Russia – Soviet: An interesting backdated Moscow Winter Counterattack Order of the Patriotic War 2nd Class for wounds awarded to Captain of Engineering Service Nikita Platonov, who having been wounded with the 66th Independent Sapper Battalion, 387th Rifle Division, 61st Army, whilst fighting near the city of Bolkhov to the south of Moscow, he subsequently was evacuated from the front lines and saw service as the Chief of the Military Medical Technical Construction Officer of the Central Asian District Military Construction Department
Order of the Patriotic War 2nd Class, type 2, flatback reverse, numbered 818397, with a possible pawn brokers number scratched to the reverse of the award.
Condition: Good very fine
Nikita Fyodorovich Platonov was born in the city of Voronezh on 2nd April 1913, a native Russian, he had spent 9 years in the city of Tashkent from 1930, and then spent time in the Central Asian Industrial Institute in Tashkent in 1939. He had become a Junior Lieutenant in the People’s Commissariat of Defence in 1938, before serving with the 61st Army, Bryansk Front from September 1941. This unit acted as a Reserve until it was pushed into the front line south of Moscow in late November 1941, in part to fill the gaps ripped open by the German offensive of the previous month, but also in preparation for the coming counter-attacks that were to begin in early December.
This award of the Patriotic War 2nd Class was not given to Platonov until after the war, one of a number of awards which were given in retrospect to Red Army Soldier’s who had been wounded, and those who might not have been entitled to an award at the time of an act in the early stages of the war. The Order of the Patriotic War 2nd Class did not come into being until May 1942, and thus the act that covers Platonov’s wound would have been prior to its inception, the details of which are as follows:
‘During the Patriotic War, comrade N.F. Platonov, served with the 666th Independent Sapper Battalion of the 387th Rifle Division, 61st Army, Bryansk Front from 7th September 1941 to 28th January 1942 as a Sapper Platoon Leader. He was severely wounded on 28th January 1942 near the city of Bakhov and the village of Ploskoye. He was wounded in his face, legs and arms by shrapnel from an anti-personnel mine in a minefield. He was evacuated from the battlefield to the medical post and subsequently to an evacuation hospital in the city of Belev and Evacuation Hospital nr.1748 in Ryazan. He was recovering from his wounds from January to April 1942 (as per notification nr.137 of Evacuation Hospital nr.1748).
Comrade Platonov has been working in the Central Asian District Military Construction Department Store since May 1942 as chief engineer, section head and chief of the Military Medical Technical Construction Office.’
He is disciplined and conscientiously dedicates himself to his work. He is ideologically and morally stable. He is demanding of himself and his subordinates and exercised authority over his men.’
