprecedented delicacy. Therefore, no one tried to keep Pavlusha when in the fall of 1908 he gathered "to the people." "People" turned out to be St. Petersburg merchants, the Leonov brothers. For five long years, Pavel dragged heavy boxes of Madeira and sacks of flour in their fruit and gastronomic trading house. And he dreamed of golden shoulder straps - the First World War was in full swing.

In the end, dreams were embodied in an escape to the front. The royal army did not immediately accept Paul. The very first officer he met on the way to military glory dissuaded: “Do not rush, you will have time to fight ...” But you will not escape fate. In 1915, Pavel was enrolled in a training team and went to the front in the Life Guards of the 3rd Rifle Regiment of the Guards Rifle Brigade.

On the Northern Front, the commander of the reconnaissance squad, Batov, received his first baptism of fire. And here his career as a combat junior non-commissioned officer ended. The raid into the German rear proved fatal. Taking the "language", the group came under heavy fire from the enemy.

The wound turned out to be severe, Pavel woke up already in the hospital. There they handed him the St. George Cross and a referral to study at the Peterhof School of Ensigns. By 1918, he already had the rank of ensign. And in the same year he voluntarily joined the Red Army and returned to his native village in the Rybinsk region.

About how Batov came to the recognition of the Bolsheviks, it is worth mentioning separately. It was in the tsarist army that Pavel met Savkov, a worker at the Putilov factory. Already after the Great Patriotic War, Pavel Ivanovich recalled: “Savkov, a Putilov worker in a soldier’s overcoat, was one of the dearest people for me. From him in 1916 he first heard the name Lenin and learned to understand why a Russian soldier had a rifle in his hands. Savkov, on his shoulders, carried me out, seriously wounded, when we went on a search. I… saw our dear Putilov on the last day of his life. It was already in the civil war. We took Shenkursk. The commissar of the rifle brigade Savkov was in the first line of attackers; there, near Shenkursk, a White Guard bullet caught him.

The Red Army accepted the hero of the First World War with open arms. The Bolsheviks were in dire need of young and experienced military men. And in the same 1918, Pavel Batov, being the commander of a machine-gun platoon of the 1st Soviet rifle regiment, already suppressed the actions against the Soviet power of the Romanovo-Borisoglebsky peasantry, counter-revolutionary rebellions in Rybinsk, Yaroslavl, Poshekhonye.
After success in defeating the rebellions, Batov was transferred as an assistant military leader for march formations at the Rybinsk military registration and enlistment office, and later as an assistant military leader of the Reserve of Command and Command Staff of the Moscow Military District. As part of the 320th Infantry Regiment, company commander Batov participated in the defeat of Wrangel's troops and the liberation of Crimea. In 1929, already a regiment commander, Batov joined the Communist Party. Here is an example of one testimonial given to a candidate member of the party: “Comrade Batov has been in command of the regiment for three years. All this time, the regiment ranks first in the division in all sections of combat and political training ... "

Batov went from company commander to regiment commander for almost 15 years. But it was these years that he considered the most important in his commanding career.
“Sometimes you have to watch,” he recalled after the war, “how quickly some officers grow in the service. He commands a platoon for a year, a company for half a year, a battalion for another year, and now give him a regiment. Such a commander resembles a man on stilts. It stands high, visible from afar, but there is no stability, since it is weakly connected to the ground.

Fritz Pablo - Hemingway's friend

“Do you know why all the Nazi soldiers were called Fritz during the war?

- It's a common name like Carl, David or Kurt.

- Don't guess. Let me explain. One of my favorite warriors, General Batov in the Spanish war, was encrypted and became Fritz Pablo. Journalists liked this German name. And they began to call every fascist Fritz. Batov was offended, but there was nothing he could do about it.”

From folklore

In October 1936, the commander of the Red Army regiment, Batov, arrived in Spain. Here he became Pablo Fritz. Pseudonyms were an indispensable attribute of the international brigades. Friends and associates of Batov wore the same nicknames, sometimes without any association with a real character: General Lukacs (Mate Zalku), Douglas (Aviation General Yakov Smushkevich), Pavlito (Alexander Rodimtsev, the future hero of Stalingrad), Basilio (Soviet military attache in the Spanish Republic of Gorev). The quite expected Nicholas (future Admiral Nikolai Kuznetsov) and Malino (future Marshal Rodion Malinovsky) stand out from this series.

Pablo - Pavel, but Fritz? Maybe because Batov looked like a typical German? Short, lean, ascetically built. One way or another, Batov gained fame in Spain under this operational pseudonym.

