Temporary Travel Document.

[matteti]

Soviet Temporary Passport.
Issued 16 November 1945 to Grigory Stepanovich Peresada. Valid until 16 November 1946. He was released from Kargopol'lag 15 November 1945.

[matteti]

Grigory Stepanovich Peresada was born in 1901 in the village of Nekhvorascha, Poltava oblast, Ukraine. He didn't serve in the Civil War, but enrolled in the Red Army on 1 August 1922 as a Red-Armyman in the 3rd Battery, Odessa Group in the Ukraine Military District. He quickly became a junior commander and joined the Communist Party in 1924 (Party Ticket № 274397) before becoming an assistant-political officer and political officer.

He studied at the Artillery School named after Frunze in Ukraine for one year in 1928-1929 before coming back to his position of political officer in the 51st Artillery Regiment. Then, in the fall of 1931, he enrolled at the Air Force Academy in Moscow where he studied for three years. In December 1934, he then joined the Naval Air Forces of the "Red Banner" Baltic Fleet and started a career of Chief of Staff

He participated in the war against the White Finns from 30 November 1939 to 13 March 1940 as Chief of Staff of the 1st Mine-Torpedo Aviation Regiment, position he was still occupying at the outbreak of the Patriotic War on 22 June 1941.

Based on available research, he seems to have been a successful and appreciated commander.

On 24 November 1941, he was rewarded with an Order of the Red Star for exemplary performance of command assignments. Unfortunately, the award citation is not available for more details.

From 4 March 1942 to May 1944, he was the Chief of Staff of the 36th Mine-Torpedo Aviation Regiment, assigned to the Naval Air Forces of the Black Sea Fleet.

In the first fourteen months of this period, between March 1942 and the end of April 1943, the "DB-ZF" planes in Peresada's regiment executed more than 777 sorties destroying a number of vehicles with troops and supplies, fuel tanks, warehouses with ammunition and fuel, barges, boats, platoons of Nazi soldiers and officers, aircrafts on the ground, and residential buildings and put out a number of batteries.

In May 1943, his superior, Lieutenant-Colonel Efremov highlighted the operational success of the regiment under his commands and described Peresada in those words: "He is an experienced, highly cultivated staff commander and serve as a model of executing the Bolshevik obligations and these qualities impart his subordinates. He has great political and business authority among all personnel. For exemplary performance of tasks accomplishment and leadership of the regiment military operations, he is worthy of his second award". Thus, he was awarded with his second order, an Order of Patriotic War 1st Class, on 3 October 1943.

In May 1944, the 36th Mine-Torpedo Aviation Regiment was transferred to the Naval Air Forces of the Northern Fleet, as part of the 5th Mine-Torpedo Aviation "Kirkenes" "Red Banner" Division.

On 9 September 1944, the Commander of 36th Mine-Torpedo Aviation Regiment, Hero of USSR, Guards Lieutenant-Colonel Efremov, recommended him for his "twenty years of service" Order of the Red Banner. He had already served in the army for over 22 years.

Again, Efremov praised Peresada and used those words: "Lieutenant-Colonel Grigory Stepanovich Peresada is a disciplined, enterprising, bold and resolute officer. He expertly organizes staff. He provides timely execution of military orders and instructions of the higher commanders. Managed on a daily combat training in the squadron. On November 7, 1944 he will have served in the Red Army and Navy for 22 years and 3 months. Worthy of awarding the Order of the "Red Banner"

As indicated in the citation for his long-service Red Banner, additionally to his orders, he was also awarded with the Medal for the Defense of Leningrad by Decree of the Presidium of Supreme Soviet of USSR (22.12.1942).

Soon, his life was going to change drastically, and not for the better...

[matteti]

Until here, everything looks normal, but when searching through another archives website, a new document comes up showing a big twist in Peresada's life less than four weeks after being recommended for an Order of the Red Banner. This document is the "list of personnel who died of wounds, disease, and convicted by Court-Martial" and was issued on 19 December 1944 by the 5th Mine-Torpedo Aviation "Kirkenes" Division.

