Marshal of Armoured Troops Mikhail Yefimovich Katukov ( – 8 June 1976) served as a commander of armored troops in the Red Army during and following World War II. He is viewed as one of the most talented Soviet armor commanders. Mikhail Katukov holds the honor of the first major victory of the Soviet armored forces, the victory from October 4 to October 11, 1941 at Mtsensk over the 3rd and 4th tank divisions, which were part of the Guderian's Panzergruppe 2 in the Battle of Moscow. His other notable command during the German-Soviet War were that of 1st Guards Tank Army, which he commanded during the Battle of Kursk (1943), the Proskurov-Chernovtsy Operation (1944), the Lvov-Sandomierz Operation (1944), the Vistula Oder Operation (1945), and the Battle of Berlin (1945). He commanded 1st Guards Tank Brigade during the Battle of Moscow (1941), and 3rd Mechanised Corps during Operation Mars (1942). Early life Katukov was born on in the village of Bolshoe Uvarovo in Kolomensky Uyezd, Moscow Governorate (now in the Ozyory Urban Okrug of Moscow Oblast) into an impoverished peasant family with five children. From a young age he worked on the local landowner's dairy farm. Katukov graduated from a rural primary school. In 1912, sent to relatives in Saint Petersburg, he worked as a messenger boy in a dairy shop, and later in the factories of the city. Katukov participated in the October Revolution in 1917, after which he returned to Bolshoe Uvaravo to take care of his family after his mother's death. Military career Katukov enlisted to the Red Army as a private in 1919. He served during the Russian Civil War, and later served as a tank formation commander before the war. In 1935 he graduated from the Stalin Military Academy and in July 1936 he was promoted to captain. In October 1938 came his first major command as acting commanding officer of the 5th Light Tank Brigade of the 45th Mechanized Corps. He survived the purges. Second World War On the onset of the war he took command of the 4th Tank Brigade. In the battle of Moscow in 1941, it was Katukov's Tank Brigade, then part of the 1st Guards Rifle Corps, that checked the advance of Guderian's Panzergruppe 2 near Tula. To honor this achievement it became the 1st Guards Tank Brigade. On November 11, 1941, Order No. 337 of the People's Commissar of