RUSSIAN GENERAL KILLED

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 February 1945, Page 6

RUSSIAN GENERAL KILLED

IN EAST. PRUSSIA.

LONDON, February 19. General 'Cheryhakovsky, whose troops are now 'clearing the last Germans out of mast Prussia, has died of wounds. Only 36 years of age, he was one of the' most brilliant of the younger Russian generals. “The 36-year-old General Ivan Danilovich Cherynakovsky, youngest army group commander in the Red Army/died yesterday as a result of wounds received on the battlefield in East Prussia,” said, the Moscow radio, giving full details of the general’s death. “A State funeral for General Chernyakovsky will, take place in Wilno, capital of the Lithuanian Republic, which was freed from the German invader by General Chernyakovsky. General Cherynakovsky’s memory will be immortalised by a monument to him to be erected in Wilno.”

Reuter’s, correspondent in Moscow says: “General Chernyakovsky was the son of a railwayman, and was born in the Ukrainian town of Uman, near Kiev. He died at the height of his fame. After crashing through the long-prepared German defences guarding the Insterburg gap, General Chernyakovsky for the last month had been in command of the Russian group (the third White Russian front) which has struck hundreds of miles across the northern half of East Prussia to reach Konigsberg and trap a large number of enemy divisions. General Chernyakovsky played a large part, with General Vatutin, in the storming of Kiev. His most important .captures include Vitebsk and Minsk.” The Moscow radio also announced that the Council of People’s Commissars has decreed that General Cherynakovsky’s family, consisting of his wife, a son, and a daughter, shall receive. 125,000 roubles. In addition, they will receive personal pensions—his wife 2000 roubles a month for life, and the children 1000 roubles a month each until they have completed their studies.