Vasily Vasilyevich Butkov

Vasily Vasilyevich Butkov was born on 29 December 1900 (11 January 1901 New Style) in the village of Bolshaya Imennaya in Verkhoturye uyezd of Perm governorate, now part of the Nizhnyaya Tura urban district of Sverdlovsk region. He was Russian. After three classes of a higher elementary school he worked from 1915 as a shell inspector at the Verkhnyaya Tura munitions works. In 1918 he fought in a partisan detachment against the White forces in the Urals and was wounded. From October 1918 he served in the Red Army in the 266th Rifle Regiment against Kolchak, Wrangel and Makhno, and was wounded again in 1920. Between the wars he trained at artillery courses and the united military school in Moscow (1926), served in the artillery, and in 1937 graduated from the Frunze Military Academy; he was then chief of staff of a mechanised brigade, a tank division and, from May 1941, the 5th Mechanised Corps. In 1941 he fought as chief of staff of the 5th Mechanised Corps at Smolensk, then served as chief of staff of the Main Armoured Directorate and of the 8th Tank Corps. From September 1942 to May 1945 he commanded the 1st Tank Corps at Stalingrad, Orel, Bryansk, Vitebsk, Siauliai, Riga, Memel and in East Prussia. He was twice wounded and once concussed. In the Insterburg-Königsberg operation of January 1945 his corps raided the enemy's rear, cut communications, seized bridges, destroyed 79 tanks and assault guns and more than 500 vehicles, took about 1,500 prisoners and on 27 January reached the northern outskirts of Königsberg. By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of 19 April 1945, published in the Vedomosti of the Supreme Soviet, Lieutenant General of Tank Troops Vasily Vasilyevich Butkov was made a Hero of the Soviet Union with the Order of Lenin and Gold Star medal no. 7190. After the war he commanded the armoured and mechanised troops of several military districts and, from 1950 to 1953, the 3rd Guards Mechanised Army in Germany; he was later first deputy commander of the Moscow Military District and senior military adviser in Czechoslovakia. He became a colonel general of tank troops in 1958 and retired in 1961. He held three Orders of Lenin, four Orders of the Red Banner and two Orders of Suvorov 2nd class. He died in Moscow on 24 June 1981 and is buried at the Kuntsevo cemetery. A street and a school in Kaliningrad bear his name.