Hereby I wanna show my latest order of Red Star with serial number 1753815 awarded to Guards Technical Lieutenant Pavel Fedorovich Ivanov. Pavel was technician for repairing combat vehicles from the Technical Support Company, 67th Seperate Guards Heavy Tank Red Banner Brigade.
The citation for the Order of Red Star reads as follows:
Comrade Ivanov during our offensive from the bridgehead on the left bank of Oder river from 14th to 29th of April 1945 worked tirelessly to restore damaged combat vehicles. Under artillery shelling and bomb strikes, he restored tanks in short time and with high quality. His detachment restored in that period 18 knocked out tanks: 4 of them by medium repair and the remaining 14 by current repair. Without waiting for the delivery of spare parts, he found and removed the necessary spare parts from the burned-out tanks and used these parts for fastest recovery of knocked out tanks. When the tank №000 got into the bomb funnel and was flooded with water, comrade Ivanov pulled it out of the funnel, restored this tank without disassembling the units and return it to combat action. He is worthy to be awarded by state award of Red Star Order.
Commander of Technical Support Company of 67th Separate Guards Heavy Tank Red Banner Brigade.
Guards Senior Technical Lieutenant Chigirev
30 April 1945
This citation shows that even technical support crews had to endure the terror of enemy artillery barrages, trying to get the tanks back in operating condition under the most extreme conditions. This Red Star has a pin which is heavily bend. Perhaps because of the heavy work while in mortal danger. It shows the bravery from these men, those who are often forgotten or ignored since their jobs don't speak too much to the imagination. Yet their stories deserve to be told!!
The 67th Seperate Guards Heavy Tank Red Banner Brigade used the heavy IS-2 tanks during this time.
Here's an IS-2, supposedly from the same Brigade advancing towards Berlin.
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