It shows that, on 3 October 1944, Peresada got dismissed from the Red Army and Navy and was sentenced by the Court-Martial of the Northern Fleet to 8 years of restricted freedom in the forced labor camps (ITL - GULAG). The document also show that he was married to Olga Alekseevna Peresada, born in 1906, and living in the Russian city of Chkalov (now Orenburg), Chkalov oblast, at 10 Komunarov street, apartment № 5.

At the time of Peresada's conviction, his unit was in the last stage of preparation for the Petsamo-Kirkenes operation that was launched a few days later.

Despite his conviction exactly a month earlier, he still received his Long Service Order of the Red Banner as part of the mass-awarding of the 3 November 1944 by Ukaz of the Presidium of Supreme Soviet of USSR.

[matteti]

Apparently, he got released after just over a year as evidenced by his temporary passport issued on 16 November 1945 by NKVD. The passport, valid for one year, indicates that he was released from Kargopol'lag (Arkhangelsk oblast) the day before. The photo has "embossed" stamp from NKVD and so is the passport.

[matteti]

Now that I was able to connect together different elements from Podvig Naroda, OBD-Memorial and the temporary passport issued to Peresada, I am wondering if we could dig this deeper. Maybe with the help of fellow forum members we can learn more about Peresada's mystery?

• What behavior/action/speech led to him being Court-Martialed? Is it possible to get archives of the Court-Martial decision?
• Why did he receive his 20-year of service Order Red Banner even after being convicted? This is probably a case of the two events happening very closely in time, but very far geographically and bureaucratically so it was not possible to withdraw the recommendation for award on time.
• Would he have lost all his awards and privileges at the time of sentencing?
• Why was he released from Kargopol'lag after only 1 year out of his 8-year sentence?
• Was he re-instated and forgiven?

In the document reporting irrecoverable losses for the unit, there is a total of 11 persons listed. Two of them, including Peresada, were sentenced to Gulag by Court-Martial, 4 died from plane crash, and an amazing 5 (2 majors, 2 senior-lieutenants and one Fleetman) died of alcohol intoxication on the same day.

• It's surprising (at least for me) to find soldiers "KIA" by alcohol intoxication! Not a very heroic way of dying in the war, but that probably happened commonly. I was wondering if this was custom practice to declare it in official military document as seen here?

Thanks in advance for your help and comments! :thumbsup

Was forgetting to attach the citation for the OPWI awarded on 3 October 1943 by Prikaz № 72/С of the Red Army Northern Fleet.

[Al-muell]

A very interesting story!

Originally Posted by matteti

[*]It's surprising (at least for me) to find soldiers "KIA" by alcohol intoxication! Not a very heroic way of dying in the war, but that probably happened commonly. I was wondering if this was custom practice to declare it in official military document as seen here?

It did happen. I remember that once I had read a book on Soviet officers in the post-war Polish Army, and there was an official list of reasons of death for Soviet generals who died in Poland citated (an original list, made for the Soviet MOD) and it listed the reasons of death like:
"Died in effect of eating poisonous mushrooms"
or even better:
"Killed by wife because of jelousy"
Some people wanted to be very scrupulous in their reports, but hey, we are talking about the Stalinist times.

[CtahhR]

I had a friend that was very impressed that his great-grandfather's service record listed him as AWOL due to intoxication 7 times.

[PaulR]

These are the most interesting set of records I have seen. How did you come across them? Do you have the ORB?

[matteti]

Unfortunately, I don't have any award or awarding document. I only have the temporary passport which I bought many years ago from our fellow NotaBene as a "Temporary passport issued to a person released from Gulag". But with obd-memorial coming up a few years ago I was able to learn about the Court-Martial conviction. More recently, with the online publishing of Navy archives, I found the citations for OPWI and ORB. The ORB being a long service has a lot of info about his carreer.

It's nice to be able to combine records from different sources to get a more detailed picture. However, the big mystery remains... what could have happened in the short period between his recommendation for ORB in September 1944 and his sentencing on October 3?

As for the ORB, he might never have physically received it. Or maybe once release from Kargopol'lag?

Originally Posted by PaulR

These are the most interesting set of records I have seen. How did you come across them? Do you have the ORB?