NavyFCO

Here's what an official Ukaz, when published, actually looked like on paper. Sometimes they were just typewritten, but most were like this (this is for one giving awards to Civil War veterans in 1968.)

Hope that helps!

Dave

Whats the Ukaz date

That's the date on the right hand side of the award book. If you look at yours, it says "Ukazom Prezidiuma Verkhovnovo Soveta SSSR" across the top. That's the "Ukaz of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR" with the date of the Ukaz (or declaration, it could be called) next to the award.

An Ukaz differed from a Prikaz in that the Ukaz is only from the Supreme Soviet, whereas a Prikaz is a declaration issued by a subordinate unit (such as an Army, Division, Regiment, etc.)

Dave

Okay, so he's with the unit a few weeks and they put him up for a Glory 3rd. Not that unusual, to be certain, particularly with the losses that they were experiencing in the assault on Berlin.

What's odd though is that I received two award cards for him. The one on the right (dated 1956) lists not just the Glory 3rd, but TWO For Valor medals! Basically, this guy raked in three awards within a month and half of combat! Odder still is that both of the For Valor medals were given by the SAME unit on the SAME day under the SAME declaration (Prikaz), but were over 600,000 numbers off in serial number!

Looking to the left hand (earlier) award card, it lists just his Glory 3rd, and a single For valor, but oddly enough it mentions (from what I understand) that they were presented to him in 1948 in Leningrad. WHAT?

Lots more stuff on there that I just can't read because of the crappy handwriting.... Can anyone help me out to straighten out what happened to this guy's awards?

Thanks!

Dave

I've been researching awards since 1996, and have probably seen 300+ sets (conservatively) of research in the 10 years I've been doing this.

On rare occasions though, you run into something that makes you say: "What the heck happened here???" This is one of those occasions. Hopefully, someone might be able to help me decipher what happened here with this guy's awards.

This Glory 3rd was awarded to Kanyaev, Ivan Aleksandrovich, a Layer with the 3rd Mortar Company, 3rd Battalion, 353rd Guards Rifle Regiment, 114th Guards Rifle Division.

What's interesting about this is his date of entry into the Patriotic War. Granted, this was not impossible, but it's highly unusual.... It's 22 March 1945! What's odder about it is that he was in the Soviet Army since March 1942. Perhaps a "behind the lines" guy who they wanted to move forward to see some combat and maybe get an award or two?

Well, within three and a half weeks of reporting to the unit, he was nominated for the Order of Glory 3rd Class. The citation is presented below...

Now we have his final award card. This one is a bit interesting as he's now a full Colonel who was awarded his Homeland 3rd on 17 November 1982. BUT there's one minor issue. His "place of service" lists him as having died on 23 October 1983, with his location as being buried in Lukyanovskom Cemetery in Kiev! There's also no number for his Homeland 3rd, and interestingly, this award card was filled out three months exactly from his date of death. Now if that's not a mystery for Rick, I don't know what is...

Award card number 2 was the award card for this Red Star that I have. Here, we fast forward to 29 July 1981, when this award card was filled out - about 15 years after his first decoration! (Sounds like the British army!)

This one was filled out in the "city of Kabul" (don't need to explain where that is) and he's here as a Lieutenant Colonel now in something (I can't translate the word correctly!) with unit 44708. This Ukaz was dated 4 June 1981.

Here's his first award card.

This is for a Red Star, awarded on 3 March 1966

At the time, he was a Senior Lieutenant who had been in the Soviet Army since 12 November 1957, and at the time of the award was the commander of a training platoon of the 103rd Independent Tank Training Regiment. The Red Star was awarded under Ukaz dated 22 February 1966. Given that it was a "Day of the Soviet Army" award, I'm guessing (and this is just a guess) that he had the top performing platoon in the Regiment. Or, maybe he saved someone's life. Who knows?

Yes, my scanner does suck, thus the reason you won't see any photos of his Red Star here. (What can I expect? I live in a hotel room with a combo printer-scanner-copier!) Anyway, inside the order book:

I just received research back today on an interesting Red Star group I picked up this week.

