Ivan Kamera

Ivan Pavlovich Kamera (; 21 January 1952) was a Soviet military officer who held several commands as an artillery general during World War II, most notably during the Soviet counterattack at Yartsevo (near Smolensk) and as artillery chief for the Soviet Union's Western Front (Army Group).

Promoted to colonel-general of the artillery in July 1943, Kamera was subsequently relieved of command following an April 1944 State Defense Committee report harshly critical of both the artillery performance of the Front and of the leadership of its most senior officers.

Biography An ethnic Belarusian, Kamera was born in 1897. His career as a professional soldier in the Soviet armed forces began during the Russian Civil War (1917–1923). Already a member of the Bolsheviks’ Red Guard during the revolutionary events of 1917, Kamera joined the Bolshevik Party and the newly organized Red Army of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic in 1918.

A professional military man during the interwar decades in the Soviet Union, Kamera served in the artillery of the Red Army in the Soviet Union's Far East during 1929. Kamera also became one of the higher-ranking Soviet Army officers to be decorated for heroism by the United States, receiving the United States Department of War's Distinguished Service Cross on behalf of Commander-in-Chief President Franklin D. Roosevelt on 6 January 1944.

Kamera was not as positively regarded by other military leadersparticularly as the Western Front failed to make significant advances for multiple months during the Soviet Army's pushback in 1943–1944. A joint report from the State Defense Committee, composed of Georgy Malenkov, colonel-generals Shcherbakov and Sergei Shtemenko, and lieutenant-generals and , delivered to Joseph Stalin on 11 April 1944, criticized several generals and specifically faulted the performance of the artillery forces under Kamera's commandrecommending his demotion in rank and replacement as artillery commander by another officer. Sokolovsky, Kamera, and other personnel were promptly relieved of their commands.

Kamera was already in poor health at the time, suffering from illness and paralysis that required hospitalization in early 1944. His wartime career was effectively over in such circumstances.

Kamera died on 21 January 1952.

Awards and honors