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**KLMKsunbunny** · 05-30-2016, 05:00 AM

Hi Hayden, yes they are numbered, they should be researchable... It is much better to pay a researcher to do the work, they can make more sense of abbreviations, place names, units etc. i, and many others can recommend one guy in particular, i will PM you his details.

Is it worth it?

Well, yes..! It is deeply rewarding to know whose medals you hold in your hand, and the stories of personal heroism behind them. This for many is the beauty of collecting Soviet awards. i have yet to have the awards in my collection researched, but i will share the story of my first use of a researcher/ translator, and why i wouldnt hesitate again...

Earlier this year i bought the group below for very little...

i had the newspaper translated by a researcher, and it was the wartime story of the man in the photos - Viktor Shimanov.
Reading it was incredible -

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

**PaulR** · 05-30-2016, 04:56 PM

Auke can do it. Shoot me a PM and I can hook you up with his contact information.

Sunbunny- amazing accumilation of history there. I've never seen such a period narrative.

Paul

Originally posted by Burkhard45 View Post

Hello everyone,

I recently purchased two numbered pieces, an Order of the Red Star and a Order of the Patriotic War. Both of the serial numbers date them to 1945. Out of the same collection, I bought another unrelated medal and just found the receipt under the box for these 2 Soviet Orders, so they were purchased at the same time.

I was wondering if it is possible for someone to research the numbers and possibly find out if they belonged to the same man or any other information about the recipients. Would it be worth it?

Regards, Hayden

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