Russia – Soviet: A Voronezh-Kastornoye Offensive Order of the Patriotic War 2nd Class awarded to Lieutenant Maksim Mikhailovich Ponomarev, 737th Rifle Regiment, 206th Rifle Division, Voronezh Front who was severely wounded on 27th January 1943 whilst employed as a Mortar Platoon Commander.
Order of the Patriotic War 2nd Class, type 2, flatback reverse, reverse numbered 839073
Condition: Nearly Extremely Fine
Maksim Mikhailovich Ponomarev was born in the village of Pozdyaki, Orichevsky District, Kirov Oblast in 1906. A Russian national he attained a middle school education before serving in the Red Army from May 1942, and seeing frontline service on the Voronezh Front from 1st October 1942 as Lieutenant with the 737th Rifle Regiment, 206th Rifle Division. This Order of the Patriotic War 2nd Class issued by decree of the 6th November 1947 was the recipients sole award, the citation reading:
‘Lieutenant Ponomarev, Maksim Mikhailovich served as part of the 737th Rifle Regiment, 206th Rifle Division, Voronezh Front, in the position of Mortar Platoon Commander. At the moment of the breakthrough of the enemy’s defences on 27th January 1943, he was severely wounded. Lieutenant Ponomarev completed the mission his platoon was assigned.
At present, he is working in management and administration as director of the Gory Peat Mining Facility. He has received positive reviews in his work from the City Executive Committee. He is politically developed. Devoted to the party of Lenin and Stalin and the Socialist Motherland.
Deserves the Government award of the Order of the Red Star’.
The wound suffered at Voronezh would result in Ponomarev’s discharge as a War Veteran Class 3 in November 1943.
This period of fighting saw follow up offensives to the Stalingrad encirclement where the Red Army attempted to roll up the entire German southern flank, pushing them back from the Caucasus into the Kuban bridgehead, and then trying to cut off (unsuccessfully) their retreat from Rostov. The attacks in the Voronezh region (of which the Voronezh-Kastornoye Offensive was part) developed towards Kursk and Kharkov and would ultimately set the seen for the attempted German Operation Citadel at Kursk in July 1943.
In December 1948 he would be working as a Directorate Chief at the Kudminskaya Drainage System, Agricultural Directorate.
