Soviet Gold Star Hero Personnel File Type Photos

[Guest Rick Research]

Two came in today and another is en route.

First up, Lieutenant Paramonov, here circa 1947 though stamped with a pre-1946 "SSSR NKO" unit stamp of the 226th Independent Artillery Battalion of the 23(5? or 6? or "G"?) Howitzer Artillery Brigade. No date, but wearing one of the M1946 artillery school graduate badges (too fuzzy to read which one on its scroll). Notice that his 4 medal bar of Lenin, Valor Medal, Victory Over Germany, and one of the WW2 Medals (not sure which) is the painted plastic type:

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And all dressed up for the imminent 20th anniversary celebrations, on 8 May 1965 HSU A. (?) M. (?) Karasev must have been an enlisted man, since after his Lenin and Red Banner he is wearing a Glory 3rd, then a WW2 campaign medal, and the Victory Over Germany. An uncanny resemblance to Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman!!!

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I have absolutely no information on these Gold Star heroes, nor on a posthumpus one who may be seen at

http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?s=&showtopic=2...indpost&p=28527

[NavyFCO]

Rick-

Time to invest in the two volume HSU book set...

Pavel Denisovich Paramonov was born on 25 October 1925 in Rostov Oblast. He joined the Soviet Army in 1943 and was in the fighting from Feb 1943. He served with the 473rd Artillery Regiment, 99th Rifle Division, 46th Army, 2nd Ukrainian Front and was awarded the HSU for crossing the Dunai near the city of Erchi (Hungary) on 5 December 1944. He was awarded the title of HSU on 24 March 1945. He retired from the military as a Major and died on 13 August 1970.

Aleksi Markovich Karasyov was born on 20 December 1920 in Pskov Oblast. He joined the Soviet Army in 1940 and was in the fighting from June 1941. He was a machine gunner with the 412th Rifle Regiment, 1st Rifle Division, 70th Army, 1st Belorussian Front and was awarded the title of HSU on... conincidentally...24 March 1945! He died on 9 January 1964.

Dave

[Guest Rick Research]

I doubt I'll ever get closer to a HSU than these sorts of photos, sigh.

Here are the backs (you beat Slow Ricky to the followup scanning)

Paramonov (died young!!!!)

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And I read this as "Karasev"-- if the same guy you cite, then obviously this was not a LIVE photo in 1965-- he died the year before!!!

Or maybe the atrocious scrawl I'm reading as "65" is something else?

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Meanwhile, have you ever gone through your 7,802 personnel file photos yet?

Thanks!

[NavyFCO]

Rick-

I don't know what the scrawl is, but that's for sure him... Not many HSUs were awarded a Glory (or two) as well, and he was the only Karasyov to be awarded both a Red Banner and Glory 3rd. So, someone messed up something, somewhere!

Dave

[NavyFCO]

Meanwhile, have you ever gone through your 7,802 personnel file photos yet?

Rick-

To look for what? I did separate out all my HSU recipient photos. I was lucky enough to amass a considerable collection from a fellow (well-known author) who decided to part with all his HSU photos after completing several books on HSUs.

Dave

[Guest Rick Research]

So it's spelled "Кaрaсёв" and not "Кaрaсeв" in the Heroes book?

Anybody like to toss the dice and guess what YEAR that photo has scribbled in? Could it be "4X" ?

Didja ever sort of Khasan and Khalkin Gol wearers?

BTW, I've decided he could ALSo be John "Q" delancey's clone, as well as Joe Lieberman's.

19... 49?

[kimj]

I had a feeling of D?j? vu when I looked at this thread. Comrade Paramonov looked awfull familiar. So I had to check my HSU photos. Sure, there he was. Same picture, same handwriting and even the same number 7804 written on it!

Is it coinsidence or are some HSU more common than others? Where do the photos come from?

/Kim

[Guest Rick Research]

Originally, from Local Veterans' Commissariat files, presumably. In the "Good Old Days" (10 years ago) these were available by the HUNDREDS-- I used to sit on the floor behind a dealer's tables at a show and go through them in PILES...

and there was usually a "theme" as in...

THIS bag full are mostly alphabetical by the letter "M" and all came from Kiev... or

THIS bag came from Leningrad and all the names start with "S."

The photo I most recently posted in the "What DID You Do In The War Comrade Daddy?" thread is one of TWO identical. I have ONE. A lot of 42 more are coming in this week which contains at least one duplicate of a NO awards guy I just got one from my current new batch (and haven't posted, as boring). There are a couple of groups of file photos up for sale now, in which several of the same "nobody" boring officer are part of the mix.

Were these stored in TRIPLICATE in the files?

Who knows!

The ones I just got in all bear Zhitomir and Kharkov area stamps, many many different units over 30 years of time. So somebody was throwing these away from THERE recently.

As long as the images are original and of the period, how can we ever know if OUR print is (Like Korobkov's?) "unique" or one of half a dozen prints?

Please post YOUR Paramonov so we can compare-- that will be fun!!! Rick

[Guest Rick Research]

And my FINAL Gold Star HSU arrived with today's mail-- a completely unidentified private photo ("19867." written on back-- not a date, no clue)

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Circa 1970-1975 from the awards below the Hero Star:

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Order of Lenin (with the Gold Star HSU), Red Banner (for 20 years), OPW2

Red Star, Red Star (for 15 years), Valor Medal (interesting!)

MMM (for 10 years), 1970 Lenin Jubilee, Victory Over Germany

1965, one of the Capture/Liberation WW2 medals, 1948

1958 (so still active duty then and thus the long service awards above--no M1958 Long Service), 1968

Although he looks just like Leo McKern in his pre "Rumpole" days, not a clue who he was, alas.

maybe somebody will recognize his tie!

[attachmentid=14847]

[kimj]

Here is my Paramonov. As seen exactly like yours (except for the dark scan. But I blame my scanner for that...). Even the hand writing is the same.

When I checked with my other HSU photos I found a couple with the same blue number written on them (7804 for Paramonov). I found a close one in 7808, D.N. Parovatkin. The info on the bak of Parovatkin does not match Paramonov. BUT the blue number is in the same blue style of hand writing! Another ting they have in common are traces from being glued, uper part of back of the photo.

Awhile ago I borrowed the big red HSU two volume book from a library here. When I checked the info of the two gentlemen I found something interesting. They have three heroes between them! This matches the numbers 7804 and 7808! Could this mean that the number has something to do with number of HSU or even the book??

/Kim

[kimj]

Here is Parovatkin. None of the photos are used in the big red book.

[Guest Rick Research]

That IS interesting about the numbers! ARE they the actual Gold Star serial numbers, or were the Heroes alphabetized after the war or ....

???

What is intriguing is that YOUR Paramonov bears a pencilled "147" while MINE has a pencilled "148" down BELOW the "7804!" Notice that they are written slightly differently-- yours shows his initials, while mine only has his last name. Mine still shows his autograph up top, while yours was peeled off when it was removed from being glued down on a page in his file.

Since his is the ONLY still-in-the-military HSU photo I have, I have no other information to go by. Until this week I had NO Gold Star winner photos-- and now I have the three above.

The ones you have that was glued in came out of personnel records. I have a naval aviation engineering officers file: promotions, reviews, autobiography, and so on, with THREE photos in it-- one attached by paper clip and the others glued down onto the paper.

I'll make some scans to show what an "untouched" file looks like. Back later!

[kimj]

It's not the gold star serial number. I have the book with serial numbers and names etc. No 7804 don't match with Paramonov. Also the name in the big red book list ALL the heroes, even those who got it postumous. They never got a gold star.

The number 147 with pencil is no mystery. That is my own "code" to keep track of my photo collection...

Interesting that a file has three photos. That would mean a third Paramonov is out there somewhere... It also makes me a bit sad that the file got slaugthered.

/Kim

[Guest Rick Research]

Well if YOU wrote "147" on yours, WHO WROTE "148" ON MINE????

Anyway, here is NOT a HSU, but part of what must have been a typical officer's personnel file, covering 1938 to 1947, for naval aviation flight engineer Valentin Nikolaevich Popov, born 1911, joined the military 1934.

