Boris Skvortsov
Boris Mikhailovich Skvortsov (; 10 July 1902 – 12 May 1946) was a Red Army major general of tank forces who rose to command the 5th Guards Mechanized Corps during World War II. Early life and Russian Civil War Boris Mikhailovich Skvortsov was born on 10 July 1902 in Samara. During the Russian Civil War, he joined a partisan detachment of the Ufa Governorate Communist Party in August 1919. With the partisan detachment and then the 2nd Consolidated Division of V. M. Azin, he fought against the forces of Alexander Kolchak in the region of Ufa, Agryz, and Izhevsk, Skvortsov became a cadet at the 2nd Volsk Machine Gun Course in May 1920, and after his graduation in November became a platoon and company commander in elements of the 3rd Reserve Brigade of the Southern Front at Rostov-on-Don, then from April 1921 in the 329th Rifle Regiment of the Separate Terek Brigade at Pyatigorsk. From August 1921 he served as assistant chief of the railroad militsiya at the Samara station, and from October of that year, was a worker of the transport Cheka at Omsk. Interwar period Transferred to the Soviet Far East in March 1922, Skvortsov served with the People's Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic as chief of the machine gun detachment of the 2nd Border Battalion. He served with the 3rd Verkhneudinsk Regiment of the 1st Pacific Rifle Division from August of that year, and late that year fought with his unit in the campaign to occupy Primorye and Vladivostok. Subsequently, he served with the regiment as a platoon commander, chief of the machine gun detachment, and machine gun company commander. During this period, Skvortsov completed the six-month commanders refresher course of the 5th Army at Chita in 1924 and the Vystrel course in 1929. During the Sino-Soviet conflict of 1929, the regiment was deployed to the Chinese border. Skvortsov served as assistant chief and acting chief of staff of the 61st Osa Rifle Regiment of the 21st Perm Rifle Division of the Siberian Military District at Tomsk from November 1930. In May 1932, he was sent to study at the Moscow Improvement Course of the Motorized and Mechanized Forces of the Red Army at the Military Academy of Mechanization and Motorization, and after his graduation later that year served there as a tactics instructor. In 1933 he graduated from the Red Army Officers Improvement Course at Moscow before being transferred to the Kazan Improvement Course for Senior and Midlevel Command and Technical Personnel in January 1934. At the latter, he served as a tactics instructor, chief of a course, and company commander. During this period Skvortsov graduated from the Military Academy of Mechanization and Motorization in 1936. From May 1937, Skvortsov commanded the separate tank battalion of the 7th Armored Motor Brigade of the 57th Special Corps, and in August 1938 was appointed assistant commander of the brigade for the technical section. In November 1938 he was transferred to the 11th Light Tank Brigade to