Nikolai Ivanovich Krylov (; April 29, 1903 – February 9, 1972) was a Russian Marshal of the Soviet Union (from 1962). He was commander of the Strategic Missile Troops from 1963 to 1972.
Early life
Krylov was born into a family of rural teachers. He joined the Komsomol in 1918, and was the secretary of the district Komsomol cell and a fighter of the volunteer party Komsomol Red Guard detachment.
During the Russian Civil War, he tried to join the Red Army. At the beginning of 1919, he was enrolled in the aviation division of the Southern Front, but after a few days he fell seriously ill and was left with his parents. At the same time, he passed the exam for the school course as an external student and received a certificate of graduation from the 2nd stage school.
Military career
Russian Civil War
In April 1919, at the age of 16, he achieved enrollment in the Red Army. After successfully completing the Saratov infantry and machine gun courses in 1920, he was appointed commander of a rifle platoon, then a half-company of riflemen in the 28th Rifle Division named after V.M. Azin. In the ranks of the 11th Army, he fought on the Southern Front and took part in the occupation of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in the Soviet-Georgian war of 1921. On the same year, he was transferred to the Russian Far East, where aged 19, he was appointed commander of a rifle battalion in the 3rd Verkhne-Uda Regiment of the 1st Pacific Division of the People's Revolutionary Army in the Far Eastern Republic. He participated in the liberation of Spassk, Nikolsk-Ussuriysky and Vladivostok from the White Army.
Post-civil war
After the end of the civil war, Krylov remained in the Red Army and continued to serve in the Far East, where he commanded a battalion. From 1923, he served as assistant chief of staff of a rifle regiment. Krylov joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1927 and graduated from Advanced Training Courses for the Command Staff of the Red Army in August 1928.
From 1929, he served as chief of staff of a rifle regiment in the 1st Pacific Rifle Division. Krylov commanded the Blagoveshchensk Fortified Region from 1931. In 1936, he was appointed as chief of staff of the fortified region. Krylov was assigned as head of the department of Osoaviakhim in Stavropol in 1939. In May 1941, he was appointed chief of staff of the Danube Fortified Region on the southern section of the Soviet-Romanian border in the Odessa Military District.
World War II
Eastern Front
Following the outbreak of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, Krylov led the fight against Romanian troops who tried unsuccessfully to cross the Soviet border. When the threat of enemy occupation loomed, the Soviet troops were withdrawn from the border and Krylov became the deputy chief of the coastal army's operational department in July 1941.
Since there was a lack of commanders in the besieged Odessa, he became chief of the operational department of the army on August 11 and the chief of staff of the coastal army on August 21. He remained in this position from the beginning to the end of the defense of Odessa and Sevastopol. During a visit outside the dugout with two others, the Germans fired off mortar rounds, killing one of the men and severely wounding Krylov on 8 January 1942. He would suffer from this injury for the rest of his life. On 27 December 1941, he was appointed major general and was evacuated from the city in the last days of its defense by a Soviet Navy submarine. He was in the reserve for more than a month, during which time he wrote a report on the defense of Sevastopol.
In August 1942, Krylov was appointed Chief of Staff of the 1st Guards Army. Just a few days later, he was urgently summoned to Stalingrad and appointed chief of staff of the 62nd Army, which fought many months of street battles in the city during the battle of Stalingrad. Until the arrival of the new commander-in-chief Vasily Chuikov, he commanded the army in the battle for the city for more than a month. There he became a close friend with Chuikov and was also member of the Military Council of the Front led by Nikita Khrushchev, who was his superior.