Soviet Researched documented group: Red Star & Bravery Medal

[Ed_Haynes]

Oh WOW!

For those who don't understand the value of research, this should be an education!

[Ostfront]

Interesting story indeed. If I understood correctly he was deployed in the russian-finnish winter war in 1940 (Finnish company in 1940???), then taking part in the GPW from june 1941 in the tank corps as a driver of 34 tank (my feeling on this was right ), and when he was heavily wounded he was sent to medical unit where he was in medical unit untill the end of the war. Sanitary dog-sledge team - what does this means? What's with the dogs here? I don't get it.

So this man has seen it all, from Stalins purges in 1938 and winter war in 1940, to GPW from Leningrad 1941 to Berlin in 1945. Amazing. To bad nothing is known about him in the winter war or about the tank units he served in... He might have been a driver of a tank in the winter war already...

Thank you Rick Research for trying to help me translating this.

Edited September 29, 2007 by Ostfront

[Guest Rick Research]

Yes, he must have been in the armor branch in an unspecified regiment until his first severe 1942 wound, and then after recovering he was reassigned to "lighter" vehicles.

This very strange, interesting unit would have used dogs to drag away wounded from the front lines, rather than human stretcher bearers. I wonder if they were trained to return to the rear all by themselves (can you IMAGINE that? A wounded man strapped onto a sledge being dragged away... by just dogs???? ) or whether ONE medic accompanied each team of sled-dogs?

This has GOT to be one of the most incredibly ODD units we have ever seen research for--

an amazing story!

I've changed the thread title to include the sled-dog information-- maybe one of our Russian members can tell us more about such units during the war.

[Ostfront]

I hope we'll get some more information on this unit. It sounds very interesting. Were these dogs used only in winter-snow conditions or also in the normal conditions?

[Guest Rick Research]

Both citations were submitted in April, and the Red Star mentions fighting in Berlin, so they must have run year-round. I wonder if--like Alaska dog mushers--there was a "driver" on each sled and a team of dogs-- whether the ground was snow, or dirt?

[Wild Card]

Gentlemen,

I just can?t let this one go by without a comment.

This is a the kind of thing that makes collecting Soviet so rewarding. You can?t make something like this up; and what makes it even better is that it shows that you don?t have to chase Nevskys and Suvorovs for some of the real treasures.

Ostfront, congratulations on one of the most interesting groups I?ve ever seen and thank you for sharing it with us.

Best wishes,

Wild Card

[Paul R]

One of the more amazing groups! Congratulations! Research is great!

[Ostfront]

Thanks guys. I agree, you don't have to buy expensive stuff to find interesting research storys. Even 20$ worth pieces can have a very interesting story behind them. So I prefer to buy many cheap items or groups and get a lot of research stories, than to buy just one expensive group per year or so...

Edited October 4, 2007 by Ostfront

[kimj]

Just found a dog sled reference and thought it would add to the information here.

Dogs would detect wounded soldiers left on the battlefield. These casualties

would then be removed on sleds, on litters, in flat-bottomed boats, or by

horses or reindeer. Once treated at the field station, casualties were to be

evacuated to the rear either in ambulances or in cargo trucks returning to

the supply base area. A limited number of patients would be transported

by air.

It's from James F.Gebhardt's paper on the Kirkenes-Petsamo operation, that's why it mentions reindeer I suppose.

http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/download/csi...t/geb_intro.pdf

/Kim

[Guest Rick Research]

This ? from Catherine Merridale's entertaining 2006 popular history "Ivan's War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945"--

There only appear to be 2 medical orderlies accompanying these 10 4-dog sled/wagon teams.

Thanks to Ulsterman for passing this book along!

[Ostfront]

Thanks Rick for this nice picture. This is definetly something I have never seen before.

[Bryan]

Dogs sleigh bringing amunition to the front in Karelia

Source: http://www.1418.ru/chronicles.php?p=227