When this Bravery Medal went up for sale on one of the few English language discussion boards it was easy to overlook. No enamel, no patina, a number not in any of my target ranges, and already researched. Research revealed it was to a private for being brave in delivering messages in an attack.
Short description of personal combat feat or accomplishment:
Comrade Mikhnov was a messenger during the penetration of the enemy’s defense. He conducted himself valiantly. All of his assignments were executed in an excellent fashion. While returning from the front lines, he evacuated one wounded soldier. Comrade Mikhnov is self-disciplined. He is deserving of the Bravery Medal.
Signed Commander, 4 Independent Assault Rifle Battalion, Major Efremov on 6 December 1943
He also carried a wounded comrade off the field. Simple acts, and eminently praiseworthy on an individual level. But not representing the kind of heroics that one collects, and even for me (less interested in heroics per se and more in representations of the breadth and depth of that war), probably not something I’d spend money on.
The research consists of only the award card and citation, no service history, certainly no biography. Glancing over them the unit name struck a chord, but not loud enough to register. “Independent Assault Rifle Battalion” Where had I read that? But before it came to mind the timeline of his career got my attention:
- Mikhnov joined the RKKA at age 20 in 1929.
- In December, 1943, he was a Private in a Rifle Division.
- In November, 1945, he was a Guards Lieutenant Colonel, the Deputy Chief of Staff of a Tank Brigade.
What would account for a 14 year veteran, at the age of 34, being a Private with no decorations in a Rifle Division, then, less than two years later being a decorated, high ranking Guards officer of an armored Brigade? (He finished the war with an OPW I, CSM, Red Star and Red Banner, in addition to this Bravery Medal.)
The answer lies in the RKKA’s system of disciplinary units – the infamous “Penal Battalions” – where men who had failed in their duty were sent to redeem their honor with their blood.
“Three days after issuing Order No. 227, on 1 August [1942], Stalin ordered the commanders of the Moscow, Volga, and Stalingrad Military Districts and the NKVD to begin forming penal battalions in the form of “assault rifle battalions,” each consisting of 929 former command cadre (company commanders and higher) who were imprisoned in special NKVD camps. Stalin ordered them to be employed “in the most active sectors of the front,” where they would have an opportunity “to demonstrate their devotion to their motherland with weapons in hand.” …on 28 September [1942], the NKO issued but did not publish yet another order formally creating penal battalions and companies in all operating armies… According to these instructions… these penal units were to “provide an opportunity to individual mid-level and senior command, political, and command cadre personnel who have violated discipline by cowardice or unsteadiness, to redeem their honor before their motherland with their blood by virtue of courageous struggle with the enemy in the most difficult sectors of combat operations.” Glantz, Colossus Reborn, pp. 572-3.
That’s where I’d read it! Reading the award card one may assume that it is simply a rifle battalion armed with “assault rifles”. But as Glantz makes clear it is not (notwithstanding the fact that “assault rifles” didn’t exist back then…), it was the title given to penal units.
Konstantin Nikolaevich Mikhnov was an experienced officer, having been in the RKKA since 1929 and fought in the invasion of Poland and campaign in Iran. Being awarded the Bravery Medal in early December 1943 as a soldier in the penal battalion attached to 274th Rifle Division involved in an attack most likely means he was in the offensive to take Nevel, from October to December 43. (Zimke, Stalingrad to Berlin, p. 198) Attacking in the direction of Vitebsk against Third Panzer Army, the 274th fought on the left flank of the line in support of the main attack to the north and drove a few miles west before being stopped. There the line solidified until Operation Bagration in June, 1944.
How he came to be in a penal battalion is unknown. Given the timing of the award his trouble probably began in the summer of 1943. An officer sent to a penal battalion had to serve one to three months in the unit, and was broken in rank to Private. His sentence was complete when he was either killed, wounded, or “if you gained the commander’s approval in combat and your sentence was removed.” (Glantz, p. 578) Assuming Mikhnov was awarded his medal at the end of the longest sentence means he was placed in the battalion in September, 1943.
That assumption is probably stretching it; many in the battalions did not live three weeks, much less the entire defined term. In keeping with Stalin’s instructions to use the penal units in the most dangerous areas they were seen as the ultimate cannon fodder. They were often sent in before the main attack to draw fire from the defending Germans, or as “beaters” – literally running through anti-personnel mine fields to detonate the mines, or simply as the first wave of a frontal assault on a heavily fortified position. Used as such it is no surprise that casualties were extremely high, with Glantz estimating three to six times higher than other Red Army units participating in offensives!
The fact that Mikhnov survived his sentence and was decorated in the process speaks to both luck and bravery.
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