Krylov, Nikolai Ivanovich
Krylov, Nikolai Ivanovich
Born Apr. 16 (29), 1903, in the village of Galiaevka, now Vishnevoe, Tamala Raion, Penza Oblast; died Feb. 9, 1972, in Moscow. Soviet military commander; marshal of the Soviet Union (1962); twice Hero of the Soviet Union (Apr. 19, 1945, and Sept. 8, 1945). Member of the CPSU from 1927. Son of an office worker.
Krylov entered the Red Army in 1919 and fought in the Civil War on the Southern, Transcaucasian, and Far Eastern fronts as a platoon, company, and battalion commander. He graduated from infantry and machine-gun courses in 1920 and from Vystrel, the Higher Officers Training School, in 1928. In 1922 he held his first command and staff positions. In the Great Patriotic War (1941^*5), Krylov served on the Southern, Northern Caucasian, Stalingrad, Don, Southwestern, Western, Third Byelorussian, and First Far Eastern fronts as chief of the operations department of an army staff (July-August 1941), chief of staff of the Primor’e, Sixty-second and Eighth Guards armies (1941–43), and commander of the troops of the Twenty-first and Fifth armies (May 1943-September 1945). He participated in the defense of Odessa and Sevastopol’, in the battle of Stalingrad (1942–43), in the Smolensk operation of 1943, in the Byelorussian operation of 1944, in the East Prussian operation of 1945, and in the Harbin-Kirin operation of 1945.
After the war Krylov served as deputy commander of the troops of the Primor’e Military District (1945–47), commander and first deputy commander of the troops of the Far Eastern Military District (1947–56), and commander of the troops of the Ural’sk (1956–57), Leningrad (1957–60), and Moscow (I960–63) military districts. In March 1963, Krylov became commander in chief of the strategic missile forces and deputy minister of defense of the USSR.
He became a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1961; he was a deputy to the third through the eighth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Krylov was awarded four Orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, four Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of Suvorov First Class, the Order of Kutuzov First Class, the Honorary Arms with a gold representation of the State Emblem of the USSR, various medals, and several orders and medals of foreign states. Krylov is the author of the memoirs It Will Never Fade (1969), Toward Victory (1970, coauthor), and The Bastion in Flame (1972). He is buried in Red Square at the Kremlin wall.