Soviet Which Entries Are Fake?

[Digger Doug]

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I bought two Red Stars that had this photocopy of an award book with it. I wouldn't have bought it but it was kind of a throw-in with the rest of a collection. Unfortunately, there wasn't an early Nevsky, a Bogdan III Class, or a Red Banner with it. Care to take a guess at which entries are fake and which are real?

[NavyFCO]

That's rough with a photocopy (an EASY way to manipulate documents, btw!) but I'd say that all of them save for the first Red Star are fake.

Right?

Dave

[Digger Doug]

Thanks for the guess Dave. I was hoping for a few more to make this more fun. Anyway, my guess has been that only the two first orders (both Red Stars) were real and all the rest were added to make the book more interesting or was an attempt to build an interesting group out of nonassociated items. I also considered that the original book went with one of the latter added orders. Got some of the research on this recently and here's how things turned out.

Captain Sergei Ivanovich Kuz'min

Note that the number of the orders book matches the research.

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[Digger Doug]

I was certain that everything but the Red Stars were added by a faker but...........................

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[Digger Doug]

I never would have guessed that the copy of the orders book was legitimate. You never truely know what you have until you research it. Here's the citation for Red Banner 430667. Note that the serial number for this one awarded by the 38th Army is 32,431 awards lower than the one awarded by the 40th Army four months earlier. This further demonstrates how we can't always neatly arrange serial numbers by dates as these were handed out to the various units in lots and they went through their stocks at different rates.

Sorry I don't have a translation for this one.

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[Guest Rick Research]

You tricked us! That's why we are trying to build up a data base on actual dates with numbers, looking for patterns in unit awards or the long service mass award lists.

Did you get "everything" researched? His ARC shows him in a howitzer regiment, but that citation is for anti-tank. I always thought the howitzer units were what the Germans called "Infanteriegesch?tz" close infantry support units.

[Digger Doug]

This is all I got. I really expected this research project to be a bust so I ordered the minimum - award card and citation for one of the Red Stars. I figured that, at least, I'd have one researched Red Star to show for it. Can anyone give me a brief overview of the citation? The hand written ones take me forever to figure out between my dictionary and online translator.

Doug

[Guest Rick Research]

So you've got all those awards?

"Online translator?????" My OWN research translation keeps getting pushed away with online stuff HERE!!

If you will ZOOM in on the text and try for a higher resolution, that would help. I'm having trouble with the small AND blurry, and it is always a chore recognizing individual handwriting quirks.

He was Lieutenant and commander of administration?/control? battery in the 1689th Exterminator Anti-Tank Artillery Regiment, on 1st Ukrainian front April-November 1943, wounded once.

"Comr. Kuz'min in all extent of combat operations of the regiment, demonstrated himself a full-of-initiative, bold, and resourceful officer.

In battle for the village of Kranovitschina, from ... ... of the enemy flung out from the line ... wounded commander of the 1st ... platoon, Comr. Kuz'min in personal ... ... by himself commanded and carried cleared by advancing personal ... tank, squad in moment of his command separate and unit ... for company of soldiers and officers of the enemy.

For demonstrated initiative, boldness, and valor deserves to be awarded the Order 'of the Red Star.'"

That's choppy and broken up grammatically because I'm missing bits of the sentences.

Online translator for Cyrillic scribbles?

I'll come back and look at this again.. sometimes there has to be what the French call a moment of ?clat where I have a Rosetta Stone inspiration and reading ONE word calrifies what another scribble says, with quirky script.

[Stogieman]

Interesting how this one turned out!

Do you have the whole group Doug?

[Digger Doug]

All I have are the two Red Stars. I really expected to find out that the high orders were added to the book by a faker. I also thought this would be a good posting for us to see a clear example of some of the serial number / date range anomalies.

Rick, I sincerely appreciate the help with the translation of the citation. I do most of my translations myself using one of the online translation software systems and my trusty HMSO Russian dictionary. Unfortunately, the hand written stuff, for the most part, is nearly impossible for me. Rick, send me a typed citation and I'd be glad to do one for you. Of course, I'm now questioning the quality of my interpreting "skills". For example, search my postings here for the piece on LTC Ishchenko's Suvorov. Compare my translation to the one in Paul Schmitt's new book on page 61. Lots of differences. On the other hand, Paul's translation talks about the 700 km march in two days between Koenigsberg and Schwedt. As that seems impossible to me that they could march 700 km in two days, I always assumed I was missing something or making a mistake with that part. Must have been a train involved in there somewhere....

All the best,

Doug

[Guest Rick Research]

Sometimes "translation" is more of an art than a science-- particularly with Russian, which has no form whatsoever of definite or indefinite articles-- "a tank" or "the tank" is all JUST "tank." There are also highly Teutonic or French sentence structures which may read literally as "Throw the horse over the fence some hay" as our local Quebecois shibboleth goes, but reads more smoothly in OUR language with the clauses rearranged.

I was never a fan of the "sight scanning" method of teaching reading in our schools long after my time, where it took comprehending the entire sentence at a glance to "get" what the sentence is, rather than each word-by-word...

but alas that is the only way I can DO Russian. While I can think in English, French, and German, the complex grammar and genders on everything in Russian have always prevented me from doing that po Russki. I'm a dictionary reader too.

Likewise, Russian attempts at English often get things wrong, and aside from my Personal Favorite the "Combat SERVICE Medal" (Zasluga is NOT Shluzhba!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) the most common is the "awarded with the Order of..." instead of "awarded the Order of...."

PS Typing mistakes don't count as spelling errors... either way!