First, he was appointed as an adviser to the commander of the Republican Army brigade, one of the most talented military leaders of the anti-fascist war, Enrique Lister, and then was sent as an adviser to the commander of the 12th International Brigade, General Lukács, the famous Hungarian writer, hero of the Civil War, Mate Zalka.

There were fighters of seventeen nationalities in the Lukacs brigade - Germans, French, Hungarians, Russians ... Later, in his memoirs, Pavel Ivanovich wrote about his fellow internationalists: “One of the fighters, a Yugoslav anti-fascist, non-party worker Per, whom I met on the very first day upon arrival in Albacete, he said that he was arrested four times by the police: Austrian, Czech, Swiss and French - while he was getting to Spain. Two Romanians, railroad workers, the Burka brothers, were arrested three times. 20-year-old Polish youths Petren and Janek, workers in a cloth factory in Lodz, went all over Germany and France on foot to get to Spain. They had no money for the road, and the miserable pennies earned on daily work on the way went entirely to meager food. Still, the patriots achieved their goal. The English miners Anthony and George, as they were called in the brigade, traveled to Spain on three steamboats, having spent all their savings. Canadian miner Georg Fet enlisted in the United States of America as a stoker of a merchant ship, arrived at a French port and from there on foot came to Spain. Neither difficulties nor dangers broke the morale of the volunteers. Listening to their stories, it was impossible not to be proud of the solidarity of the working people of all countries.

In 1937, an artillery shell hit the car of General Lukács. The general was killed, political commissar Fritz Pablo was seriously injured.

For his courage in Spain, Pavel Batov was awarded the Orders of Lenin and the Red Banner.

There are many legends and stories about Batov. Here is one of them, connected with Spain and capable of shedding light on the character of the general.

Batov's personal driver in Spain was Semyon Poberezhnik. Many years later, recalling his driver, the general will write: “In my life as a professional military man who participated in six wars, there were many interesting meetings with a variety of people who have long been remembered. But I especially remember a man of unusual fate, a Bukovinian peasant, a grain grower by vocation, who passionately loves the land, Semyon Yakovlevich Poberezhnik. He saved my life by taking the seriously wounded out of the battle ... "

At one time, Semyon traveled the whole world in search of a better life: he was a sailor on a Belgian bulk carrier, a cook in Paris, and worked for Ford in America. Knew five languages. This circumstance became decisive when GRU adviser Khadzhi-Umar Mamsurov, who was in Spain under the pseudonym "Xanthi", suggested Poberezhnik to enter the intelligence school. Pavel Batov gave a recommendation to his driver.

The first "business trip abroad" was Italy, where the intelligence officer-informant collected information about the combat composition of the Italian navy. Then he was sent to Bulgaria. Alfred Joseph Mooney, as they began to call him then, radioed to Moscow about the meeting of the Bulgarian Tsar Boris with Hitler, about the secret visit to Sofia by Admiral Canaris ... When Poberezhnik returned to Moscow, he was accused of betrayal. Investigators prepared an indictment. By a special meeting at the NKVD of the USSR on September 8, 1945, Semyon Poberezhnik was sentenced to 10 years in camps and 2 years of residence in a special settlement.

Having fully served his term, Poberezhnik found Batov. And the general forced the authorities to reconsider the intelligence officer's case. As a result, Semyon Poberezhnik received a new “clean” passport, in accordance with the legislation that existed in those years, he was paid two salary salaries and was solemnly awarded medals: “Participant in the National Revolutionary War in Spain 1936-1939”, a Polish medal “ For our and your freedom”, Italian medal named after Giuseppe Garibaldi, Order of the Patriotic War II degree.

The general also made new friends in Spain. Front cameraman Roman Karmen, with whom he liked to remember the Spanish events after the war. AND…

Ernest Hemingway. Some sources claim that it was Batov who became the prototype of General Goltz in the novel For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Beat the enemy with art

“... Rokossovsky introduced Batov to Montgomery: “This is the same general who first crossed the Oder and opened the door to Berlin.” The Englishman looked at Batov intently, shook his hand for a long time and suddenly asked: “Are you by any chance a relative of Suvorov? I know history well and have seen his portraits. Your resemblance to the generalissimo is striking: short, thin and exactly the same tuft on the back of his head ... ". “Almost guessed it, sir,” Rokossovsky laughed, “my soldiers call Batov - our Suvorov.”

