Testimony to Capture of Budapest booklet

[EricFG]

I've had this for a while now and haven't really looked into it until recently.
It seems to be booklet for helping in the Capture of Budapest to a Nikolai Bochko (or Bozko). He was awarded the CoB medal as well, and I have that booklet so this is, I guess, a general 'job well done' reward that everyone involved with the Budapest operation got.

I've translated (poorly) a little bit of it:

смерть немепким оккупаптам!
Death немепким оккупаптам!
(Death to Fascist sonsabitches?)

ПРИКАЗ Верховного Главнокомандующего
Маршала Соевтского Союза Товарища Сталина

By ORDER of the Supreme commander in chief
marshal of the Soviet Union Comrade Stalin

Участнику РАЗГРОМА НЕМЦЕВ В БУДАПЕШТЕ
To the participant of DEFEAT of GERMANS In Budapest

[EricFG]

15 (!) pages of typeface.
Somewhat similar in content if not length to these here: http://soviet-awards.com/forum/sovie...documents.html

[desantnik]

Eric, this is not a medal-awarding document.

It's kind of like your school graduation ceremony program - it implies you graduated and attests to the fact that you were there, but it's not an actual diploma.

[EricFG]

Right, and he got his 'diploma' as well; the CoB medal & booklet.
So, do you think everybody that got the CoB got this? Were there those who got this but not the CoB medal?

[desantnik]

Originally Posted by EricFG

Right, and he got his 'diploma' as well; the CoB medal & booklet.
So, do you think everybody that got the CoB got this? Were there those who got this but not the CoB medal?

This particular document is specifically addressed to a member of a Guards unit. Thus, not everyone who received a Budapest Medal would have received this booklet, however supply withstanding, everyone in his particular unit would have received both this and a Budapest Medal.

From my experience, these booklets were usually given to units that had particularly excelled in a given battle, often as the result of their unit being granted that battle's particular honorific title "Budapest", for example. That being said, some of these documents were also like congratulatory souvenirs too.

I don't know if anyone would have received a congratultory booklet like this and intentinally not been given a Budapest medal, but then again, anything is possible.

I've seen plenty of instances where an individual was in a campaign and it is both noted in their personal information and from unit histories the unit was there too, but the unit never received the medal, despite other campaign medals.

[EricFG]

Thanks for being so specific, Paul. It greatly helps with my understanding of awards and their particular paperwork.