Top page shows a photo as Lieutenant Colonel of Aviation Engineering (probably circa 1956/57 since he was only a Kapitan in 1947) and a handwritten autobiography from 12 November 1938:

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[Guest Rick Research]

Here is a sloppily undated recommendation from 1940/41 from his boss, a Senior Lieutenant at Independent Air Base 16, that in his job as a Junior Onboard Aviatech, he be promoted from MilTech 2nd Grade (that rank 22.12.37) to MilTech 1st Grade-- note the photo

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[Guest Rick Research]

Same glued on photo, approved by Chief of Naval Aviation Major General Scribble 12 March 1941, and processed through on 22 April 1941:

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So that is three photos in a PARTIAL remnant of a file, with two identical for the same promotion recommendation. There are several autobiographies included, fitness reports, and so on.

God knows how many photos were in INTACT files for all the endless stages of sending things off for approval "higher up" and coming back down approved or rejected. The paper is all horrible cheap newspaper type, brown and crumbling.

I just show these here as examples of what WAS in personnel files, and why anyone throwing them away would only rip out the photos and throw the rest in the furnace.

[NavyFCO]

Here are scans of an entire general's personnel file, from cover to cover. There was only one photo in this file. I think the number of photos depended on how often the file was "purged" from old photos, etc. I have seen up to five photos from one file before.

General Arkhipov Personnel File

Dave

[NavyFCO]

I finally pulled out my HSU photo collection. I've scanned a couple that I thought were interesting. Here's a nice one to a young lad named Kalinin, Stepan. Interestingly, he converted the Lenin to screwback, even though it was awarded on 24 March 1945!

Dave

[NavyFCO]

Here's an interesting fellow, Filipp Gerasimov, a naval pilot. He was awarded the title of HSU on 14 June 1942. As the above fellow, he also converted his awards, but this time to match his screwback Lenin. A fairly impressive amount of awards for a Senior Lieutenant!

Dave

[NavyFCO]

This is another naval aviator, Aleksandr Tolmacheyov. He has a beautiful array of awards for a naval officer, including Odessa Defense, Sebastopol Defense, and Caucasus Defense - in addition to his two Lenins and Gold Star!

[Guest Rick Research]

Kalinin's hair... what HAPPENED to all the barbers in the Soviet Union? ---> <---

He also seems to be another example of some sort of direct genetic link with the Emerald Isle: there are a LOT of Celts among those Slavs or I'm no scion of Waterford!

Any sign of the Mysterious Blue Numbers on YOURS, Dave? Could there have been an alphabetical master List of Gold Star winners?

[kimj]

I don't know why I wrote 147... But when I try to remember I think the neigbour's dog told me to do it...

Very nice file I wonder how many files were kept for each individual? When I have sorted threw files from the 40s here in Sweden about Soviet internees I found they had 3 files each! I don?t know if Swedish paper pushers are more bureaucratic than Russian ones. But one main file and several lower level files would perhaps be realistic.

A list of HSU would be a possibillity explaining the numbers. But that list would have been constantly updated when new HSU were added -> changing the numbers. The BIG list would of course be the red book but it was completed before the break up and the very last heroes.

/Kim

Edited November 5, 2005 by kimj

[Guest Rick Research]

Again, another NON-Hero, but just in keeping with the subject of files and photos--

young Guards artillery Lieutenant Ivan G. Doiskoi has not appeared here before because he's got NOTHING on--awards, that is. Two identical photos, both noted "taken 25 April 1951." One, sloppily undated, from 2nd Guard ADI RVK (I can't quite read the stamp for what THAT was) is actually probably the original one, given his badge. The other uses the same photo but was dated over a year later in 1952-- so, asked to produce an ID photo, he just re-used the SAME one.

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I paid less than $4 for BOTH of these combined, which arrived coincidentally in two different mixed lots of random file photographs.

[Wild Card]

May I present one of my favorites, M. I. Belousov

[NavyFCO]

May I present one of my favorites, M. I. Belousov

That dude ROCKS! I love the beard!

What's funny is that he'd probably look pretty young without the bushy glade growing on his face! Wild!

Dave