In the US Armed Forces, the main promotion was considered to be the production of the next rank
The United States as a state arose in the struggle against the metropolis - England. Americans did not inherit its traditions in the field of the reward system. Therefore, there are relatively few orders and medals in the United States; they are given almost exclusively for military exploits.
By the time America entered the war following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the country's highest honor was the Medal of Honor (MP). It was founded only in 1862, during the Civil War. After the end of the First World War, the criteria for awarding the medal were significantly tightened. With the outbreak of World War II, this kind of encouragement began to be made only for exceptional valor displayed in a combat situation. MP became an analogue of the "Golden Star" of the Hero of the Soviet Union, with the difference that six out of ten awarded received it posthumously. In the USSR, during the Great Patriotic War, the overwhelming majority of the Heroes of the Soviet Union became such during their lifetime.
Medal of Honor and "Gold Star"
MP is the only award that requires the representation of military personnel not only by the command (the usual procedure), but also by one of the members of Congress - as a rule, from the district where the applicant lives. As you know, in order to become a Hero of the Soviet Union, no additional petition was required from the members of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. The re-delivery of the MP was usually made only for heroic deeds committed in different wars. For the entire existence of a medal of such an honor, only 19 people have been awarded.
A separate MP for the Air Force was established only in 1947, when this branch of the armed forces was separated from the army. In total, for the valor shown during the Second World War, 464 people were awarded the MP, 266 servicemen received it posthumously. 324 represented the army (including 36 - army aviation), 57 - the navy (5 - fleet aviation), 82 - the Marine Corps (11 - from the Marine Corps) and 1 - the coast guard. 15 MP were awarded for Pearl Harbor, and 27 for the capture of Iwo Jima in 1945. There were 223 awards in the Pacific theater of operations (48, 1%). The remaining 51.9 percent fell on the European theater of operations, including North Africa.
This reflects the roughly equal distribution of American forces between the Asia-Pacific and Europe-Middle East theaters. On the first, the main forces of the fleet and the Marine Corps operated, on the second, the armies, including army aviation.
Like the Heroes of the Soviet Union (GSS) in the USSR, in the United States, the holders of the Medal of Honor were provided with a pension, as well as transportation and other benefits. But in the USSR, the rank of the GSS during the Great Patriotic War, as well as the Soviet-Finnish war and the battles on Khalkhin Gol, up to March 1948, received an order of magnitude more soldiers and officers than the MP in the USA - 12,058 people, including 3,050 - posthumously. Also, 7 out of 111 twice Heroes of the Soviet Union were posthumously awarded the second Golden Star. As you can see, the share of posthumous awards was only 25.3 percent, while among the American holders of the MP - 57.3 percent. Among the GSS, about 8000 were represented by ground forces, about 2400 by the Air Force, 513 by the Navy, and more than 150 by border guards, soldiers of the internal troops and security. In addition, 234 partisans became the GSS, including two generals twice (Sidor Kovpak and Alexei Fedorov).
The share of pilots among the owners of the MP was 11.2 percent, and among the GSS - about 20 percent. In the USSR, pilots were awarded much more generously than in the USA. At the same time, the American fleet without naval pilots accounted for 11.2 percent of all awarded MPs, and the Soviet, including the marines, accounted for 4.25 percent of those who received the Gold Star. Together with the Marine Corps, even excluding the ILC pilots, the share of the US Navy rises to 26.5 percent. This reflects the more significant role of the US Navy in comparison with the Soviet one.
But among the GSS there were about 3.2 percent of border guards, NKVD fighters and partisans, while the owner of the MP was only Douglas A. Munro, a 1st class coast guard signalman (awarded posthumously for heroism in the battle for Guadalcanal). Undoubtedly, the border guards (coast guard fighters), not to mention the guerrilla units, played a very modest role in the hostilities of the US Armed Forces, and the units of the American Ministry of Internal Affairs did not participate at all in the battles.
With rare exceptions, there were no generals among the awarded MP, since it was awarded only for personal exploits on the battlefield, and not for planning operations. During World War II, only six generals received it. Douglas MacArthur - For participating in the defense of the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines. Theodore Roosevelt Jr. - for the landing in Normandy (personally led the 4th Infantry Division on the battlefield, awarded posthumously). Alexander A. Vandegrift, for the Battle of Guadalcanal (landed in the first wave of his 1st Marine Division). Jonathan M. Winwright - For commanding the garrison of Corregidor. Kenneth N. Walker, who led the 5th Bomber Command and who died on January 5, 1943 in the bombing of Japanese positions on Rabaul, was awarded a medal posthumously, as was Frederick W. Castle, who commanded the 4th Combat Bomber Wing and was shot down over Germany on December 24, 1944. …
Since MacArthur did not perform direct combat feats, the presentation of the MP to him was criticized, in particular, by General Dwight Eisenhower. Eisenhower himself did not receive the Medal of Honor.
