Soviet Private Nikolai Ivanovich Eglit

[Ed_Haynes]

Medal "For Bravery" # 248062.

Very heavily (and lovingly?) worn.

Edited February 11, 2009 by Ed_Haynes

[Ed_Haynes]

Record card

[Ed_Haynes]

Reverse

Edited February 10, 2009 by Ed_Haynes

[Ed_Haynes]

Translation

[Ed_Haynes]

The recommendation

[Ed_Haynes]

And

[Ed_Haynes]

Translation

[Ed_Haynes]

Approval

[Ed_Haynes]

Translation

[Ed_Haynes]

Maybe not the sexiest award ever, but every bit of history retrieved is a bit of history retrieved.

[Guest Rick Research]

That's a LOT of independent responsibility for a lowly ordinary Comrade. Yet again, compare this with what would have been handed out in 1945 and this too sounds like at least a Red Star and probably an OPW 2. :cheers:

[Ed_Haynes]

True. The patterns of late-war awards distortion begin to clarify.

[Ferdinand]

I think it's not only that more awards were produced in the second half of the war and that they were thus awarded more easily, for 'lesser' deeds, there were also less awards available in 1941 and the first half of 1942. At that time there were Gold Stars, Lenins, Red Banners, Red Stars, and the Bravery and Military Merit Medals. Between the Red Banner and the Bravery Medal, there was only the Red Star! In 1944, in that range were the Suvorov, Kutuzov, Khmelnitsky, Nevsky, Ushakov, Nakhimov, OPW, and Glory. With so many new medium-high and high awards established, it was simply inevitable that the lowest awards (BM, MMM) in effect became really low.

Edited February 11, 2009 by Ferdinand

[Eric B]

"Medal inflation," more medals for lesser deeds, came about as a result of changes in the Red Army after losing literally millions of casualties fighting the Germans. The changes fundamentally turned the military away Trotsky?s ?army of revolutionaries? and towards a modern professional army. Part of those changes were new ?Regulations Concerning Force Honorifics? in 1942 that both created many new awards and, more importantly, increased the scope of who could award them. The goal was to increase morale by rewarding individual initiative, skill, and bravery. More people were authorized to hand out medals, and they did.