He served as a politruk and commander of a number of rifle companies (1918-1931). From September 1921 to August 1922, Gayev was a military controller of the Special Department No. 5 in Proskurov. In 1928 he was selected to attend an officer training course known as Vystrel which he graduated from in 1929.[1]
Military intelligence service
In 1934 Gayev completed a course of the M. V. Frunze Military Academy and was assigned to serve as a staff officer of the 69th Kharkiv Rifle Regiment (May 1934 - February 1935, assistant to the chief of staff) and the 6th Andijan Rifle Regiment (1935, chief of staff). He was later assigned to the staff of the Kiev Military District (as an officer of the First Department) where he served in between the August 1935 and August 1936.[2][5]
Official photo of Red Army major Pavel Gayev (1936)
According to archival documents Gaev on request of the Chief of the Red Army Intelligence Filipp Golikov conducted during this period a verification of intelligence reports from the Bucharestresident on the preparation of German invasion in the USSR.[7][6]
On 5 October 1943 Gayev was killed in action on the battlefield (at the left shore of the Dnieper river near Kremenchuk) when commanding one of the river crossing operations in the battle of the Dnieper.[10] For this operation he was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st Class (posthumously) for the outstanding personal commanding role in crossing the river Dnieper by the 13th Guards Rifle Division troops in early October 1943.[11]
Initially he was buried at the city cemetery of Poltava but later his tomb was moved to the newly established military memorial in Poltava's Ivan Kotliarevsky Park (1969).[12]
Family
Gayev's family: wife Eugeniya, son Rem and senior politruk Pavel Gayev (photo taken in between the 1932 and 1935)
Pavel Gayev was the elder of three sons in his family. His father died when Pavel was eight and his mother moved to Yekaterinburg where she worked as a railway train conductor.
Middle brother Vasily V. Gayev (Russian: Василий Витальевич Гаев) (1904-?) also worked on the railroad in Nizhny Tagil. During the Great Purge Vasily was arrested and sent to the Gulag camps, later rehabilitated in 1962.[13] The youngest brother in the family was Anatoly V. Gayev (Russian: Анатолий Витальевич Гаев) (1907-1954) who lived and died in Chelyabinsk.
Pavel Gayev got married in late 1920th and his wife was Eugeniya I. Gayeva (Russian: Евгения Ивановна Гаева) (born in 1901). During the war she lived in Chelyabinsk, after the 1945 — in Kiev.[10] Their son — Remar P. Gayev (Russian: Ремар Павлович Гаев) (born in 1930) was an officer of the Soviet Armed Forces.
In the battles on these islands we suffered considerable losses. The deputy commander of the 13th Guards Rifle Division guards colonel P. V. Gayev was killed in action. I could not believe that this brave, strong-willed, enterprising officer is no longer with us.
Gleb Baklanov, commander of the 13th Guards Rifle Division in 1943-1944, in his memoir attested Gayev as:[15]
My irreplaceable deputy, my right hand, the fearless man the soldiers jokingly called enchanted against bullets.
View from another level of command expressed in 13th Guards Rifle Division guardssergeant Lipa Gurvits' memoir:[16][17]
Sappers began to prepare for crossing the Dnieper. All boats, barrels, wickers, logs of burnt houses, fallen trees were mobilized in the village. The observation post of the division commander was next to our 34th Regiment command and control post. On the shore, despite the strong shelling of the enemy, the deputy division commander colonel Gayev was watching the preparation of the boats blithely strolling along the coast. It was a very impressive figure: tall, large build, with his gray-hairs fluttering in the wind. He reminded me of King Lear. Colonel Gayev walked along the coast as enchanted against shells and mines that reached from the right bank of the Dnieper, he stimulated sappers with a stick, collected soldiers who were free from duties, hurried to prepare the ferry. But in war, no one was insured. Colonel Gayev was killed by a shell projectile near the division сommand and control post.
