Petr Nikolaevich Lashchenko

Born Dec. 6 (19), 1910, in Tur’ia, now in Shchors Raion, Chernigov Oblast. Soviet military commander; general of the army (1968); Hero of the Soviet Union (Oct. 16, 1943). Member of the CPSU since 1931. Son of a peasant.

Lashchenko joined the Soviet Army in 1930 and graduated from the M. V. Frunze Military Academy in 1940 and from the Military Academy of the General Staff in 1951. In the Great Patriotic War (1941–45) he saw combat on the Southern, Western, Voronezh, Central, and First Ukrainian fronts, serving in staff positions (on corps and army staffs) and in command positions (commander of a rifle division). He was seriously wounded in July 1944.

Lashchenko was first deputy commander of the Kiev and Ciscarpathian military districts from 1959 to 1964. He was appointed commander of the forces of the Ciscarpathian Military District in July 1964 and first deputy commander in chief of the ground forces in December 1968. He was a deputy to the seventh and eighth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Lashchenko has been awarded four Orders of Lenin, three Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of Suvorov Second Class, the Order of Bogdan Khmel’nitskii Second Class, the Order of the Patriotic War First Class, the Order of the Red Star, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, and various medals.