From the memoirs of Vyacheslav Lukashin

After Spain, Batov received command first of the 10th, then the 3rd rifle corps, participated in the liberation of Western Belarus and in the Soviet-Finnish war in 1939-1940. For the battles on the Karelian Isthmus he was awarded the Order of Lenin. He was awarded the military rank of brigade commander. Batov met the beginning of the Great Patriotic War as the commander of the 9th separate rifle corps. In August 1941, he was transferred to the post of deputy commander of the 51st Army, which defended the Crimea.

Army formations under the command of Batov took an active part in the Kerch-Feodosia landing operation. And on November 19, 1941, after the army was evacuated from the territory of Crimea, Pavel Ivanovich became its commander.

In January 1942, Batov received command of the 3rd Army of the Southwestern Front, then the Bryansk Front. For more than six months, Lieutenant General Batov served as assistant to the front commander, General Rokossovsky. He held this position during the most difficult defensive battles of the Battle of Stalingrad.

Here is what Marshal of the Soviet Union Konstantin Rokossovsky writes in his memoirs: “Somehow, while in the 65th Army, in a friendly conversation over a cup of tea, I reminded Pavel Ivanovich Batov of our telephone conversation. And this was during the heavy December battles, when we were urgently required to defeat the newly encircled enemy as quickly as possible, but we did not have enough forces and means for this. Calling Batov to the phone, I asked how the offensive was developing.

“The troops are advancing,” was the reply.

- How are they progressing?

- They crawl.

- Have you crawled far?

- To the second horizontal of the Cossack barrow.

Despite the annoyance that I experienced from such answers, I was laughed out loud. Understanding the condition of the army commander and the current situation, I told him: since his troops were forced to crawl and they managed to get only to some imaginary horizontal line, I order you to stop the offensive, withdraw the troops to their original position and go on the defensive, conducting power reconnaissance in order to keep the enemy in suspense".

And here is how Pavel Ivanovich himself talks about the same situation: “... In the meantime, a small operation was organized on the right flank of the army. Checking the readiness for the offensive, the front commander ordered the Five Kurgans to be cleared of the enemy. This case was entrusted to the divisional commander V.S. Askalepov. The 173rd went into battle well. In the evening Askalepov reported: "One mound has been taken." Ivan Semyonovich (chief of staff) sent a report about this to the front headquarters with a sense of satisfaction. On the second day Askalepov reported: "The second barrow has been taken." Very good! .. On the third day, Rokossovsky called me to the phone and asked with icy politeness, in a slightly vibrating voice:

— Pavel Ivanovich! I ask you to inform me how many mounds you are going to take at the level of one hundred and thirty-five zero?

The chief of staff looked at me sympathetically:

Looks like they've made history! Have you seen these mounds yourself?

... In a word, no burial mounds were found. They existed only in the name of the skyscraper. Fortunately, the offensive began, and the “hunting” stories of the division commander of the 173rd ended safely, without penalty ... "

... During the operation during the Battle of Stalingrad, called the "Ring", Batov for the first time used the method of artillery support for an attack with a single fire shaft - in the offensive zone, Soviet troops managed to create a concentration of artillery and mortars exceeding 200 units per kilometer of the front. This tactic has since become widespread. For the operation "Ring" Pavel Ivanovich Batov was awarded the Order of Suvorov, I degree.

After the end of the battle on the Volga, the troops of the 65th Army were transferred to the Central Front. In the Chernigov-Pripyat operation, advancing in the direction of the main attack, Batov's army broke through the enemy's defenses, launched an offensive and captured important bridgeheads on the western bank of the Sozh River, then crossed the Dnieper, cut the strategic railway supply lines of German troops in the Gomel region.

For "organization of a clear interaction of subordinate troops during the crossing of the Dnieper, a strong hold on the bridgehead on the western bank of the river and personal courage and courage shown at the same time," by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Lieutenant-General Pavel Ivanovich Batov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the Order of Lenin and a medal "Golden Star".

Fellow soldiers recall that the commander Batov was distinguished by the ability to foresee the development of events and make informed decisions. He was a supporter of new, unexpected methods of warfare. Batov carefully analyzed the features of the combat situation, determined the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy, made an accurate calculation, and only then made a decision. He said: "We must beat the enemy with art, which means - with little bloodshed."

