First Marshal of Armored Troops who led the Red Army's tank forces through the entire war
In Odessa during October 1917, Fedorenko's detachment of revolutionary sailors seized the headquarters of the Odessa Military District and established Soviet power in the city.
Yakov Fedorenko headed the Red Army's Main Auto-Armored Tank Directorate (GABTU) from 1940 to 1947, overseeing Soviet armored and mechanized forces throughout the Great Patriotic War. Appointed Deputy People's Commissar of Defence in July 1941, he coordinated tank production and served as Stavka representative at Moscow, Stalingrad, and Kursk. Summoned to Stalin's office 149 times, he was among the high command's most trusted advisers and in February 1944 became, alongside Pavel Rotmistrov, one of the first two Marshals of Armored Troops. A former Black Sea Fleet sailor, he helped establish Soviet power in Odessa during the October Revolution and commanded armored trains in the Civil War. He died in Moscow in 1947 and was buried at Novodevichy Cemetery.
Activities and affiliations
- 1918–1920 Military command · Soviet Union · Military and defence
Career Timeline
- 1915–1917Sailor, Black Sea Fleet; chairman of minesweeper ship committee
- 1917–1918Commander of Red Guard sailors' detachment, Odessa
- 1918–1920Red Army armored train commander and commissar, Civil War
- 1937–1940Chief of Auto-Armored Forces, Kiev Special Military District
- 1940–1942Head, Main Auto-Armored Tank Directorate (GABTU), Red Army
- 1941–1943Deputy People's Commissar of Defence, USSR
- 1942–1947Commander of Armored and Mechanized Forces, Red Army
- 1946–1947Commander, Armored & Mechanized Forces, Ground Forces; Deputy, Supreme Soviet
Related historical events
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign InterventionRed Army soldier
- 1941–1945The Great Patriotic Warhead of the Main Auto-Armored Directorate and Deputy People's Commissar of Defense
- 1942–1943Battle of StalingradStavka representative directing operationsHe was sent as a Stavka representative at the Battle of Stalingrad.
Building an Independent Armored Branch and Its Combat Doctrine
Late in 1942 the Red Army's armored forces were separated out as an independent branch. Under State Defence Committee decision No. 2589s of 7 December 1942 the Main Auto-Armored Tank Directorate (GABTU) was split into two main directorates, and on the same day Fedorenko took command of the newly created armoured and mechanized forces. The tanks thereby moved from being a supporting arm of infantry and artillery to having their own command line, over which he presided until April 1946.
Codifying combat experience into doctrine was also his charge. He took part in drafting People's Commissar of Defence order No. 325 of 16 October 1942, which reset tank tactics on the basis of accumulated experience: frontal tank charges were banned, tank regiments and brigades were assigned to infantry support, and the main fight against enemy tanks passed to the artillery. Those provisions held for the rest of the war. He led work on the Combat Manual of the Armoured and Mechanized Forces adopted in 1944, and was responsible for preparing Stavka orders on the use of tank troops. In June 1944, during the Bobruisk offensive in Belarus, he advised on crossing difficult wooded and marshy terrain.
In the same period he managed the fielding of new equipment: T-34s with the 85-mm gun, the heavy IS-1 and then IS-2, and late in the war the T-44 and IS-3. Earlier, in the first phase of the war, he had personally overseen production and front-line supply of T-34s and KVs. He also directed the training of tank cadres and the collection of lessons from tank operations, and on 21 February 1944, alongside Rotmistrov, became one of the USSR's first Marshals of Armored Troops. That he was summoned to Stalin's office 149 times reflects how branch construction and operational direction were concentrated in one office. Not every commitment succeeded: in mid-1942 near Voronezh the task group of the 4th, 17th, and 24th Tank Corps that he personally directed failed to stop the German advance amid missing intelligence, broken communications between corps, and no artillery or air support, and most of the city's right bank was eventually occupied.