Vaupshasov, Stanislav

Born July 15 (27), 1899, in Gruzdzhai, in present-day Shiauliai Raion. Soviet reconnaissance officer, active participant in the partisan movement during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45, Hero of the Soviet Union (Nov. 5, 1944), colonel. Member of the CPSU since 1940.

Vaupshasov volunteered for the Red Army in 1918. In 1920-24 he participated in the underground struggle in the western oblasts of Byelorussia, which were occupied by bourgeois Poland. In later years he did reconnaissance work. In 1937-39, during the Civil War in Spain, he carried out combat assignments in the struggle against the Franco troops. Upon returning to the USSR he worked for organs of state security. In 1942 he was sent at the head of a group of cheka men to Byelorussia, where he established contact with the partisan underground and participated in the partisan movement. For more than two years he led the large Mestnye Partisan Detachment, which operated successfully in Minsk Oblast. Vaupshasov has been awarded four Orders of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner, Orders of the Patriotic War First and Second Class, the Red Banner of Labor of the Byelorussian SSR, and medals.