Sergei Khudyakov

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Sergei Alexander Khudyakov (1906-1950), also known as Armenak Artem Khanferiants (Armenian: Արմենակ Արտեմ Խանֆերիանց), was a Soviet Armenian chief Marshal of the Air Force.

Armenak Khanferiants was born in 1906 in Mets Takhlar village of Hadrut, Nagorno Karabagh. He travelled to Baku to study and started working at Mantashev's oilfield. Whilst in Baku, he joined the Bolsheviks and organized the Red Guards of Baku in April 1918. While he was in Astrakhan during the Russian civil war, he was saved from drowning by his friend, Sergei Khuyakov, who was later be killed fighting the Whites. Khanferiants adopted Sergei's name as his own as memorial to the man who saved his life.^[1] In 1929, Khudyakov was admitted to the Tiflis Cavalry School. He headed to the Ukraine, and later to Moscow to the air force academy.

[edit] World War II

During the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945), he was chief of staff of the Air Force and commander of the Air Force of the Western Front, chief of staff of the Red Army's Air Force, commander of the 1st Air Army, chief of staff and deputy commander of the Red Army's Air Force. Aviation units under his command took part in the offensive of the Western Front forces in the Rzhev-Sychevka direction and supported the ground troops in the Rzhev-Vyazma operation. In 1943 Marshal Khudyakov coordinated combat operations of the Air Force of the Voronezh and Steppe Fronts in the Battle of Kursk and the Battle for the Dnieper. In 1945, took part in the rout of the Imperial Japanese Army in the Far East being commander of the 12th Air Army. Sergei Khuyakov took part in the Yalta conference as a military adviser.^[2]