Medal for Courage nr. 1290486 was awarded by Order of May 20, 1944 to 23- or 24-year-old Master Sergeant Mikhail Moiseyevich Plaksin, mortar team leader in the 3rd Rifle Battalion, 1382nd Rifle Regiment, 87th Rifle Division, 55th Rifle Corps, 2nd Guards Army, 4th Ukrainian Front.

Mikhail Moiseyevich Plaksin was born on May 2, 1920 in the village of Ubinskoye, Ubinskoye District, Novosibirsk Province. He joined the Navy in April 1940 and later saw service with the 253rd Independent Rifle Brigade. Part of the newly organized 60th Army, this brigade was sent to the front in July 1942 and was deployed in the Voronezh area.

Later that summer he fought on the approaches to Stalingrad as a Sergeant and squad leader in the 308th Rifle Division of the 1st Guards Army. The army launched a large-scale counterattack in the Kotluban area, northwest of Stalingrad, on September 18, 1942. Two rifle divisions, including the 308th, spearheaded the attack. The division suffered considerable losses. Many troops went missing in action, including one of the regimental commanders. In March 1943, Sergeant Plaksin was reported as having gone missing in action during the battles of September 18, 1942.

Evidently Plaksin survived, however. He was later attached to the 87th Rifle Division and in May 1944 he fought near Sevastopol, in Crimea, as a mortar team leader in the 3rd Rifle Battalion of the division’s 1382nd Rifle Regiment, earning the Medal for Courage.

At the end of May Plaksin’s division was transferred to the 51st Army and in June this army left Crimea for the Baltic States. In August 1944 the 87th Rifle Division was fighting near the border between Latvia and Lithuania. The fighting here was fierce: the 1382nd Rifle Regiment alone lost 238 soldiers and NCOs in three days' time (August 18-20). One of the men who were reported missing in action on August 18, 1944 in southern Latvia was Master Sergeant Plaksin. Remarkably, however, once again he turned out to be alive: in January 1945 he was reported as having returned to his hometown in Siberia.

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The Medal for Courage to:

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13. Master Sergeant Mikhail Moiseyevich Plaksin, mortar commander in the 3rd Rifle Battalion, for the fact that he, on May 8, 1944, destroyed an enemy firing position on the approaches to the city of Sevastopol.

Born in 1920, Russian, member of the Komsomol, had 8 classes of education, in the Red Army since 1940, drafted by the Military Commissariat of the Ubinskoye Raion, Novosibirsk Oblast. Home address: Novosibirsk Oblast, Ubinskoye Raion, village of Ubinskoye. Mother: Fyokla Petrovna Plaksina.

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Commander of the 1382nd Rifle Regiment
Lieutenant Colonel [signed] /Batayev/

Medal for Courage nr. 1290486, obverse and reverse