Korchagin volunteered for the Imperial Russian Army during World War I, during which he was wounded multiple times and decorated.

Korchagin led the division in the Battle of Smolensk and continued in command after it was reorganized into a brigade due to heavy losses.

Made a Hero of the Soviet Union for his leadership of the corps during the Battle of the Dnieper, Korchagin held army command postwar.

Korchagin was born on 24 August 1898 in the village of Byltsino, Kozhanskoy volost, Gorokhovetsky uyezd, Vladimir Governorate.

[1][2][3] During World War I, Korchagin was mobilized into the Imperial Russian Army in October 1914 and volunteered to be sent to the 22nd Nizhny Novgorod Infantry Regiment.

In May 1919 he was appointed military leader of the transport Cheka in Vladimir, and in August became chief of security and defense of the district VOKhR troops.

[5][1] Korchagin transferred to the Leningrad Military District in November 1930 to serve a chief of staff of the Pskov-based 56th Rifle Division.

This posting proved to be brief, as in June Korchagin was made head of the Lepel Rifle Mortar School, and a month later appointed deputy commander of the 17th Tank Division of the 5th Mechanized Corps of the Transbaikal Military District.

[5] As a result of the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, on 22 June 1941, the division was relocated to the Orsha area with the corps and placed at the disposal of the Western Front.

Among the fortified points recaptured was Nezhin and on 25 September the corps crossed the Dnieper north of Kiev, capturing and holding a bridgehead on the right bank.

For his leadership of the corps, which included personally supervising the Dnieper crossing, Korchagin received the title Hero of the Soviet Union and was awarded the Order of Lenin on 17 October 1943.

Appointed deputy chief of the Main Auto-Tractor Directorate of the Ministry of War in April 1951, Korchagin died on 24 July of that year in Moscow and was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery.