Soviet Vozhachenko Group Part 3 & North Vietnam

[Guest Rick Research]

For Colonel Vozachenko's 1975 FIRST type OSH 3rd Class, see

http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=1042

and for his 1979 Red Star as divisional commander in Afghanistan, see

http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=1937

Those individual Orders were posted separately. Here are the "normal" Soviet awards he got which have remained intact in his group, as well as a VERY strange North Vietnamese "COMBAT ONLY" Order.

Basic biography and career data on Colonel Anatoly Aleksandrovich Vozhachenko can be found in the Red Star thread above.

Even his "junk" awards, however, reveal some Bizarre And Mysterious aspects!

[Guest Rick Research]

Medal for Veterans of the Armed Forces, single mounted, with Award Booklet bestowing this 25 years service award on him as a Colonel (WITHOUT any indication of ?reserve? or ?retired?), per decree #89 of 30 April 1984, issued on 8 May 1984 with stamp and signature of Commander of Military Preparatory Schools, Leningrad Military District, Major General ?Dolgii.?

1965 Victory Jubilee Medal Award Booklet, serial # A 1513434 issued to him 4 November 1965 as Senior Lieutenant , with stamp and signature of Lt. Col. ?Zhukov,? CO of Military Unit 74261. For the medal, see 4 medal bar above.

[Guest Rick Research]

1968 Armed Forces Jubilee Medal Award Booklet, to him 13 February 1968 as Captain, with stamp and signature of Deputy Commander of Frunze Military Academy, Major General ?Stashek.? For the medal, see 4medal bar above.

1978 Armed Forces Jubilee Medal Award Booklet, to him 12 August 1980 as Lieutenant Colonel, with illegible (?Fifid??) rank-less signature and red stamp of Unit 44708. This delay in bestowal on a serving officer suggested that he was not in a domestic unit of the Soviet army, but was serving overseas. In fact, verifying this surmise, after obtaining the citation for his Order of the Red Star, that revealed that he had been posted in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan since 12 December 1977. Red is not the normal color for military stamps. "Unit 44708" was the central "Military Post Number" for the Main Administration for International Military Cooperation of the Ministry of Defense, and used for all foreign advisors, attach?s etc etc worldwide. Since this was issued on the same day as his Order of the Red Star Orders Book, presumably it too was bestowed in Afghanistan. For the medal, see 4 medal bar above.

[Guest Rick Research]

1988 Armed Forces Jubilee Medal, single mounted, with Award Booklet to him 29 November 1989 as Colonel, with printed ?signature? and printed stamp of the Presidium of the USSR. I have NEVER encountered another Presidium issued document of this type. The ONLY other example I have seen is a 1970 Lenin Centenary Medal document shown in the McDaniel & Schmitt book. Given the peculiarity of Soviet logic, this apparently indicates that Vozhachenko was in a ?secret? unit overseas under direct control of the highest political authority. I doubt VERY much that it was "mere coincidence" that this matches the period when Vozhachenko was probably in Vietnam.

note the issuing authority and preprinted stamp:

and compare THIS to the usual "junk jubilee" booklet!!!

Award Booklet for Armed Forces 10 Years Service Medal, as Senior Lieutenant, per decree #45 of 19 January 1967, issued on 22 February 1967 with stamp and signature of Lt. Col. ?Zagubalov,? CO of Military Unit # 74261. Filled in on first page, no other entries. He was in same unit in 1965. For the medal, see 2 medal bar above. (The way the medals were mounted suggests wear on "field" jackets rather than normal parade dress, so in overseas field parade dress, if I can call it that.

[Guest Rick Research]

North Vietnamese Feat of Arms Order, 1st Class, 3rd type, with Award Certificate. Order is flimsy, hollow stamped Vietnamese shoddy quality with three stars of 1st class on the ribbon, with pin-back.

Certificate is a very large poorly multi-colored printed on cheap paper, about 13 1/8? H x 16 ?? W. Filled in with flowing Vietnamese script ?first? for class, calling him ?Soviet specialist Vojatchenko Anatoli Alexandrovitch? for name, per decree #289 of 19 October 1989, issued in Hanoi on same date, with red stamp and signed lower right ?Vo Chi Cong.? I had to take this with a camera because it is too BIG to scan, with resulting loss of image clarity and colors distortion.

Citation lines, in Vietnamese, translate as ?For having already publicly helped the people of Viet Nam in the matter of professionally constructing army troops, strengthening national defense.?

This Order was supposedly only issued for COMBAT HEROISM. Mere training duty would/should have gotten Vozhachenko the Friendship Order or Decoration. Presumably the ?already? (leaving aside the preposterous ?publicly?) indicates that this was a delayed award made for earlier service.

Against Americans and South Vietnamese 1 July 1965-31 December 1974?

Against Red China in the 1979 border war is impossible, since he was in Afghanistan at that time.

Against Cambodia during the North Vietnamese ?pacification? campaign?

Soviet regulations concerning award of the ?Warrior Internationalist? badge only recognized Soviet ?advisor? service in the first of these three conflicts?!!!

Scrawled at top in pencil in Cyrillic is Colonel Vozhachenko?s full name and rank and the name of the Order in Russian. This is typical of official ?doodling? done when foreign Communist awards were sent through Soviet channels for transmittal to recipients.

Either this is a degraded award improperly bestowed in place off the correct ?friendship? award, or it is proof of Soviet ground combat participation in the Vietnam war 1965-1974.

This group is MISSING: Award Booklet (probably both on one) for 20 and 15 Years Service Armed Forces Medals, the 1970 Lenin Military Jubilee Medal and Award Booklet (unless he was on overseas duty and never received one?), the Badge and Certificate for graduation from the Frunze Military Academy (unless he washed out), and the Warrior Internationalist Badge and Certificate, if he was still alive after 1989 to have received one. It is possible given the individual Orders entries/separate Orders Books that he may have received other decorations not present with this group, freshly received from the Ukraine January 2001. Research received in January 2005 revealed that most of his military records, including his Award Record Card, were NOT in the Russian Military Archives-- either

1) taken home by him

2) lost in the chaos

or

3) still under top secret classification

[Guest Rick Research]

Just took the award certificate out of its frame to scan in four separate pieces. The mis-aligned red and yellow of the national seal at top and image of the Order at bottom are NOT from mis-aligned scans-- they are mis-printed on the ORIGINAL--

given the size and poor quality of this HUGE document, perhaps it is not surprising how few seem to be "out there."

[Guest Rick Research]

The "signature" under the red stamp is printed. Whoever Comrade Vo was, that is an actual signature at bottom right.

The document was obviously printed the old fashioned way, with each color applied separately and pressed over and over and over again, accounting for the lack of alignment.

[Ed_Haynes]

It is good to see this lovely and historic group "bumped", Rick.

[Guest Rick Research]

Absent his missing/still Top Secret personnel files, doubt remains whether this "already..." document refers to a Suitable Delay In Processing (ahem ahem AHEM) orrrrr, was actually a quite degraded actual 1989 award contrary to the stated requirements for bestowal of this "combat ONLY" Order--like the Brezhnevian "jubilee" Red Banners and Red Stars of the 1960s and 1970s.

But I was wandering around in the back pages today and found THIS actual, specificly PRVN/USSR military combat award from 1973 ---

http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=11953&hl=Yefimenko

for a "non-Emering" Vietnam war combat medal! I missed the posting at the time and my Vietnamese is not good, to be generous.

[Ulsterman]

Hmmmm- one has heard of ground troops in combat-but I think this is proof.