World Battlefronts: MEN AT WAR: A Hero Falls in Action

Of all the Red Army's marshals and generals, none has been a more dramatic figure, few have been more popular with their men and the Russian public alike than barrel-chested, black-haired Ivan Danilovich Chernyakhovsky. He combined many characteristics that Russians love: energy, muscular strength, stubborn calm, youthful daring, earthiness. He was up from the black soil, a worker's son, an orphan at nine, a shepherd in the Ukraine, a cadet at Kiev Military School, a total product of the Soviet state.

At 37 Chernyakhovsky was the youngest Army general. A colonel at the war's beginning, he became one of the...