Vasily Afanassjewitsch Khomenko

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Vasily Afanassjewitsch Chomenko ( Russian Василий Афанасьевич Хоменко ; born March 30, 1899 in the village of Petrovskoye, Borisoglebsk district in Voronezh Oblast ; † November 9, 1943 in Velikaya Lepeticha , Kherson Oblast ) was a Soviet general leader in World War II and May 18, 1943 ).

Life

He was born in 1899 in a village in Voronezh Oblast in a Ukrainian peasant family and attended a village school. From 1914 to 1918 he worked in the Sormowski factory as an apprentice to a wood turner and also took evening technical courses.

In the Red Army

In August 1918 he volunteered for the Red Army . He took part in battles with the White Guards on the southern front and against insurgents in the Tambov region and in Central Asia . For his achievements in these battles he was awarded the Order of the Red Star of the USSR and the Red Star of the SSR Bukhara . During the Russian Civil War he served as platoon leader, military commissioner and regimental commander and military commissioner of a rifle division. In 1920 he completed courses for military commissioners. After the civil war he commanded a regiment fighting against the Basmachi in Turkestan . Since 1924 he was commissioner of the fortified area and the Kuschka fortress . In 1928 he completed further commanding courses at the Frunze Military Academy . From 1935 he served with the NKVD border troops as chief of staff of the border troops in the military district of Leningrad . He worked there until the outbreak of World War II and was promoted to colonel in 1936 , to brigade commander on September 10, 1938, and to major general on June 4, 1940 . In November 1940, Chomenko was appointed head of the NKVD border troops of the annexed Moldovan SSR , where he quickly organized the protection of the new border. In the same year he was appointed chief of the rear regions of Ukraine; since June 12, 1941, he served as Deputy Commander of the Armed Forces of the Kiev Special Military District.

In World War II

After the start of the Second World War , Chomenko was in the same position on the Southwestern Front that had been formed on the basis of the Kiev Special Military District. During the German attack on the Soviet Union (June 1941) he organized the western border troops of the Ukraine and directed the withdrawal of the defeated, declining troops. On July 12, 1941, he was appointed commander of the 30th Army , which was established on the Western Front in late July . Under his command, the 30th Army took part in the Battle of Smolensk , in the defensive battles southwest of the city of Bely and in the Kalinin operation in the Rzhev area . On December 4, 1941, he was appointed deputy commander of the Moscow Defense Zone forces. In August 1942 he briefly became commander of the 24th Army, then he was appointed commander of the newly formed 58th Army as part of the Transcaucasus Front . In this position he led the troops in the defense area of ​​the city of Makhachkala . From August 11 to 31, 1942, he was in command of the NKVD Makhachkala division, with which he fought the insurgents in the mountainous regions of Dagestan and Chechnya . On November 21, 1942 he was appointed commander of the 44th Army and on May 18, 1943 promoted to lieutenant general. Under his leadership, the 44th Army took part in the Battle of the Caucasus , the offensives in Rostov , Donbass and the Melitopol operation , and liberated the cities of Voroshilovsk , Taganrog , Mariupol and Azov . At the end of October 1943, the 44th Army was withdrawn from the Zawadowka-Kachowka line to the Stawka Front Reserve.

On November 9, 1943, Chomenko got lost with his artillery chief and a group of officers with his vehicle fleet in the Velike Lepeticha area, 55 km southeast of the city of Nikopol . The group came under German artillery fire, the fate of the missing officers remained unknown for some time. Later it became known that General Chomenko was seriously wounded and fell into German captivity and soon died. He was buried in Melitopol .

Awards

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personal data
SURNAME Chomenko, Wassili Afanassjewitsch
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Хоменко, Василий Афанасьевич (Russian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION soviet lieutenant general
DATE OF BIRTH March 30, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Petrovskoye village, Borisoglebsk district, Voronezh Oblast
DATE OF DEATH November 9, 1943
Place of death Velikaya Lepeticha