Zhadov, Aleksei Semenovich

Born Mar. 17 (30), 1901, in the village of Nikol’skoe, in what is now Sverdlovo Raion, Orel Oblast. Soviet military leader; general of the army (1955); Hero of the Soviet Union (Apr. 6, 1945); member of the CPSU since 1921.

Zhadov was the son of a peasant. He entered the Soviet Army in 1919 and fought in the Civil War. He graduated from the Frunze Military Academy in 1934 and the Higher Academic Courses at the Military Academy of the General Staff in 1950. In 1940 he took command of a cavalry division. In 1941–42, during the Great Patriotic War, he commanded an airborne corps and served as chief of staff of an army and commander of a cavalry corps on the Western, Central, and Briansk fronts. In October 1942 he took command of the Sixty-sixth Army on the Don Front, and from April 1943 commanded the Fifth Guards Army on the Voronezh, Steppe, and Second and First Ukrainian fronts. He took part in the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk, in liberation of the Ukraine, and in the L’vov-Sandomiercz, Vistula-Oder, Berlin, and Prague operations. After the war he served as deputy commander in chief of ground forces (1946–49), head of the Frunze Military Academy (1950–54), commander in chief of the Center Group of Troops (1954–55), and deputy and first deputy commander in chief of ground forces (1955–64). In September 1964 he became first deputy chief inspector of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR. He was a deputy to the second convocation of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He has been awarded three Orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, five Orders of the Red Banner, two Orders of Suvorov First Class, the Order of Kutuzov First Class, the Order of the Red Star, medals, and six foreign orders.