Men of War

Red Army generals remain practically anonymous until they demonstrate their abilities. Last week, as half a dozen armies continued to chew up the Wehrmackt in South Russia, the bestowal of the Soviet Union's highest military honor--the Suvorov Order, First Degree--brought some of them into world view.

Savior of Stalingrad and commander in chief of the armies threatening the German flank in the Caucasus from the northeast is Colonel General Andrei Ivanovich Yeremenko, 50. Stocky, brown-haired, he was born in the Ukraine, left a farm to join the Czarist army in 1913. After the peace he organized guerrilla bands to fight the Germans in the Ukraine, served during the Civil War as a cavalry officer under Semion Budenny. When the Germans invaded Russia, Yeremenko assumed command of an army west of Moscow, played a leading role in the defense of the capital, shifted to Stalingrad when its fall seemed imminent. In 19 months of war he has been wounded seven times. His wife and youngest son were killed in the Ukraine.

Hero of Kotelnikov and commander in the field under Yeremenko is thickset, deep-dimpled Lieut. General Rodion Ya-kovlievich Malinovsky, 44. Odessa-born, he joined the army when he was a boy, fought in France (Amiens, St. Mihiel) with a Russian infantry brigade alongside Americans and Britons. "I shall never forget the British," he says. "Shaving in the darkest days, pipes perpetually between their teeth, they never moved faster than a walk whether in advance or retreat." In this war he won the Order of Lenin for helping to defeat Colonel General Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist during the Red counteroffensive of 1941. Last December he smashed Field Marshal Fritz Erich von Manstein's powerful effort to relieve the Germans at Stalingrad.

South of Malinovsky's Armies, in the north Caucasus, is another force, under General I. V. Tulienev, which last week captured the Maikop oil fields. Black-moustached, fun-loving General Tulienev is an expert in mountain warfare, often zips up to the front on skis.

Leader at Voronezh, where the Red Army is driving on Kursk and Kharkov, is Colonel General Filip I, Golikov, 48. A tall, husky man with a broad face, he is one of Russia's principal tank experts. At war's start he was a key member of the General Staff, but when Moscow was threatened he took command of a field army. His offensive may well turn out to be the most important of all the winter drives.

Cavalryman of the Southwest, where one army is moving side-by-side with Golikov's troops toward Kharkov and another is pushing down the railway below Millerovo toward Rostov, is Colonel General Nikolai Vatutin, 42. Another veteran of the Czarist Army and the Revolution, Vatutin was an Army commander in the Ukraine when the Germans invaded it. He skillfully retreated from the Dnei-per Bend, then helped Marshal Timoshenko launch successful counterattacks.

Master of the Don is Colonel General Konstantin Rokossovsky, 50, one of the tallest (6 ft. 4 in.) officers in the Red Army. He was a Czarist major in the last war, joined the Red Guards in 1917. During the defense of Moscow he commanded the central sector on the Smolensk highway, later was shifted to the south. His armies were part of the Red pincers which trapped the Germans at Stalingrad. Now he is mopping up the Don Bend.

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