This is Red Star number 3763323, awarded to Nikolai Ivanovich Vavenko. When the research came back, he had not one, but three Award Cards! Unfortunately, I cannot get access to the citation for this Red Star at this time, but will keep trying!

First, the inside of his order book. Front page:

As far as the current value on it, I'd say that because of the rough enamel, I think you're looking at about a $550 piece. If I were selling it, that's what I'd expect to get from it.

Dave

Thanks everyone. What awards other awards was he given? I know that he would have had the Victory over Germany medal.

Dave, you mentioned the MM and the Order of the Red Star. Rick stated that he had the Stalingrad and MM medal. What other campaign(Defence, Capture, or Liberation) medals would he have eligible for? Based upon when it would have been awarded, would it have been a numbered piece(or hopefully, unnumbered).

Interesting that he was purged... TWICE. Any mention as to why this would have happened?

Thank you all again.

BTW, I am not going to sell this(especially now), but what would a set like this be worth on today's market(ORB with this history)? I am just curious.

Paul:

His other awards were a MM number 195339 (I was wrong, it wasn't a long service award - my hit) and a Red Star number 2760332. The latter was definately long service under the 3.11.44 Ukaz with all the other gazillion long service ones.

According to his award card, there are no other awards listed. On his citation though he recieved the Defense of Stalingrad, and (of course) Victory Over Germany. That's all that's listed anywhere.

As far as him being purged... I don't know if he officially was or not. His pre-WW2 departure in 1938 appears to have been part of the great purge that they had at the time. This would, of course, not be in the same definition as the purge of the great Marshals of the USSR at the same time - for him, it looks to me like they just gave him the boot out of the service. Maybe he was a sub-standard officer, or perhaps he was outspoken against the communist party... either way, they dumped him from the active rolls.

After WW2, he was given the boot again in August 1945 "for reaching maximum age" though ironically he was only 41 at the time. Perhaps he reached "high year tenure" (was we call it these days) being a Captain at age 41. Sounds to me that he wasn't the world's best officer and they gave him the quick kiss goodbye so that he wouldn't mess up anything! It could be too (and this was fairly common) that he was a drunk. That could also account for his boot from the communist party later down the road as well... could you see him show up to a meeting and perhaps cuss out the local leadership? Or, as I've seen before, he could have lit a building on fire with the occupants in it (there was an HSU that did that) or got into a fight with his boss (I had a group where a guy did that.) Both of those things would get you the boot out of the party.

My eyes are going buggy from this crappy handwriting (it's AWFUL!) but here's his career path: 1926 was a Red Army Soldier (Krasnoarmeets). Four years later, he becomes an officer candidate and in 1931, they commission him. When he finally gets the boot from the military, it's September 1938, and he's just a Senior Lieutenant, after seven years commissioned service! They recall him in June 1941 and he finally makes it to the front in March 1942. That September, he gets promoted to Captain. Then, he sits at Captain until August 1945 when they tell him "do-svidanya buddy" and boot him from the military again.

This guy would definately be an interesting guy to get the personnel file on.... hopefully it will arrive soon!

Dave

By the way, I was just noticing the Ukaz date on this one. I have quite a few Glory 3rds from the same date - 6 November 47. I think that was an Ukaz that awarded decorations based on wounds received during the War, as every decoration awarded on that day has been for wounds when it's been researched.

Dave

Karasev, Nikolai Danilovich

Lieutenant

Chief of Scouts, 1920th Howitzer Regiment, 10th Artillery Corps, at this time due to illness he is not working.

Recommended for Order of the Patriotic War 2nd Class

Born 1914

Russian

Member VKP/b/

Served on the North West front from 1 April 42 to 2 September 1944, 1st Ukrainian Front from 1 April 1945 to 30 April 1945

Wounded: 21 April 1944 light wound, 22 September 1944 heavy wound and 24 April 1945 heavy wound

Called up from Derzhinskim regional call up station, Ykhtomskovo Raion, Moskovskoi Oblast

Awarded medal "For Victory Over Germany 1941-1945"

Home: Lvov, Turgeneva, 50 kv, his family lives with him

Since I am not good at translating big batches, here's my summary of the citation. He was wounded three times "as an active participant in the Patriotic War". The first time was a light wound to his left hand on 21 April 1944. The second time was a heavy wound to both legs in the fight for Riga on 22 Sep 44. Finally, he's fighting in Berlin on 24 April 45 and gets wounded so bad in his left hand (remember it was hit before) that it had to be amputated.

