Hello all, i hope you will enjoy his small grouping to Soviet veteran Viktor Michailovich Shimanov, and remember one man's war story in amongst so many others.
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Summary of
Medal on a Pea Coat
(Published on June 24, 1983)
An old and yellowed, but still fairly legible award certificate contains the following text: “The People’s Commissariat of Transportation awards the Honored Railway Worker Badge to comrade V.M. Shimanov, a senior switchman on the Moscow-Donbass Railroad Line, for the audacity and bravery he displayed while extinguishing incendiary bombs”. The document is dated August 27, 1941 and its recipient carried it with him throughout the war.
Out of patriotic conviction Shimanov expressed the desire to enlist. In September 1941 he was sent to Sevastopol and assigned to a motor gunboat squadron of the Danube Flotilla as a signaller / helmsman. Before long the flotilla moved to Kerch. During the short trip the ships were attacked by enemy dive bombers and had to evade mines. The military newspaper Krasny chernomorets later described how Senior Seaman Viktor Shimanov stood watch for 15 hours on end on a stormy night. He spotted several floating mines, after which the ship adjusted its course and warned the other ships in the convoy. Once the ship had reached the Crimean shores, Shimanov discovered various enemy firing positions and pointed them out to the gunners. All the while his ship was subjected to artillery and machine-gun fire and attacks by Messerschmitts. Twice he put a landing party on shore.
Afterward the ship sailed to Rostov to serve with the Azov Flotilla. In the mouth of the Don Shimanov’s gunboat, the Serafimovich, received a direct bomb hit and sank, but Shimanov and several other crew members managed to abandon ship. Shimanov was transferred to the gunboat Krasny Oktyabr. Once again he stood watch under enemy fire. He took part in several daring amphibious operations. In the summer of 1942, when the Germans overran the Kuban Peninsula, the flotilla crews were forced to scuttle their ships. Shimanov was then assigned to the 83rd Independent Naval Infantry Brigade at Novorossiysk. Here he took part in a nighttime reconnaissance mission. Ordered to take a prisoner for interrogation purposes, his outfit disembarked on an enemy-held shoreline. Shimanov threw a grenade in an enemy trench, captured a German soldier who had been knocked senseless by the explosion, and brought him back to the ship. Shimanov was awarded the Medal for Courage for this feat. Soon after he won a second one, this time for destroying an enemy machine-gun nest and taking an SS officer prisoner.
In October 1942 the 83rd Brigade saw service at Tuapse. The brigade was ordered to capture an important hill outside the city at all cost. During the vicious fighting Shimanov, now a Petty Officer Second Class and platoon Komsomol organizer, was wounded in his neck and shoulder and suffered a contusion. In the darkness he was found by medics and evacuated to the rear. He spent a few weeks in a hospital, but his battalion thought he had been killed. In the winter Shimanov returned to his brigade, but he was assigned to a different battalion.
In February 1943 the 83rd and 255th Naval Infantry Brigades landed at Malaya Zemlya. Shimanov was severely wounded here. A medical commission declared him only partially fit for service as a noncombatant, but Shimanov told the commission members he wished to continue fighting; he belonged on a ship. He convinced the physicians and was eventually attached to the Azov Flotilla and later the Danube Flotilla. He took part in the liberation of Azov, Taganrog, Mariupol, Temryuk, and Kerch and later served in Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Austria. In March 1945, on the Danube near Vienna, he received shrapnel wounds in both legs. Not until July was he discharged from the hospital, after which he left the Navy as a Petty Officer First Class.
After the war he worked as a mechanic at a scientific research institute and at the Academy of Medical Sciences. Seven years ago, when he was 57, he had to retire because of his deteriorating health.
He is a modest man, but every now and then, when he reminisces about the war, he is unable to hide his bitterness. Because he had spent so much time in hospitals and had been transferred from one unit to the other, he never received the Medals for the Defense of Moscow, the Defense of the Caucasus, and the Liberation of Vienna. His local military commissariat should comment on this. The deeds of our war heroes should never be forgotten.
Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) K. Vachnadze, Honored Journalist of the Georgian SSR -
Soviet losses during “Operation Barbarossa” were staggering, eventually there would be four million casualties. This drain on man power led to ad hoc formations of troops being created to help in the Soviet defence. Troops drawn from the Navy and coastal defence, and pressed into service as infantry, known as Naval Infantry Brigades.
They proved themselves to be fiercely loyal to the Motherland, and distinguished themselves as a formidable fighting force, at Moscow, Leningrad, Odessa, Stalingrad and Sevastopol. This, coupled with their distinctive black Navy uniforms led to them being called the “Black Death” and “Black Devils” by German troops.
Viktor served with the 83rd Naval Infantry Brigade, who would eventual land on the barren stretch of coastline that would become known as Malaya Zemlya - "Little Land":
In December 1942 the German force of Army Group A began its retreat westwards, out of Stalingrad towards Rostov. The Soviets planned to cut off their retreat, and their supply lines. The battle plan was a two pronged attack, by land and by sea.
Amphibious landings were planned to take the heavily defended German held port at Novorossiysk, on the coast of the Black Sea. Several landings were planned across a broad front in order to confuse the enemy. The landing planned at Cape Myskhako ,on the opposite side of the bay, was originally meant to be a decoy, but after the main landing at Bolshaia Ozereevka was lost in an ambush, the offensive plan was reworked and Cape Myskhako was made the main thrust of the offensive.
An initial force of just 800 Soviet troops, landed on the exposed rocky beachead during the high winter storms on the night 4th of Febuary 1943, including part of the 83rd Naval Infantry Brigade. They immediately came under heavy fire, both from German artillery, and aircraft scrambled from a nearby airfield. Against fierce odds, the Soviet landing party clung on to the small bridgehead despite heavy casualties. The marines fought until further landings could be made to reinforce them. Eventually over the next five nights 17,000 troops were landed at Malaya Zemlya, and a series of defensive postions were eventually established; but they still faced a reinforced German defensive force of 27,000. Food and ammunition was in short supply. The savage battle to hold the small strip of land would continue for 225 days.
A memorial stands in the spot today.
It is interesting to note that one of the Soviet Union's future leaders Leonid Brezhnev published his memoirs in the late 70's, the first book being about his time at Malaya Zemlya. Public reception of his book was not good, as he greatly overplayed his role in the operation. It led to veterans often being asked cynically "And where were you during the war? In the trenches at Stalingrad, or at Malaya Zemlya?" Many veterans refused to talk about their wartime service.
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Very sadly Viktor's medals for bravery are missing from the group, but the Medal "For Victory over Germany" and subsequent Soviet anniversary medals are still present.
Thanks for looking..!Comment
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Very nice grouping. Congrats
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Thanks Marcel..! It just goes to show that there's sometimes a story behind even the most basic awards.Comment
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You have here a great story
Thanks
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Very interesting!
Cheers,
RobertComment
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Thanks for taking the time to read his story guys...!Comment
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