Soviet Award Groups!

[Eryk]

15th Guards Rifle Division was attached to 51st Army through November, 1942, then moved to 57th Army to take part in the liquidation of the Kessel. The gap in dates mentioned in the citation probably coincide with the reorg; 19-25 Nov is the initial breakthrough of Uranus, with 51st Army on the left flank. 10-29 January is the destruction of German 6th Army, which 57th participated in. (51st Army, with a relatively large mobile contingent moved south, and would bear the brunt of Operation Winter Storm, the German attempt to relieve Stalingrad.) Being a Guards division the 15th would be relatively well trained and equipped, and thus probably fought to the surrender of the pocket only a couple of weeks after this award. The reference to “up to 255 enemy weapon's emplacement were found and covered by artillery fire” is interesting in that both actions began as set piece battles with the Soviets breaking through, in which targeting defenses prior to the attack was critical.

The 324th Rifle Division (which contained the 887th Artillery regiment) was part of 50th Army in April 45. And Wikipedia (Battle of Konigsberg) of all places has nice little map that shows 50th Army to the northwest of the city, with a number of “forts” facing the 50th Army. Which coincides nicely with your documentation.

[jefflgarrison]

It would be nice to know which fort was designated which number around the city.

Anyway, seems like a gungho kind of guy that took command of his platoon when his boss was shot up. The medal "For Bravery" seems to be a disguised "Order of Glory III".

Well, with all documents, I am pleased with my discovery! On to new research!

[jefflgarrison]

ok, so after playing around with Google Earth I came across the different forts around Konigsberg.

Someone had taken photos of Fort #2 (Fort Bronsart) and posted them on Panoramio and linked them.

[Al-muell]

This is the group I talked about in a thread about buying award groups in Poland.
Eventually I have been succesful in my quest and managed to aquire the ORS which is most likely the other one listed in the booklet.

One day I'll have it researched, than it probably will be stored in a different box, so don't look too much at the poorly made background behind the awards...

This is not my first award group, but the first That "cool" (2 ORSs!!!) and the first I considered worth keeping. It required much effort to reunite this group, but this gave me great satifaction.

The group is to Nikolai Zakharovich Osipov.

[jefflgarrison]

Came across this site while trying to find photos of Konigsberg.

It is SOOOO shocking how radically different this city is. Truly, Konigsberg ceased to exist on April 10, 1945.

There are over 400 before and after photos with maps showing location and orientation.

= Koenigsberg = Êàëèíèíãðàä =

[Al-muell]

This group was much bigger, but unfortunately, I have failed to get other awards, inclouding defense of leningrad medal, "To the meritous ones on the field of glory" medal, "To the former Red Army soldiers" medal, victory over germany, "For Odra, Nysa, Baltic Sea" medal Grunwald badge and others. Some awards are missing.
But there's a chance that this group will be reunited (unfortunately, not in my hands). And after all - it is partly already researched (while polish awards are usually unresearchable)- I got a newspaper artickle on the awardee.
So, here's the story:
Bolesław Makochan (or Makochoń - surname and father's name causes some confusion) - before the war, he was a member of a flight club in Lwów. In 1940 he joined the Red Army air force and became a gunner-radiooperator, fought in the Leningrad front in 214th regiment, he flew with the later HSU lt. Khakhulin on Pe-2. Later fought during the defense of Moscow (on board of Ił-7). He was wounded and spent some time in hospital. After thet he was sent to the Leningrad Front, but after one of the first landing the airfield was bombed and he was wounded again and now the commission decides that he can no longer fly any airplanes. He was sent to the 37 Guards Division as a radiooperators' trainer. There he learned about Polish Army being created, so he decided to join it and in July 1943 he joined 1st polish air fighter regiment formed near Moscow. There he had an accident whch made him unable to fly ever again.
As a radiooperator he was moved to 6th Infantry Regment. In january 1945 moved to the 2nd Army of the Polish Army with which he reached Berlin.


The part of the group I have consists of:
Party membership ID
Medal for participation in defese of People's rule ID
Medal for merits in state defense (silver) ID
----"---- (bronze) ID
Medal for participation in Berlin battle ID
Medal "Armed forces in service to the motherland (5 and 10yrs.) IDs
Common Self-Defense Instructor's ID
OPW I 1985 ID
Calalier's Cross of the Order of the Revival of Poland ID
Silver badge "Meritous activist of the State Defense League" ID
Honorary badge of the City of Lódź for merits for the city and voivodeship ID.
Diploma for "Victory and Freedom" medal
Newspaper artickle
Medals shown on photograph.

There's no ID for 40yrs. of victory and it's standard "to war participant" variant, so it is possible that this one is not his.

[desantnik]

Nice group!

[medals73]

Wow! Lovely!! Thanks.

[Al-muell]

Thanks. But this group would have been nicier if not for the fact that I had to buy most of those awards separately (one by one) and the fact that I ran out of money at "Victory and freedom" medal.

[Nota Bene]

Still, a very nice group!

Alexei