Russia - Soviet: An Operation Uranus – Stalingrad counter-attack Medal for Combat Merits awarded to Red Army Soldier, later Lieutenant Izrail Borisovich Berkenblit, of Jewish descent who saw service with the 1st Battalion, 865th Artillery Regiment, 302nd Rifle Division for supplying food to the troop under a hail of bullets and shrapnel and under withering enemy artillery fire on the second day of the German counter-attack that led to the encirclement of the German Sixth Army in the city of Stalingrad.
Medal for Combat Merits, type 1, reverse numbered 153040
Condition: frayed original ribbon, original suspender, the original red enamel worn from the lettering, Good Very Fine
Izrail Borisovich Berkenblit, of Jewish descent, was born in the city of Smolensk in 1916. Having attained an elementary education he joined the Red Army in November 1939. Serving from the outbreak of the war, he would find himself as a Red Army Soldier and a Cook with the 1st Battalion, 865th Artillery Regiment, 302nd Rifle Division, Stalingrad Front at the time of Operation Uranus, the counter-offensive that led to the encirclement and eventual destruction of the German Sixth Army in the city, and it was during this operation that he would perform the act that led to the award of this Medal for Combat Merit, for which the recommendation was as follows:
‘As a true patriot of his people, in the most challenging conditions, under a hail of bullets and shrapnel, delivered hot and tasty food to the troops of his unit. On 21st November 1942, in the area of the hamlet of Semkin, in the area of the collective farm ‘Red Hero’, during our units’ offensive, he delivered hot and tasty food to the troops under withering enemy artillery fire.’
302nd Rifle Division would go on to be heavily damaged during the German Operation Winter Storm which sought to relieve the encircled Stalingrad, later in the war it would take part in fighting in the Donbass, around the Dnieper, across Poland and in Silesia. Berkenblit would end the war as a Lieutenant and would be decorated with an Order of the Red Star by decree of the 130th Latvian Rifle Corps on 12th May 1945.
