Soviet 62nd Army
Lt. General Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov was a mechanic's apprentice who had joined the Red Army in 1918. With the onset of the Russian Civil War, Chuikov served as a private soldier in forces commanded by Commissar Josef Stalin. Ironically, his first battle was for control of a small town on the Volga river named Tsaritsyn. Under Stalin, the city became heavily industrialized and was developed as a centre of heavy industry and trans-shipment by rail and river; from the 1930's on, it would be known as Stalingrad.
By 1942, it was the third largest city in the Soviet Union, sprawling in a narrow band for nearly 20 miles along the Volga river-front. It shipped grain, oil, farm machinery, chemicals and its factories now produced tanks, guns, and other vital war materiel for the Red Army.
In August of 1942, as the German armies approached Stalingrad, it appeared that the primary defense of the city would fall upon the Soviet 62nd Army. The commander of the 62nd, General V.I. Lopatin, despaired of their ability to hold the city. When he confided these fears to Gen. Yeremenko, commander of the Stalingrad Front, he was immediately dismissed. Yeremenko looked about for a successor, a man who would display the tenacity and spirit needed to rally the Russian soldiers and hold on the Volga. His first choice for the job was Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov.
Chuikov assured Yeremenko and Soviet Commissar Nikita S. Krushchev that the 62nd Army would hold at Stalingrad or die in the city. He immediately determined that he could not match the firepower of the Wehrmacht out on the open steppe. He laid plans for a street fight, pinpointing future strong-points where the enemy would be forced to pass on their march to the Volga. He positioned his artillery, and registered his guns where the Germans would be concentrated in the greatest numbers. He then issued a proclamation to his soldiers - "There is no land past the Volga" - and awaited the arrival of the 6th Army in Stalingrad.
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