Khokhriakov, Semen

Born Dec. 18 (31), 1915, in the village of Koelga, in what is now Etkul’ Raion, Cheliabinsk Oblast; died April 17, 1945; buried in the city of Vasil’kov, Kiev Oblast. Major (1942). Twice Hero of the Soviet Union (May 24, 1944, and April 10, 1945). Member of the CPSU from 1939.

The son of a worker, Khokhriakov joined the Red Army in 1937. He graduated from the V. I. Lenin Military Political School in 1939 and the Higher Armor School for Officers in 1943. He fought against the Japanese invaders on the Khalkhin-Gol River in 1939. During the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45, Khokhria kov was military commissar of a tank battalion. In January 1944 he assumed command of a tank battalion of the 54th Guards Tank Brigade, serving on the Western, Kalinin, and First Ukrainian fronts. A veteran of the battles of Baranovichi (1941), Velizh (1942), Starokonstantinov (1944), Proskurov (1944), and Czestochowa (1945), Khokhriakov was killed in action. He was awarded the Order of Lenin, the medal For Courage and an order of the Mongolian People’s Republic.