Ivan Semyonovich Bezugly (sometimes transliterated as Bezuglyi or Bezuglyy: ; 23 October 1897– 4 December 1983) was a Soviet Red Army officer who served as commander of the Red Army's 5th Airborne Corps in 1941, the first airborne corps of the Red Army to fight in World War II after the German invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941. Suffering heavy casualties just south of Daugavpils in combat against the advancing Panzer units of Army Group North in the summer of 1941, the unit made its way to the Moscow Military District on 15 August.
Promoted to lieutenant-general later in the war, Bezugly took part in the Soviet operations against Imperial Japan following the end of World War II in Europe as commanding officer of the 5th Guards Rifle Corps, which fought as part of Colonel-General Ivan Lyudnikov's 39th Army in the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in August 1945. The 5th Guards Rifle Corps captured Solun during the Manchurian operation.
Early life, World War I and Russian Civil War
A Ukrainian, Ivan Semyonovich Bezugly was born on 23 October 1897 in the village of Zayerok, Starobelsky Uyezd, Kharkov Governorate. He worked as a baker in a bakery in Starobelsk. During World War I, Bezugly was mobilized for military service in October 1916 and sent to the Black Sea Fleet base at Sevastopol, where he graduated from the signallers' school and served as a sailor in the Black Sea coast signal service. In June 1918 he was discharged and with a troop train of sailors departed from Novorossiysk to the Povorino station, where he was demobilized.
As the Russian Civil War began, Bezugly joined the Red Army at Povorino on 25 June and commanded a platoon of the Kekholm Regiment. From August, he served as a Red Army man in the Cheka in Balashov, then commanded a company in the 2nd Brigade of the Ukrainian Front, the Special Group of the Kharkov Axis, and the Trans-Dnieper Ukrainian Soviet Division. From June 1919 he served in the 16th Rifle Division as an instructor of the political department, military commissar of the 137th Tambov Rifle Regiment, and political commissar of the 140th, 137th, and 138th Rifle Regiments. He took part in the fighting on the Southern Front against the Armed Forces of South Russia on the Seversky Donets and in the Ostrogozhsk region, in the August counteroffensive of the Southern Front, the Voronezh–Kastornoye operation and the offensive in Don Host Oblast in 1919. During the winter and spring of 1920, Bezugly fought in the Rostov–Novocherkassk Operation, the Don–Manych, Tikhoretsk, and Kuban–Novorossiysk operations. During the summer and fall of the year he took part in the Polish–Soviet War on the Western Front on the Polotsk, Ostrov and Minsk axis. He was twice wounded in action during 1920. For distinguishing himself in battle, Bezugly was awarded the Order of the Red Banner in 1922.
Interwar period
After the end of the war, Bezugly continued to serve with the 16th Rifle Division as military commissar of the 48th Rifle Regiment. In September 1922 he was enrolled as a student in the Military-Political Seminary for Military Commissars in Petrograd, and on graduation in March 1923 posted to the 16th Division's 47th Rifle Regiment as a military commissar and acting regimental commander. Between October 1924 and August 1925 he completed the Vystrel courses. Bezugly was transferred to the division's 46th Rifle Regiment in October 1926, where he served as regimental military commissar and rose to commander and commissar of the regiment in March 1928. He completed the courses for additional party-political training of commanders at the Military-Political Academy in Leningrad between October 1929 and April 1930.
Sent to complete the Improvement Courses for Command Personnel of the Red Army Air Force at the Military Air Academy in December 1931, Bezugly was appointed assistant commander of the 21st Aviation Brigade for Materiel Support upon graduation in May 1932. From June 1933 he commanded the aviation regiment of the 3rd Airborne Brigade, and from December of that year served as assistant brigade commander. In October 1938 he was appointed commander of the 201st Airborne Brigade, which as part of the 15th Army successfully operated in the Winter War. For his "courage and valor displayed in battles," Bezugly, then a kombrig, was awarded a second Order of the Red Banner on 20 May 1940. He was appointed commander of the 5th Airborne Corps, forming in the Baltic Special Military District, in May 1941.