Konstantin Apollonovich Koroteev

Born Feb. 12 (25), 1901, in the village of Shcheglovka, now in Bogodukhov Raion, Kharkov Oblast; died Jan. 4, 1953, in Moscow. Soviet military commander; colonel general (1944); Hero of the Soviet Union (Apr. 6, 1945). Member of the CPSU from 1938.

Koroteev entered the army in 1916 as a private, joined the Soviet army in 1918, and fought in the Civil War of 1918-20 as a platoon and company commander. He graduated from infantry and machine-gun training courses in 1920; from junior officer training courses in 1924; from Vystrel, the Higher Infantry School of the Soviet Army, in 1926; and from the Higher Academic Training Courses of the K. E. Voroshilov Higher Military Academy in 1947. He was a division commander in the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-40.

In March 1940, Koroteev became commander of a rifle corps and then inspector of the infantry of the Leningrad Military District. He fought on various fronts during the Great Patriotic War (1941-45). Koroteev was commander of a rifle corps (from June 1941), commander of the Twelfth Army (from October 1941), assistant commander of the troops of the Southern Front (from April 1942), and then commander of the Ninth, Eighteenth, Thirty-seventh, and Fifty-second armies. From July 1947 to March 1951, Koroteev commanded the troops of the Transbaikal Military District. He was deputy to the third convocation of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Koroteev was awarded three Orders of Lenin, four Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of Suvorov First Class, three Orders of Kutuzov First Class, the Order of Bogdan KhmePnitskii First Class, and various medals.