Soviet Senior Lieutenant Technician Vladimir Grigorevich Myzychenko

[Bill Garvy]

Thanks Rick & Alfred!

Edited March 14, 2010 by Bill Garvy

[Ferdinand]

The last letter throws me, but I think it's 848th "Mortars" Regiment. <img src="http://gmic.co.uk/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="cheers.gif" />

Yes, it reads "minomet." (миномет.). The 't' is as the printed letter, not the 'м' we usually see.

[Eric B]

I’ve research on a bravery medal to a young man drafted into the RKKA in January 1944 from Berdichev, a town less than 100km from the area where (I think) Muzychenko lived while in occupied Ukraine. At that time the Red Army was hurting for soldiers (stereotypes of endless Asiatic hordes being, of course, a myth), and recruited hundreds of thousands of troops from the newly liberated territories into the army on orders from STAVKA. (Glantz has translated an order dated 16-Nov-43 authorizing the Fronts to mobilize 185,000 for the month of Nov 1943 alone in “Colossus Reborn”.) They went through SMERSH interrogations (the NKVD was responsible for this recruitment/impressment), but as the numbers show a huge number were not trundled off to the gulag, instead joining the front as soldiers. So it’s not surprising that Muzychenko ended up a soldier, again, rather than a prisoner.