Pavel Gayev


Pavel Vitalyevich Gayev was a Soviet military intelligence officer, guards colonel, deputy commander of the 13th Guards Rifle Division.

Early years

Gayev was born on 17 August 1901 in Nizhny Tagil in a workers family. Initially, he only completed a two-year course of a zemstvo primary school in 1913. In 1918 he volunteered to serve in the Red Army were later he completed political courses of the Kharkov Military District and the Military Political School of the Kiev Military District.

Russian Civil War

Gayev started his military service as an enlisted Red Army man in the Communist Battalion. He participated in the Russian Civil War, took part in a number of battles.
He served as a politruk and commander of a number of rifle companies. From September 1921 to August 1922, Gayev was a military controller of the Military counterintelligence of the [Soviet Army|Special Department No. 5] in Proskurov. In 1928 he was selected to attend an officer training course known as Vystrel which he graduated from in 1929.

Military intelligence service

In 1934 Gayev completed a course of the M. V. Frunze Military Academy and was assigned to serve as a staff officer of the 69th Kharkiv Rifle Regiment and the 6th Andijan Rifle Regiment. He was later assigned to the staff of the Kiev Military District where he served in between the August 1935 and August 1936.
In August 1936 he was selected to serve in the Red Army Intelligence Directorate system and in 1937 he joined the office of the Red Army Military attaché in Warsaw, Poland. Gayev was fluent in Polish and German languages.
Upon completion of his mission in Poland, he served as the Red Army Intelligence Directorate officer and chief of military intelligence in the staff of the Odessa Military District.
According to archival documents Gaev on request of the Chief of the Red Army Intelligence Filipp Golikov conducted during this period a verification of intelligence reports from the Bucharest resident on the preparation of German invasion in the USSR.

German-Soviet War

In the war period, Gayev was involved in combat operations from the end of July 1941, initially as chief of military intelligence in the staff of the 9th Army. This time 9th Army participated in the battle of Rostov (1941) and in the Barvenkovo–Lozovaya operation.
In 1943 he graduated from a short course of the Military Academy of the [General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia|K. E. Voroshilov General Staff Military Academy] and was assigned a deputy commander of the 13th Guards Rifle Division. In the division command he played a notable role in the liberation of Poltava and the battle of the Dnieper. Gayev was awarded the Order of the Red Banner for commanding the vanguard detachment in the successful crossing the Vorskla river which allowed the Soviets to regain control of the city of Poltava.

Death

On 5 October 1943 Gayev was killed in action on the battlefield when commanding one of the river crossing operations in the battle of the Dnieper. For this operation he was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st Class for the outstanding personal commanding role in crossing the river Dnieper by the 13th Guards Rifle Division troops in early October 1943.
Initially he was buried at the city cemetery of Poltava but later his tomb was moved to the newly established military memorial in Poltava's Ivan Kotliarevsky Park.

Family

Pavel Gayev was the elder of three sons in his family. His father died when Pavel was eight and his mother moved to Yekaterinburg where she worked as a railway train conductor.
Middle brother Vasily V. Gayev also worked on the railroad in Nizhny Tagil. During the Great Purge Vasily was arrested and sent to the Gulag camps, later rehabilitated in 1962. The youngest brother in the family was Anatoly V. Gayev who lived and died in Chelyabinsk.
Pavel Gayev got married in late 1920th and his wife was Eugeniya I. Gayeva . During the war she lived in Chelyabinsk, after the 1945 — in Kiev. Their son — Remar P. Gayev was an officer of the Soviet Armed Forces.

Awards

Recognition