World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbasePavel Semyonovich Rybalko was born in the Kharkov Governorate of the Russian Empire (now Ukraine). He joined the Russian military, and remained in service with the Soviet Army. During the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1921, he was a cavalry officer. Between 1931 and 1945, he attended the M. V. Frunze Military Academy in Moscow, Russia. In 1935, he served in the Far East, and then returned to Moscow to join the Tank Directorate. In 1939, he was the last Soviet military attaché in Poland before the nation was conquered jointly by Germany and the Soviet Union. In 1940, he served as a military attaché in China. He served as a lecturer in the Kazan Tank School in Russia and remained in that position through May 1942 when he was assigned as the commanding officer of the 3rd Tank Army in the reserves. In the winter of 1942 to 1943, he led armored forces in the Stalingrad, Russia region. In Aug 1943, he played a role in the Fourth Battle of Kharkov in Ukraine, then moving on to capture Kiev in Nov 1943. He continued to lead his tanks toward Germany through the rest of the war, becoming one of the four Guards Tank Armies that engaged German forces in the Battle of Berlin. After the war, Rybalko he was named the Marshal of the Armored Forces of the Red Army. He passed away in 1948 and was buried in the Moscow Novodevichye cemetery.

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Pavel Rybalko Timeline