In the USSR, for the leadership of the troops were awarded one three times Hero, 22 twice Hero and several hundred GSS in the ranks of generals and marshals. The share of generals among the owners of the MP did not exceed 1.3 percent. The share of Soviet commanders among the twice Heroes was 20 percent (while we excluded those generals-pilots, like the commander of the 6th Guards Bomber Aviation Corps, Major General Ivan Polbin, who died directly in battle), and among the GSS they were probably not less than five, and possibly 10 percent.
Crosses and Medal of Merit
The second most important award in the United States in 1941-1945 was the Naval Cross (VMK). It was established on August 7, 1942, although it existed since February 4, 1919, without having a high status. In his new incarnation, he began to be awarded for participation in actions associated with a great risk to life and requiring a high level of skill, experience and responsibility. In total, during the Second World War, about 6,300 people were ranked as such. Rear Admiral Roy M. Davenport and Marine Corps Lieutenant General Lewis B. Puller, nicknamed Honor, were awarded the Navy five times, and the submarine commanders Samuel David Dealey and Eugene B. Flacky were awarded four times.
The military analogue of the VMK, the Distinguished Service Cross, was established on February 2, 1918. During the Second World War, it was awarded by about 5,000 servicemen. Technician Sergeant Levelin Chilson of the 179th Infantry Regiment, Lieutenant Colonel John Meyer and Major General James van Fleet each earned three crosses. By the way, Samuel D. Dili also had one such cross. Many WWI veterans earned their second and third Distinguished Service Crosses during WWII.
The VMK and the Distinguished Service Cross are akin to our Order of Lenin, which was given out much more generously. Over the years of the Great Patriotic War, more than 41 thousand people were awarded it, not counting those who received it together with the "Golden Star" of the SCA or the Hero of Socialist Labor. After the decree of September 25, 1944, the Order of Lenin was also awarded for 25 years of service, which significantly reduced its prestige.
The next most important American award was the Medal of Merit of the Navy and the Army. In the navy, it was established in 1919 and until August 1942 was considered higher than the Navy. This medal appeared in the army in 1918 and was awarded to servicemen who achieved particularly effective results in their activities while holding an important post. As a rule, these were officers and generals, in rare cases - sergeants with the rank not lower than the chief petty officer of the fleet and similar ones in the army and the ILC. In the USSR, this is comparable to the military leadership orders of Suvorov, Kutuzov and Alexander Nevsky (for officers and generals of the Ground Forces and the Air Force) and Ushakov and Nakhimov (for officers and admirals of the fleet). The Soviet award system in this case correlates with the American one in that there are separate orders for the army and the air force (we and the Americans then united into one type of armed forces) and for the navy. But in the USSR, at the same time, everything was more differentiated. Thus, the Order of Alexander Nevsky was intended primarily for officers, not generals. The Orders of Suvorov and Kutuzov had three degrees, the first being awarded for success in offensive operations, and the second in defensive ones. The Orders of Ushakov and Nakhimov have two degrees: the first was given for success in offensive operations, and the second - for those who distinguished themselves in defense. The presence of orders of lower degrees was not a prerequisite for obtaining higher ones. The order of the same degree could be obtained several times.
In the United States, during World War II, the Medal of Merit with three gold stars (which corresponds to four awards) was awarded, in particular, to Fleet Admiral William F. Halsey Jr., the former commander of the Third Fleet in the Pacific. The Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet, Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz also had such a medal with three gold stars and a similar army one. General of the Army George Marshall, who headed the army headquarters during the war, was the owner of the Army Medal of Merit with one bronze oak leaf (which meant two awards). General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in the Southwest Pacific Ocean, who has received more than 100 American and foreign awards in his entire career, was awarded the Army Merit Medal with four bronze oak leaves (five awards), as well as a similar Navy medal … General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, like MacArthur, received the Army's Medal of Merit with four bronze oak leaves (five awards), as well as a related naval medal. But he did not catch up with the orders of MacArthur, becoming the owner of only 65 awards.
Army or Navy Medals of Merit with one silver oak leaf or one silver star (six awards) were not held by any American general or admiral.
The price of "Victory" and the winners
In the USSR, the Order of Suvorov of the 1st degree, the highest of the generals with the exception of the Order of Victory (there was no equivalent of the latter in the American award system), three times were received by Chief Marshal of Aviation Konstantin Vershinin, Marshal of Artillery Vasily Kazakov, Army General Alexander Luchinsky and Colonel General Ivan Lyudnikov … All of them also had one Order of Suvorov, 2nd degree. General of the Army Pavel Batov, General-Colonel Pavel Belov, Chief Marshal of Artillery Nikolai Voronov, Chief Marshal of Aviation Alexander Golovanov, General-Colonel Vasily Gordov, Marshal Andrei Eremenko, General of the Army Vladimir Kolpakchi, Chief Marshal of Aviation Alexander Novikov, Colonel General Nikolai Pukhov, Marshal of the Armored Forces Pavel Rybalko, Marshal Vasily Sokolovsky, Marshal Semyon Timoshenko, Colonel General Vyacheslav Tsvetaev and Marshal Vasily Chuikov.
