Yaakov Shmushkevitch

Yaakov Shmushkevitch was born in Rokiskis, Lithuania in 1902. He fought in the Red Army during the Russian Civil War (1918-1920) and in 1936 he was sent to Spain to reorganize the Republican Air Force. On his return, he was named a Hero of the Soviet Union. Subsequently he was made commander of the Soviet air force in the Far East and again named Hero of the Soviet Union (one of the very rare cases of an official who received this distinction twice). Later he was put in command of the entire Soviet air force, but shortly before the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, he was dismissed from his post, tried for treason, and executed in 1941. He was posthumously rehabilitated at the 20th Communist Party Congress

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