Yakov Cherevichenko
Yakov Timofeyevich Cherevichenko (; 12 October 1894 – 4 July 1976) was a Soviet military leader and colonel general. Biography First World War and Civil War 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. Between the wars 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