Red Star,0297964,Deputy Head Of Communications,5th Shock Army

[Bill Garvy]

Award Card

Order Booklet 665153

1. Last name: Fokichev
2. Name and patrionymic: Ivan Ivanovich
3. Rank: Colonel
4. Gender: Male
5. Birthyear: 1901
6. Birthplace: Vologodskaya Oblast, Maksinskii Region, village of Olkhoevo
7. Party membership: since 7.1927
8. Education: elementary
9. Nationality: Russian
10. Time in Red Army: since 4.1918
11. Place of service at awarding: Deputy Chief of Communications – Army Staff, 5th Shock Army
12. Place of work at present: On orders with the Land Forces Chief of Communications, MOD USSR
13. Home address: Kiev, Mikhailovskaya 13, apt. 37

14. Awards:
Designation/Serial Number/Awarding Organization
Lenin 22.617 Edict dated 21.2.45
Red Banner 140.732 Edict dated 3.11.1944
Red Banner 196.291 1st Belorussian Front dated 21.2.45
Red Banner 272.501 Group of Soviet Occupational Forces 11.7.45
Patriotic War I 81.345 3rd Ukrainian Front dated 22.9.44
Red Star 297.964 Southern Front dated 30.9.43
Patriotic War II 7257 Southern Front dated 29.3.43

Verified by Senior Deputy Chief of Section for Exchange of Order (?)Ze,

Administration for Awards and Promotions, Main Personnel Administration in July, 1946

[Bill Garvy]

Abbreviated Award Card

Abbreviated award card verifies an Order of the Red Banner was awarded for generic “combat against the German invaders” according to Group of Soviet Occupational Forces Order 019/N dated 11.7.45 to ethnic Russian Colonel Ivan Ivanovich Fokichev (b.1901), Deputy Chief of Signal Troops, 5th Shock Army.

[Bill Garvy]

Abbreviated Award Card

Abbreviated award card verifies an Order of the Red Star [trans: sic, Order of Lenin according to permanent award card] was awarded according to 1st Belorussian Front Order 462/N dated 21.2.45 to ethnic Russian Colonel Ivan Ivanovich Fokichev (b.1901), Deputy Chief of Signal Troops, 5th Shock Army.

[Bill Garvy]

Unit Award Order

SECRET

[trans: order title page missing and constructed below from typical formulaic context]

On behalf of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet USSR, I award the following decorations for exemplary accomplishment of the Command’s missions in the struggle against the German invaders and for having displayed valor and bravery:

Order of the Red Star to:

20. Lieutenant Colonel Ivan Ivanovich Fokichev – Deputy Chief of Communications, 5th Shock Army

Southern Front Commander, General of the Army Tolbukhin, Member of the Military Committee General-Major of Quartermaster Services Kirichenko,

Chief of Staff Guards General-Lieutenant Birezov, and Chief of Personnel Colonel Kolombet

4 Copies
29.9.43
N.N.

[Bill Garvy]

Award Sheet

1. Last name, name, and patrionymic: Fokichev, Ivan Ivanovich
2. Rank: Lieutenant Colonel
3. Duty position: Deputy Chief of Communications – 5th Shock Army (?)
Recommendation for the Order of the Red Banner
4. Born: 1904
5. Nationality: Russian
6. Party membership: yes
7. Previous combat: Civil War in 1919 near Petrograd, in 1921-22 on the Karelian Front. Since July 1941 in the Patriotic War.
8. Wounds or shell-shock: wounded 15.11.41 near Rzhev
9. In Red Army: since 1918
10. Inducted by: Cherepovets Regional Military Commissariat, Leningrad Oblast
11. Previous awards: Order of the Patriotic War II 22.3.43 Southern Front
12. Home of record: [trans: entry intentionally obscured]

Short description of personal combat feat or accomplishment

As the Deputy Chief of Communications Cormade Fokichev has organized communications between the Army commander’s Observation Post(OP) to subordinate commanders’ Ops during all operations conducted to date. Due to Fokichev’s energetic and capable work Comrade Fokichev provided responsible conduct of signal operations with subordinate units that worked continuously and provided the Army command’s management of forces.

In the July operation during the withdrawal of our forces from Stalingrad, Comrade Fokichev made a great contribution in difficult conditions by providing communications to the 315th, 221st, and 96th Rifle Divisions, thus enabling their withdrawal of their supply units behind the Mius river and our unit’s position on the western shore of the Mius.

He is deserving of the Order of the Red Banner.

Signed Chief of Communications, 5th Shock Army, Colonel Falin on 14th September, 1943

Recommended downgrade to Order of the Red Star by Commander, 5th Shock Army, General-Lieutenant Tsvetaev and Member of the Military Committee General-Major Bulanov on 18th September, 1943

Awarded the Order of the Red Star by Order 143/N of the Southern Front dated 30.9.43.

[Bill Garvy]

Lieutenant Colonel Ivan Ivanovich Fokichev's Order of the Red Star, #297964.

My thanks to Auke & desantnik for their invaluable assistance.