Russia – Soviet: An interesting Kurland February 1945 Medal for Courage to Sergeant Aleksei Nikitovich Kuzmichov, 764th Anti-Tank Artillery Regiment for repulsing a German Counterattack on height 37.7 and killing five Germans with his sub-machine gun.
Medal for Courage, type 2, variation 2, numbered 3099706.
Condition: Missing its five-sided suspension, and with red enamel missing from the lettering is as common for this award, overall Very fine
Sergeant Aleksei Nikitovich Kuzmichov was born in the village of Petryaikha, Korobov Raion, Moscow Oblast in 1922, he had served in the Red Army from September 1941 onwards. His first award was a Medal for Combat Merit awarded by Order of the 4th Tank Army on 5th October 1942. This Army had been defending the southern approaches to Stalingrad through August and early September.
He had become a member of Komsomol in 1943, and subsequently found himself serving with the Reconnaissance Squad leader in in the 764th Anti-Tank Artillery Regiment at the time of this award of the Medal for Courage
‘For the fact that he during the capture of height 37.7 in the Latvian SSR on February 27th 1945 participated in repulsing an enemy counterattack, during which he killed five Germans with his submachine gun. He was wounded in January 1943.’
The only fighting in Latvia by this stage of the war was taking place around the frontline of the Kurland Pocket where a large German force had been cut off in the autumn of 1944 and continued to resist throughout the following winter and right up until the German surrender on 8th May 1945.
After the war he was living in the village of Petryaikha, Korobov Raion, Moscow Oblast where he was working as a Kolkhoz Farmer.
