Fedor Aleksandrovich Samsonov

Born Nov. 8 (21), 1901, in the village of Zelenovka, now in Serdobsk Raion, Penza Oblast. Soviet military commander, colonel general of the artillery (1944). Member of the CPSU from 1921.

Samsonov joined the Red Army in 1920 and graduated from the M. V. Frunze Military Academy in 1934 and from the Military Academy of the General Staff in 1941. He saw service in the Great Patriotic War as chief of staff of the artillery on the Briansk Front and chief of the artillery of the Twenty-eighth Army from August to December 1941. In December 1941 he became artillery chief of staff under the artillery commander of the Red Army.

Samsonov became chief of the artillery subdepartment of the K. E. Voroshilov Higher Military Academy in April 1946. In 1948 he was appointed academician secretary of the division of artillery warfare at the Academy of Artillery Science. He was a member of the academy’s presidium from 1950 to 1953. From 1953 to 1964, Samsonov was head of the editorial board for the publication of the multivolume Artillery and Artillery Supply in the Patriotic War. He retired in 1964.

Samsonov was awarded the Order of Lenin, three Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of Suvorov First and Second Class, the Order of Kutuzov First Class, the Order of the Patriotic War First Class, the Order of the Red Star, various medals, and an order of the Polish People’s Republic.