Mikhail Nikolaevich Sharokhin

Born Nov. 11 (23), 1898, in the village of Ivanovskoe, in what is now Danilov Raion, Yaroslavl Oblast; died Sept. 19,1974, in Moscow. Soviet military leader. Colonel general (1945). Hero of the Soviet Union (Apr. 28,1945). Member of the CPSU from 1920.

The son of a peasant, Sharokhin joined the Red Army in 1918. He fought in the Civil War of 1914–18 as a platoon commander and as a troop commander in the cavalry. He graduated from advanced cavalry courses for command personnel in 1926, the M. V. Frunze Military Academy in 1936, and the Military Academy of the General Staff in 1939.

During the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45, Sharokhin served in 1941 and 1942 as deputy chief of the Operations Directorate of the General Staff and as deputy chief of the General Staff. In 1942 he served as chief of staff of the Third Shock Army on the Kalinin Front and chief of staff of the Northwestern Front; he was chief of staff of the Volkhov Front in 1942 and 1943. Sharo-khin served on the Steppe, Second Ukrainian, and Third Ukrainian fronts as commander of the Thirty-seventh Army from August 1943 to October 1944 and the Fifty-seventh Army from October 1944 to the end of the war.

After the war, Sharokhin served in command positions and as a directorate chief in the General Staff of the Armed Forces. He was appointed deputy chief of the Main Military and Scientific Directorate of the General Staff in December 1951 and a directorate chief of the Higher Military Educational Institutions of the Ministry of Defense in April 1953. After becoming a scientific consultant to the deputy minister of defense on questions of military science in May 1957 and military consultant to the Group of Inspectors General of the Ministry of Defense in April 1958, Sharokhin retired in September 1960.

Sharokhin was awarded three Orders of Lenin, four Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of Suvorov First Class, the Order of Kutuzov Second Class, the Order of Bogdan Khmel’nitskii First Class, the Order of the Red Star, and various medals. He was also the recipient of foreign orders and medals.