Yakov Cherevichenko

Soviet general (1894–1976)

Yakov Timofeyevich Cherevichenko (Я́ков Тимофе́евич Черевиче́нко; 12 October 1894 – 4 July 1976) was a Soviet military leader and colonel general.

Yakov Cherevichenko was born to peasant parents in the village of Novosyolovka in the Russian Empire (now in Rostov Oblast, Russian Federation). He was conscripted into the Imperial Russian Army at the beginning of the First World War in 1914 and was a senior NCO by the time of the October Revolution in 1917. Cherevichenko returned to his native region to organize a partisan group to defend the newly formed Bolshevik government against the anti Bolshevik White movement after the Revolution, and this group became part of the Red Army in October 1918. Cherevichenko joined the Bolshevik Party at the height of the Russian Civil War in 1919 and served in the 1st Cavalry Army.

Cherevichenko attended the Red Army's Higher Cavalry School in 1924 and graduated from the Frunze Military Academy in 1935. He was awarded the rank of lieutenant general when the traditional general officer ranks were introduced in the Red Army and served as commander of the Odessa Military District from 1940 to 1941. He was promoted to colonel general in February 1941.

Cherevichenko was the commanding officer of the 9th Army from June to September 1941 and the 2nd Army from 29 September to 4 October 1941. He assumed command of the Southern Front (Army Group) from Lieutenant General Dmitry Ryabyshev on 5 October 1941. With the majority of Ukraine already in German hands by October 1941, Kleist's Panzers advanced across the Mius River to Russia's Rostov Oblast and had occupied the city of Taganrog by November 4, preparing to move further for an attack on Rostov. Cherevichenko and the Army's commander for the Southwestern Direction, Marshal Semyon Timoshenko, prepared to attempt a counterattack. Timoshenko later shifted two rifle divisions and a tank brigade from the Southwestern Front to prepare a Southern Front reserve and settled on a plan worked out with his chief of staff, Major General Alexey Antonov, and Stavka also provided the 37th Army to reinforce the operation on Timoshenko's request. On December 2, the German rode their tanks back to the Mius River. Relieved as commander of the Bryansk Front by Lieutenant General Filipp Golikov in April 1942, Cherevichenko was made deputy commander of the North Caucasus Front, subordinated to Front Commander Marshal Semyon Budyonny, who had been Cherevichenko's commanding officer in the 1st Cavalry Army in the Civil War. In August 1942, Budyonny named Cherevichenko commander of the Black Sea Group of Forces, whose responsibility included the defense of the port city of Novorossiysk and its Black Sea Fleet naval base, which fell to the Germans in the course of Operation Blue in the fall of 1942. No longer as esteemed as previously by superior officers in the high command, Cherevichenko was made commander of the 5th Army of the Soviet Western Front in October 1942, replacing Lieutenant General Ivan Fedyuninsky upon his promotion to deputy commander of the Volkhov Front. Relieved of this command in favor of Lieutenant General Vitaly Polenov, Cherevichenko was left at the disposal of Stavka without commander's responsibility until April 1943, when he was made an assistant of the commander of the Northern Caucasus Front (Colonel General Ivan Maslennikov until May, then Colonel General Ivan Petrov). Cherevichenko held the position of commanding officer of the Kharkov Military District upon its recreation in September 1943 until January 1944, then served at the disposal of Stavka and the military councils of the 2nd and 1st Belorussian Fronts. He was appointed commanding officer of the 7th Rifle Corps in late April 1945; this unit took part in the Battle of Berlin as part of the 1st Belorussian Front at the close of World War II in Europe.

Cherevichenko was an assistant to the commander for the Tauride Military District from 1948 to 1950. Cherevichenko retired from the military service in 1950. He died on 4 July 1976.