Pretty interesting - an amputee from fighting in Berlin!

So a post-war wound catch-up award given to a fire inspector. Cool! I've seen a few guys that worked for the NKVD after they were invalided out of the military. Seems that was a pretty common place to go, particularly for administrative work.

Dave

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Dave, at 3 AM on September 26th first unit of 12th Army (commander Major-General Danilov) started to cross Dnepr river between villages Petrovo and Svistunovo. It was 333rd Infantry division, to be more precise it was assault group under the command of captain Strizhachenko. This small unit captured a bridgehead and for the whole day was fighting with Germans. Next night (September 27) two regiments of 333rd Infantry division (1116th and 1120th Infantry Regiments) joined assault unit and participated in holding and spreading the bridgehead.

244th Infantry Division crossed Dnepr the same day - early in the morning on September 26, but in a different place (near Zaporozhye).

Thanks Andrew!

That's something more than slightly interesting to note... This citation was written on the SAME DAY that the unit was crossing the Dnepr River. I don't know of too many Soviet units that were not fully engaged during the crossing, and undoubtedly the 911th was as well. I wonder if the units simply started churning out citations that day in order to claim part of the eventual deluge of awards that would come of the Dnepr crossing.

In reading this citation, it seems much like an "attaboy" award. His recon troops dash through the enemy lines (they were retreating anyway in front of a MASSIVE assault by the Soviets) and the resulting confusion allows the tiny portion of the front owned by the 12th Army to move ahead a few kilometers. I wonder if back at the HQ of the 911th, our Comrade was given a pat on the back and that was that. Remember, these units were just part of an utterly massive wave of Soviet troops in the great push to the Dnepr River, where Army-sized units were funneled into much smaller areas in order to keep the momentum of the assault.

Once the unit was over the River, they may well have been given a directive to give awards to either "all officers" or everyone who distinguished themselves in the assault on the River, or in the direction of the River, which Nizov clearly had during the forward assault to the River. That's why there is such a disparity from the date of action (5-6 September) to the date of citation (26 September) to the approval date by the Division (16 October) to the approval by the staff of the 12th Army (3 November.) Ironically, the award was issued by a Prikaz of the 12th Army dated 31 October, three days BEFORE it was actually approved by the Army staff!

In my personal opinion, I think that Nizov was lucky to have gotten himself a Red Banner. Many units were travelling much farther than the distance that he was awarded the decoration for on a regular basis. Imagine an entire Soviet Army group bearing down on one or two single German divisions on the eastern shore of the Dnepr - most of the Germans had already been pulled back across the Dnepr to create fortified defenses of the River. It becomes obvious that the Germans simply could not hold ground in front of an assault like that.

But, where Nizov lucked out was that the unit crossed the Dnepr, and was probably given an entitlement of awards, which they wrote him up for the Red Banner, and which was approved up the entire chain of command, undoubtedly with numerous other Red Banners, Orders of Lenin, Heroes of the USSR and the like. Being that this was Nizov's only award (both his MM and RS were long service awards) does give some food for thought. Hopefully, if the personnel file ever comes out, that might answer some more questions that we can only speculate on at the moment.

Dave

I'm operating in the blind right now without my references, but I've got a hunch that the 12th Army crossed the Dnepr sometime around this time. Anyone out there with the references that can tell me when exactly his unit crossed the Dnepr?

Dave

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And the final, part 2 of his service history...

Now for his service history...

Another....

Nexxxxt.....

Before Ricky gets waay too excited (I think that's already happened though) here's the rest of what came with the research. No personnel file, unfortunately, but that might (might) come later (I just got one 4 years after getting the initial research!) Without further ado:

If you've got the name with the Ukaz date, they are researchable. Unfortunately, with just the award number, they're an official dead end.

Dave