Marshals and General of the Army Alexei Antonov, awarded the Order of Victory, as a rule, had only two Orders of Suvorov, 1st degree. The only exception is Marshal Timoshenko, who, with three orders of Suvorov, 1st degree, on June 4, 1945, was nevertheless presented to the Order of Victory together with Antonov. This turned out to be the penultimate presentation of this highest order to the Soviet military leaders. Meretskov was the last to receive it on 8 September. The third, "consolation" Order of Suvorov, Semyon Timoshenko was bestowed on April 27, 1945. Perhaps Stalin felt some hesitation about whether to include Tymoshenko in a narrow circle of Victory Cavaliers. But in the end he had mercy. Probably, the decisive circumstance was the fact that Timoshenko's daughter Ekaterina was the wife of Vasily Stalin, by the way, who ended the war as an aviation colonel, commander of the 286th fighter aviation division and a holder of the Order of Suvorov, 2nd degree. Or maybe Stalin took into account the rapid capture of Vienna on April 13 by the fronts supervised by Timoshenko.
But in the club of the Knights of the Order of Victory, Tymoshenko did not play a prominent role. If we take the holders of three orders of Suvorov of the 1st degree, then their overwhelming majority ended the war as commanders of the armies (Vershinin, Luchinsky, Lyudnikov, Belov, Gordov, Kolpakchi, Pukhov, Rybalko, Tsvetaev, Chuikov). Kazakov became the chief of artillery of the front, and Voronov became the chief of artillery of the Red Army, however, due to his failing health, he largely retired and in the last year and a half of the war did not go to the front as a representative of the Headquarters. Golovanov commanded long-range aviation, Eremenko was the 4th Ukrainian Front, Novikov was the commander-in-chief of the Air Force, Sokolovsky was the deputy commander of the 1st Belorussian Front, and Timoshenko was a representative of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Headquarters. In this capacity, he was still considered Stalin's commander of the 1st row, which is why he received the Order of Victory. The holders of the three orders of Suvorov of the 1st degree were, although promising and, from the point of view of Stalin, outstanding commanders, they still constituted the 2nd row. And they were not guaranteed against reprisals.
Vasily Nikolaevich Gordov, in conversations with his wife and colleagues, spoke sharply about Stalin and his policy. The MGB recorded these conversations and reported to Stalin. At the beginning of 1947, Gordov was arrested, and on August 24, 1950, he was shot on charges of hatching terrorist plans against members of the Soviet government. Air Chief Marshal Novikov was arrested in early 1946 and on May 11, 1946, sentenced to five years in prison in the so-called aviation case - for supplying defective aircraft to the troops. Remained in prison until Stalin's death.
All holders of the three orders of Suvorov, 1st degree, with the exception of Chief Marshals Voronov and Golovanov, became Heroes of the Soviet Union, and Novikov, Batov and Rybalko were awarded this title twice. Perhaps, in Stalin's eyes, the title of Chief Marshal seemed to replace the "Star" of the Hero.
The Order of Ushakov, 1st Class, was a much rarer award than its land-based counterpart, the Order of Suvorov, 1st Class. In total, 26 people had the Order of Ushakov, 1st degree, including 11 - two each. These 11 constituted the elite of the Navy, since no admiral received the Order of Victory. People's Commissar of the Navy, Admiral of the Fleet Nikolai Kuznetsov, his First Deputy Admiral of the Fleet Ivan Isakov, Commander of Fleet Aviation Marshal of Aviation Sergei Zhavoronkov, Deputy People's Commissar for Shipbuilding, Admiral Lev Galler, Deputy Commander of the Admiral Severus Arseniy Golovko, Commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Admiral Philip Oktyabrsky, Commander of the Baltic Fleet, Admiral Vladimir Tributs (by the way, he was awarded the Order of Ushakov, 1st degree No. 1), Commander of the Baltic Fleet aviation, Colonel-General of Aviation Mikhail Samokhin, Commander of the Black Sea Fleet Aviation Colonel General Mikhail Samokhin Aviation Vasily Ermachenkov and the commander of the Danube military flotilla Vice Admiral Georgy Kholostyakov (he also had the 1st degree Order of Suvorov - for battles on Malaya Zemlya).
Like the Order of Suvorov, the Order of Ushakov did not give any immunity from persecution. Admiral Kuznetsov was convicted in 1948 by a "court of honor" and by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court in a fabricated case of illegal transfer of drawings and descriptions of a high-altitude parachute torpedo to the Allies. He was removed from the post of People's Commissar and demoted to Rear Admiral. True, already in 1951, he again led the Navy, but only with the rank of vice admiral and without removing a criminal record. But Admiral Haller was sentenced to four years in prison in the same case. He died in the Kazan prison psychiatric hospital on July 12, 1950.
Other analogues and originals
The Silver Star was established by the US Department of Defense on July 16, 1932. During World War II, she was awarded for courage and courage shown in battle, which was established by an act of the US Congress of August 7, 1942 for the Navy and the ILC, and by an act of Congress of December 15, 1942, for the army. According to various estimates (there are no exact statistics), over the entire period of its existence, up to the present day, from 100 to 150 thousand people received it, including several tens of thousands - during the Second World War.
The approximate Soviet equivalent of the Silver Star is the Order of the Red Banner. From November 1944, they began to give him for 20 and 30 years of service. In the United States, no awards were given for seniority during the Second World War. During the years of the Great Patriotic War, 305,035 people were awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
The next American award (the fifth in importance in the Second World War, and currently the sixth) should be considered the Order of the Legion of Honor, established on July 20, 1942 and largely copying the French Order of the Legion of Honor. It is mainly intended for foreigners. Generals and senior officers could get it from the Americans. The degree of commander-in-chief was awarded only to the heads of foreign states or governments, as well as to the commander-in-chief of the allied forces. The degree of commander could be awarded to generals in the posts of chiefs of the main staff and above. Officer degrees are generals and senior officers, as well as military attachés at embassies. Legionnaire's degree - all other ranks that do not meet the criteria for senior degrees.
The first American woman to be awarded the Legion of Merit was Navy Nurse Anne Bernatitus, the only woman to take part in the defense of Corregidor. Dwight D. Eisenhower received it from the American generals.
Among the Soviet marshals, Vasilevsky, Govorov, Zhukov, Konev, Malinovsky, Meretskov, Rokossovsky had the Order of the Legion of Honor, the degree of commander-in-chief, as well as the rank of Colonel-General Stanislav Poplavsky, who was in the rank of Army General Eremenko and Chief Marshal of Aviation Novikov.
In the Soviet Union, the order for foreigners, mainly military, was the same Order of Victory, as well as the orders of command of Suvorov, Kutuzov, Alexander Nevsky, Ushakov and Nakhimov. They were suitable for this purpose due to their political neutrality. After all, the "Golden Star" of the Hero of the Soviet Union and the Order of Lenin, the Red Banner, the Red Star are closely related to the communist ideology. It is interesting that all of them were established even before the Second World War, while the orders that appeared during the Great Patriotic War had a neutral ideological load.
The Order of Victory was awarded to Dwight Eisenhower, Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Land Forces in Europe, British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, Communist Leader of Yugoslavia Marshal Josip Broz Tito, Marshal of Poland Michal Role-Zimersky, and the King of Romania gave the Order of Victory to Michai "For the courageous act of a decisive turn in the policy of Romania towards a break with Hitler's Germany and an alliance with the United Nations at a time when the defeat of Germany has not yet been clearly defined."
Mihai Stalin was allowed to leave Romania without hindrance after the communists came to power. Role-Zhimersky was arrested and sent to prison for two years only in May 1953, after Stalin's death. And on Tito, with whom there was a complete break in 1948, Stalin tried to organize an assassination attempt, but unsuccessfully.
The Purple Heart Medal was established in 1942 and was intended for all injured US military personnel. In the USSR, there were stripes for injuries: red - for light, yellow - for heavy. In the United States during the Second World War, 671,000 people became the owners of the "Purple Heart". It turned out to be the most massive award in the American Armed Forces, not counting the medal for winning the war.
There are a number of American military awards that have no direct Soviet counterparts. These are the Honorary Flying Cross (for exploits in air operations), the Soldier's Medal and the Bronze Star, established only on February 4, 1944, but awarded for heroic deeds committed starting on December 7, 1941. The Americans also had a medal "For Victory in World War II" - the obvious equivalent of the Soviet medals "For Victory over Germany" and "For Victory over Japan." But American medals for participation in individual campaigns - "For participation in the American campaign", "For the defense of America", "For participation in the Asia-Pacific campaign", "For participation in the European-African-Middle East campaign" are similar not only to Soviet medals for the defense or liberation (capture) of individual cities, but also for the medals "For Victory over Germany" and "For Victory over Japan". If in the USA the differentiation was only in individual theaters of military operations, in the USSR it was only in individual cities, for which especially fierce battles were fought.
In general, the American system was distinguished by a significantly smaller number of awards themselves and those awarded. In the US Armed Forces, a much more important promotion was considered to be production to the next rank, which led to a significant increase in the salary and social status of a soldier, including after retirement.