So, during the Bobruisk operation in 1944, on the initiative of Batov, a double barrage of fire was used to a depth of two and a half kilometers in a narrow six-kilometer section of the breakthrough to support the attack of infantry and tanks. Following a powerful strike by aviation, artillery and rifle corps, the 1st Guards Tank Corps was brought into the battle. This allowed Batov's army to advance up to two hundred kilometers in the Slutsk direction, inflict a heavy defeat on the enemy, and create conditions for a further offensive. For the successful conduct of this operation, Pavel Ivanovich was awarded the military rank of colonel general, the Order of Kutuzov, 1st degree, and a gold watch from the High Command.

In January 1945, the army went on the offensive in Eastern Pomerania, participated in the liberation of the cities of Gdynia and Danzig. Then there was an offensive on Stettin and access to the coast of the Baltic Sea in the Rostock region.

On June 2, 1945, Colonel-General Batov was awarded the second Gold Star medal by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR "for the initiative and courage shown in organizing the crossing of the Oder River and the capture of the city of Stettin".

“Few people know,” says the head of the Institute of Military History, General Pavel Zhilin, “but the first to break into Berlin and capture Hitler was the dream of British Field Marshal Montgomery. Because of this, he even quarreled with General Eisenhower. However, Batov confused the cards for one and the other ... ". The commander was the first to cross the Oder and opened the way for our troops to Berlin.

Knight Commander

"The battle carried out twice - first in thoughts, and then in actions.

Army General Pavel Batov

“General Batov was not just a major military leader, he was a military theorist. Military historians are studying and will continue to study the operations carried out by the general's troops. He wrote many articles, studies and memoirs. But in all his works there was one drawback: he spoke in detail and in detail about tactics, people, and almost nothing about himself.

“He was closely connected with the troops, knew his subordinates very well, appreciated them, and the subordinates loved their commander for courage and fearlessness, for humanity and spiritual generosity ...” - this is how his colleague Colonel Laskin recalled Batov. And it is no coincidence that Marshal of the Soviet Union Rokossovsky noted in his memoirs that he knew only two major military leaders whom his subordinates not only respected, but also sincerely loved - Ivan Chernyakhovsky and Pavel Batov.

“He was a cruel man who sent a penal battalion to the minefields to reduce the losses of his army. For him, the death of a hundred or so penalized soldiers is a trifle compared to the victims of poor intelligence of the 65th Army.

“He questioned the participation of Stalin and Khrushchev in the fighting of the Battle of Stalingrad. When a meeting was held in Moscow on the occasion of the anniversary of the defeat of the enemy near Stalingrad, at the end of the official part, one officer turned to the general who was there with the question: “Comrade General, please tell me, was Stalin in Stalingrad when the famous battle was going on?” There was a pause, then Batov said: "I don't know." The officer again turned to Batov: “Comrade General, was Khrushchev in Stalingrad?” Another pause, then the answer follows: "I don't know." But he knew that he was telling a lie.”

... Like any strong and integral personality, Batov is complex and contradictory. And the attitude towards him cannot be unambiguous. It is not for us, the inhabitants of the 21st century, to judge a military leader who made decisions in an extreme military environment. One thing is clear: Batov was an outstanding tactician of military operations, whose merits are recognized by his comrades-in-arms and appreciated by historians. And whose biography did not end with the First World, Civil, Spanish, Finnish, Second World Wars.

After the war, Pavel Ivanovich Batov commanded mechanized and combined arms armies, was the first deputy commander in chief of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany.

In 1950 he graduated from the Higher Academic Courses at the Military Academy of the General Staff. In 1955 he was awarded the military rank of General of the Army. Until 1962, Batov commanded successively the Carpathian Military District, the Baltic Military District, and the Southern Group of Forces.

In 1962, Batov was appointed Chief of Staff of the Joint Armed Forces of the Warsaw Pact member states. From 1965 until the end of his life he worked in the Group of General Inspectors of the USSR Ministry of Defense. And from 1970 to 1981 he was chairman of the Soviet Committee of War Veterans.

His face is well known to the post-war generation from television appearances. And Rybinsk remembers his meetings with veterans and schoolchildren.

Pavel Batov is an honorary citizen of Rybinsk, the Yaroslavl region, the cities of Novgorod-Seversky, Loeva, Rechitsa, Ozerka, Polish Gdansk and Szczecin. The publication "Independent Military Review" puts him in second place among the commanders of combined arms armies. And the King of Great Britain George VI for the Battle of Stalingrad awarded him the highest order of the British Empire with the title of "Knight Commander".

Army General Batov died on April 19, 1985 and was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy Cemetery.

... The battle is carried out twice - said General Batov. This, probably, is a common feature of the famous commanders - the ability to predict the actions of the enemy and take into account every little thing in the upcoming battle. And only then engage in a real battle.