Red Star,0290396,Aircraft Navigator,142nd Transport Aviation Regiment

[Bill Garvy]

Award Card

Order Booklet 824526

1. Last name: Baryshev
2. Name and patrionymic: Vasilii Andreevich
3. Rank: Senior Lieutenant
4. Gender: Male
5. Birthyear: 1911
6. Birthplace: Vologodskaya Oblast, Us(?)enskii Region
7. Party membership: since 1944
8. Education: 10th grade
9. Nationality: Russian
10. Time in Red Army: since 1941
11. Place of service at awarding: Aircraft Navigator – 142nd Transport Aviation Regiment
12. Place of work at present: Aircraft Navigator – 142nd Independent Combined Aviation Regiment
13. Home address: Bobruisk, Unit 54860

14. Awards:

Designation/Serial Number/Awarding Organization
Patriotic War II 539.347 1st Air Army dated 8.6.45
Red Star 290.396 1st Air Army dated 7.9.43
Bravery Medal 107.404 33rd Army dated 19.9.42

Victory over Germany Medal Edict dated 9.5.45
Capture of Koenigsberg Medal Edict dated 9.6.45

Verified by Regimental Personnel Officer Captain Nazarov on 1st June, 1946

[Bill Garvy]

Award Sheet

1. Last name, name, and patrionymic: Baryshev, Vasilii Andreevich
2. Rank: Senior Lieutenant
3. Duty position: Wing Navigator – 203rd Independent Aviation Communications Squadron
Recommendation for the Order of the Red Star
4. Born: 1911
5. Nationality: Russian
6. Party membership: n/a
7. Previous combat: since July 1941 in the Patriotic War
8. Wounds or shell-shock: n/a
9. In Red Army: since June 1941
10. Inducted by: Ustyuzhenskii Regional Military Commissariat, Vologodskaya Oblast
11. Previous awards: Bravery Medal on 19.09.42
12. Home of record: [trans: entry intentionally obscured]

Short description of personal combat feat or accomplishment

Upon receiving the Command’s mission, as a navigator Senior Lieutenant V.A. Baryshev conducts thorough planning prior to the flight with exceptional attention to detail, striving to exactly accomplish any mission. As a result he has supported the accomplishment of all missions without a single case of mis-orientation. Accomplishing signal flights in conjunction with the Army’s ground units, in every instance he has accurately led the sorties to the indicated point, established communications, and delivered and picked up postage. The majority of his missions were accomplished in difficult meteorological conditions.

During the Rzhev operation in 1942 he established communications while in heavy cloud cover with the First Guards Corps which was encircled by the enemy.

While penetrating the enemy defensive line on the Orel axis, he accomplished his mission to establish communications with the Second Guards Cavalry Corps.

While accomplishing a mission with a junior pilot he saved the airplane and its crew, extracting them from a situation that would have otherwise been a catastrophe.

For courage and bravery, for situational awareness and decisiveness displayed during the accomplishment of missions he is deserving of the Order of the Red Star.

Signed Major Kiselev on 12th August, 1943

Endorsed Chief of Staff, 1st Air Army, General-Major of Aviation Pronin on (?) August, 1943

[Bill Garvy]

Unit Award Order

SECRET

[trans: “Western Front 20.10.43” and other administrative data in pencil]

1st Air Army Order 053/N dated 7th September, 1943

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:

2. Wing Navigator Senior Lieutenant Vasilii Andreevich Baryshev – Wing Navigator, 203rd Independent Aviation Communications Squadron

Signed 1st Air Army Commander General-Lieutenant of Aviation Hero of the Soviet Union Gromov and Chief of Personnel Lieutenant Colonel Zhuk

4 Copies
1-2 Peoples Commissariat of Defense Personnel Directorate
3 1 Air Army Personnel File
4 Red Army Air Force Personnel Directorate

[Bill Garvy]

Wing Navigator Senior Lieutenant Vasilii Andreevich Baryshev's Order of the Red Star, #290396.

My thanks to Auke and desantnik for their invaluable assistance.

[CtahhR]

Aviation Logistics is one of the rarer seen awards. The citation certainly leaves a lot to the imagination "extracting them from a situation that would have otherwise been a catastrophe" doesn't tell us much but certainly lets the mind wander. It would seem his flight had to retreat from the advancing German forces.

It is nice to see a postal related citation too, specially for philatelists like myself.