Philipp Afanasievich Ershakov

Filipp Afanasyevich Yershakov (; – 9 June 1942) was a Red Army lieutenant general who held field army command during World War II. Yershakov led the 22nd Army during the Battle of Smolensk and was captured while commanding the 20th Army in the Vyazma pocket. He died in German captivity.

Early life, World War I and Russian Civil War Filipp Afanasyevich Yershakov was born in a peasant family on in the village of Taganki, Pyatninsky volost, Vyazemsky Uyezd, Smolensk Governorate. During World War I, he was conscripted into the Imperial Russian Army in January 1915 and assigned as a ryadovoy to the 195th Reserve Battalion of the Moscow Military District. In April of that year he was sent to the Western Front with a march company, where he was assigned to the 13th Yerevan Grenadier Regiment. Wounded in battle on 4 July 1915 near Kholm, Yershakov returned to his regiment after treatment, and graduated from its training detachment as a squad leader. In November 1916 he was transferred to the 525th Infantry Regiment, with which he fought in battles on the Northern Front in the regions of Vilno, Krevo, and Smorgon. Yershakov rose to the rank of podpraporshchik while serving with the regiment. After the October Revolution he was elected a company commander, ending his service at Borisov, where he was demobilized in April 1918.

Yershakov immediately joined the Red Army in April 1918 during the Russian Civil War, serving as a rifleman guarding the Vasileostrovsky District Soviet in Petrograd. From July of that year he served in the Separate Vasileostrovsky Battalion as a platoon commander and assistant company commander, rising to command the battalion in September. He became commander of a detachment formed from the battalion near Arkhangelsk in September. Yershakov subsequently commanded a battalion of the 158th Rifle Regiment, formed from the detachments operating in the Arkhangelsk region. The regiment fought against the White Northern Army and in May 1919 was transferred to Petrograd to fight the White Northwestern Army. Yershakov transferred to command a battalion of the 15th Rifle Regiment of the 2nd Rifle Division, then commanded a regiment. With the 2nd Rifle Division, he took part in the Polish–Soviet War.

Decorations Yershakov was a recipient of the following decorations:

Order of the Red Banner (20 February 1928, 22 February 1938) Jubilee Medal "XX Years of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army"