Afanasii Shcheglov

Shcheglov, Afanasii Fedorovich 

Born Jan. 2 (15), 1912, in the village of Mikhali, in what is now Olenino Raion, Kalinin Oblast. Soviet military leader. General of the army (1970). Hereof the Soviet Union (Feb. 13, 1944). Member of the CPSU since 1939.

The son of a peasant, Shcheglov joined the Red Army in 1929. He graduated from the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Combined Military School in 1933, the M. V. Frunze Military Academy in 1939, and the K. E. Voroshilov Higher Military Academy in 1948. Shcheglov served in the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939–40 as an assistant department chief in the operations section of army headquarters. During the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45 he was commander of an artillery regiment in 1941 and 1942 and deputy chief of the operations section of the headquarters of the Leningrad Front in 1942 and 1943. He served on the Northern and Leningrad fronts as commander of the 63rd Guards Rifle Division in 1943 and 1944 and the 30th Guards Rifle Corps from October 1944 until the end of the war.

After the war, Shcheglov held command positions in the National Air Defense Forces and served from 1959 to 1966 as commander of the Baku Air Defense District. He became first deputy commander in chief of the National Air Defense Forces in July 1966 and was appointed the representative of the commander in chief of the Joint Armed Forces of the Warsaw Pact in one of the member countries in April 1974.

Shcheglov was a deputy to the sixth through eighth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He has been awarded four Orders of Lenin, three Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of Suvorov Second Class, the Order of Alexandr Nevsky, the Order of the Patriotic War First Class, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, the Order of the Red Star, the Order for Service to the Motherland in the Armed Forces of the USSR Third Class, and various medals. Shcheglov has also received foreign orders and medals.