Ivan Banov
Ivan Nikolayevich Banov was a Soviet military intelligence officer and partisan movement leader in World War II.Biography
Ivan Banov was born on in the stanitsa of Tatsinskaya in the Don Host Oblast of the Russian Empire. He entered the Red Army in 1935 and joined the Communist Party in 1939.
An officer in the Red Army's military intelligence at the time of the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Banov organized several partisan groups behind the German lines that grew to become sizeable formations during the Nazi occupation.
Ivan Banov's partisan fighters carried out significant raids on the occupying German forces and facilitated the Red Army's liberation of the German-occupied territory of the Soviet Union in 1942-1944. Credited with disrupting the enemy supply lines, detonating twenty railroad bridges, and accumulating valuable intelligence material, Banov was recognized with the honorary title of Hero of the Soviet Union in 1944.
He graduated from Frunze Military Academy in 1949 and was promoted in rank to major-general during his post-war service. Banov retired from the military in 1977.
He lived in Moscow and died on 9 February 1982.Awards
Banov's decorations included both Soviet and foreign military awards, they include:
