Vene asjatundjad tööhoos (kopipeistin Wehrmacht-awarsi foorumist):
Andrey Karpov from
http://niemirow41.narod.ru/ managed to find what seems to be archive reference to this tank and its crew:
In this report of officer losses from 3rd Guards Tank Brigade (
http://shot.photo.qip.ru/101qAuo.jpg ) under #7 on this page (
http://shot.photo.qip.ru/301qAup.jpg) is listed Guards Lieutenant Vasily Kriventsev, tank platoon commander from 2nd Tank battalion - killed on May 1, 1945 by the explosion of naval mine on highway bridge over Varnov river, 400 meters east from Rostok.
Posthumous award document (
http://shot.photo.qip.ru/101qAxe.jpg ) provide more details of the event: After managing to capture military supply train arriving on station Cassedom (?) 1500 m west from Rostok, and taking village Cassedom, Kriventsov’s tank was first to break into Rostok suburbs, destroying enemy personell and vehicles on the way, and was exploded by naval mine on the bridge. Kriventsov was killed by the blast (as, probably, whole crew of the tank – there is nothing about it in the document). Place of explosion is pointed as burial place in the documents.
This story is matching newspaper story of first tank that entered by city and was destroyed by local policemen – probably policemen was responsible for operating IED control, and Soviets listed explosion too powerful to be resulted by regular landmine to be caused by hidden naval mine.
Meanwhile Andrey continued the study and found award document for tank MG/radio operator
http://shot.photo.qip.ru/101qCoh.jpg
http://shot.photo.qip.ru/201qCoi.jpg
And then all other crew members, for some reason they were all in private\NCO losses report of 9th Rifle division, marked red:
http://shot.photo.qip.ru/201qCoB.jpg
http://shot.photo.qip.ru/301qCoA.jpg
http://shot.photo.qip.ru/101qCoz.jpg
So now we know all five crew members:
Vasily Kriventsev, 31, platoon commander
Vasily Kleshov,21, driver
Panteley Lipeev, 21, radio operator
Nikolai Martynenko, 20, gunner
Andrey Gusev, 23, loader