Aluminum, paint, lacquer; medallion is 36.8 mm wide. The inscription in the white band is "Espionage / Partisan Unit 9903"; the writing in the center is "Headquarters of the Western Front." Excellent condition.

This very rare badge was issued to of the surviving former members of the Spetsnaz sabotage unit created in late summer of 1941 and comprised exclusively of carefully selected VLKSM Communist Youth volunteers, mostly from Moscow and Moscow region. Upon being accepted to the elite force, the young conscripts - more than half of them women - received speci

Aluminum, paint, lacquer; medallion is 36.8 mm wide. The inscription in the white band is "Espionage / Partisan Unit 9903"; the writing in the center is "Headquarters of the Western Front." Excellent condition.

This very rare badge was issued to of the surviving former members of the Spetsnaz sabotage unit created in late summer of 1941 and comprised exclusively of carefully selected VLKSM Communist Youth volunteers, mostly from Moscow and Moscow region. Upon being accepted to the elite force, the young conscripts - more than half of them women - received special training in espionage and sabotage operations. After learning skills such as quietly eliminating sentries, setting up explosive devices and operating portable radio stations, they were inserted in small groups behind the enemy lines, many of them never to be heard from again.

Out of the Unit 9903's original 2000 members, 951 - nearly a half - were killed in action or captured and executed by the Germans. Many were highly decorated for their achievements in partisan warfare and five were made Heroes of the Soviet Union. Among the latter was the famous Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya who was seized by the peasants of the Moscow area while setting fire to their homes (the locals facing likely death from starvation and cold were none too enthusiastic about the Stalin's scorched earth policy conducted at their expense), turned over to the Germans, brutally tortured and executed. Her defiance at the gallows and photos of her mutilated body were soon thereafter popularized by the Soviet media and made her story an inspiration for generations of Soviet youth.
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