Perhaps the least known Soviet general in the West, Ivan Chernyakhovsky was born in 1906 in Uman, near Kiev. He liberated Kursk, Vilna, and Kovno, and twice won the prestigious Hero of the Soviet Union medal. He was the youngest front commander, and the highest ranking Jewish officer in the Soviet Army.

His parents perished of typhoid during the civil unrest following the revolution. He began his journey as a herdsman and a workman on the railway. At 18 he joined the Red Army as a cadet in the Odessa Infantry School. There his ability in mathematics and science attracted attention, and he was sent to Artillery School in Kiev. He graduated in 1928 and joined the Communist Party.

In 1931 he went to the Stalin Military Academy for Mechanization and Motorization where he studied command engineering. He graduated in 1936. In spite of his Jewish heritage, perhaps because of his loyalty as a Communist Party operative, he survived Stalin’s late 1930s purge of 80,000 army officers.

Chernyakhovsky was promoted to deputy commander of a tank division in 1940-41. At the time of the German invasion, 22 June, 1941, he commanded the 28th Tank Division south of Leningrad. He moved his unit forward aggressively to confront the German attack. He encountered the German First Panzer Division and initially succeeded in pushing them back; however, by 25 June all of his tanks had been destroyed. Consequently, his unit was reorganized as the 241st Rifle Division.

During the Battle for Leningrad he worked with Supreme Commander Marshal Georgi Zhukov and Chief of the General Staff, Marshal A. M. Vasilevsky.

In July 1942 he took command of the 60th Army, under General Konstantin Rokassovsky, and helped to liberate Voronezh on 25 January, 1943, and Kursk on 8 February, 1943. On 23 February, 1943, he was promoted to lieutenant general.

During the drive to the border of East Prussia on 17 October, 1943, he earned his first Hero of the Soviet Union Medal.

Promoted to colonel general on 5 March, 1944, he arrived at Krasnoe on 12 April.

The 3rd Belorussian Front was created on 24 April, 1944.

Planning for Operation Bagration began on 22 May, 1944. The operation was intended to destroy the German Army Group Center, and was the largest campaign of the war. In June Chernyakhovsky was promoted to army general, the youngest to be so promoted, and made commander of the 3rd Belorussian Front, the youngest Front Commander.

Operation Bagration kicked off on 23 June, 1944, with 3rd Belorussian Front attacking north of Minsk as the right pincer. The left pincer, commanded by Front Commander General Rokossovsky, moved south of Minsk to trap the 4th and 3rd Panzer Armies. Minsk was encircled by 3 July, and Vilna was captured on 13 July. On 15 July the Nieman River was crossed, and Chernyakhovsky received his second Hero of the Soviet Union Medal at the end of July.

By 2 August Kovno was taken and the German border was crossed on 17 August. This was followed by a period of rest and refitting. After that, the 3rd Belorussian Front was on the move, penetrating 80 kilometers into East Prussia.

On 13 January, 1945, the drive resumed. Tilsit was taken 20 January. General Rokosovsky took Tannenberg on 21 January. By mid-February Chernyakhovsky isolated Koenigsberg, East Prussia. The next thrust was being planned and Chernyakhovsky intended to visit each of the armies under his command. He was on his way to the 3rd Army headquarters when his jeep was hit by an artillery shell, killing him.

Chernyakovsky was buried in Vilna, known as ‘East Jerusalem’ because of its Jewish population. When Lithuania separated from the disbanded Soviet Union, Chernyakovsky was disinterred and his body moved to Moscow for reburial.

Source: ‘Russia’s General Ivan D. Chernyakhovsky Achieved A Combat Record That Is Virtually Unknown In The West,’ Steven L. Ossad, WW II History Magazine, Sovereign Media, May 2004

Second only to Ivan Kozedub in victories, Alexander Pokryshkin achieved greater fame than the highest scoring ace. Alexander Pokryshkin shot down 59 aircraft, 47 of them in the Bell P-39 Airacobra.

At the age of 15 he began his working life as a roof builder, but he yearned to be a pilot. He started his training in a glider club, like most Soviet Air Force pilots. After receiving his ticket at the Combined Flying-Technical School in Perm, he went on to maintain aircraft engines, but he still wanted to fly, so, on Sundays, he learned to fly gliders while taking a refresher course on flight mechanics in Leningrad.

Assigned to an air force unit in Krasnodar as a flight mechanic, he repeatedly filed requests for flight school, all of which were denied. Undeterred, he built his own non-flying training plane in which he sat, simulating flight maneuvers. When he graduated from the factory school, in 1933, he joined the 74th Rifle Division as a senior aviation mechanic.

He finally enrolled at the Krasnodar Flying Club where he soloed. Transferred to Kachinskaya School of aviation in Crimea, he graduated in 1939 and, as a senior lieutenant, was assigned to the 55th Fighter Regiment, where he flew a MiG-3.

When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Pokryshkin attained his first kill. Ironically he shot down a Soviet Su-2 Soviet light bomber in error. His first German victory, a Bf-109, almost resulted in his becoming a victory for a German pilot.

Pokryshkin realized early that the Soviet Air Doctrine was obsolete and began working up his own doctrine summarized as ‘Altitude, Speed, Maneuver, Fire.’ He understood the value of potential energy embodied in altitude and taught his pilots how to use altitude to advantage in combat.

Promoted to squadron commander in the 4th Air Army located in the Kuban and the Kerch Peninsula, he flew MiG 3s and Yak 1s into the summer of 1942 when the P-39 arrived. These aircraft, produced by the United States for use by the British Royal Air Force under the Lend-Lease Program, were refused by the British, and sent on to the Soviet Air Force, which used them with zeal. The Soviets appreciated the 20 mm cannon in the propeller boss.

Pokryshkin gained 10 kills between 9 and 24 April, then another each on 29 and 30 April for a total of 12 victories in one month. He drew his combat maneuvers on paper to improve his techniques and to criticized his own actions. He further used them to teach his squadron’s new pilots, and to refresh his veterans. He studied enemy tactics and discovered ways to defeat them.

Pokryshkin flew many ‘free hunts,’ operations by a pair, or four fighters flying 100 to 150 kilometers behind the front lines. During these operations they could not expect support from anyone else. On one of these ‘free hunts’, he scored his 50th victory.

The last two years of the war he spent in the Ukraine where he scored only six additional victories. His preference for foreign built aircraft ended his career after the war. Upon the death of Josef Stalin, Pokryshkin was promoted to air marshal. From 1972 to 1981 he headed the organization tasked with training civilian pilots for service in the Soviet Air Force. He died in 1985 at 72.

Sources: ‘Innovative Soviet Fighter Ace,’ Christopher J. Chlon, WW II History Magazine October, 2017, Sovereign Media, McLean, VA

The Soviet Air Force in World War II, Edited by Ray Wagner, Translated by Leland Fetzer, Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, NY, 1973