Great respect and gratitude are worthy of women - veterans of the Great Patriotic War.

“... And even when the first bullet hit in the side, she was just surprised. After all, it was so stupid, so absurd and improbable to die at the age of 19... And the Germans wounded her blindly, through the foliage, and she could hide, wait it out, and maybe leave. But she shot while there were bullets. She shot lying down, no longer trying to escape, because strength was leaving along with the blood. And the Germans finished her off at close range, and then looked at her for a long time and after death, a proud and beautiful face ... "

Women took a direct part in the hostilities both as nurses and as full-fledged fighters. They came to the front as volunteers, not a single decisive battle was complete without the participation of a female fighter. Sometimes very young girls who were not even 18 years old were sent to the front... professions of women participants in the Great Patriotic War. Women also fought in the air force, and 26,707 women participated in the partisan movement ...

More than 150,000 women heroines of the Great Patriotic War were awarded military orders and medals.

Home front workers

Women's contribution to the cause of victory is measured not only by their direct participation in hostilities, but also by hard work in the rear.

During the war most women were employed in manufacturing and agriculture. Largely thanks to them, the front was provided with food and weapons. Thousands of women came to the production voluntarily, in response to the call of the state. Came to production and women of retirement age. Women had to learn male professions: turners, locksmiths, millers, workers in the metallurgical industry, combine operators, tractor drivers. During the war years, women accounted for 70% of all workers in the textile and light industries.

Representatives of the arts also made their own contribution to the cause of victory: museum workers took care of the preservation of the great heritage of our country, transporting the most valuable monuments of art to territories remote from hostilities, and taking care of their safety there; actresses participated in performances to raise the morale of the soldiers.

The contribution of women to the cause of victory is invaluable and the names of many heroines, participants in Great War: Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, a partisan who withstood severe torture, but did not give her name and military secrets; liaison and intelligence officer Yuta Bondarovskaya; young pioneer Zina Portnova, Gali Komleva, Nadezhda Bogdanova and many, many others…

And how much did women, participants of the Great Patriotic War, do to establish peaceful life in the post-war years...

"... Motherland does not begin with canals," she said quietly. Not from there at all. And we defended her. First her, and then the canal ... "

Boris Vasilyev "The Dawns Here Are Quiet"

Happy Victory Day!

In June 1941, without warning of the war, fascist troops entered the territory of our Motherland. bloody war claimed millions of lives. Countless orphans, destitute people. Death and destruction are everywhere. On May 9, 1945, we won. The war was won at the cost of the lives of great men. Women and men fought side by side, without thinking about their true destiny. The goal was the same for all - victory at any cost. Do not allow the enemy to enslave the country, the Motherland. This is a great victory.

Women at the front

According to official statistics, about 490,000 women were called up for the war. They fought on a par with men, received honorary awards, died for their homeland, and persecuted the Nazis to their last breath. Who are these great women? Mothers, wives, thanks to whom we now live under a peaceful sky, breathe free air. In total, 3 air regiments were formed - 46, 125, 586. Women pilots of the Great Patriotic War instilled fear in the hearts of the Germans. Women's Company of Sailors, Volunteer Rifle Brigade, rifle regiment. This is only official data, but how many women were in the rear in the Great Patriotic War. Underground fighters, at the cost of their lives, forged victory behind enemy lines. Women scouts, partisans, nurses. We will talk about the great heroes of the Patriotic War - women who made an unbearable contribution to the victory over fascism.

Award-winning "Night Witches" that terrify the German occupiers: Litvyak, Raskova, Budanova

Pilots received the most awards during the war. Fearless fragile girls went to ram, fought in the air, participated in night bombardments. For their courage, they received the nickname "night witches". Experienced German aces were afraid of a witch raid. On U-2 plywood biplanes, they raided German squadrons. Seven out of a little over thirty female pilots were awarded the Order of the Commander of the highest rank posthumously.

The most famous "witches" who made more than one sortie, on whose account more than a dozen downed fascist aircraft:

• Budanov Ekaterina. By the rank of Guards senior lieutenant, she was a commander, served in the fighter regiments. On account of the fragile girl 266 sorties. Budanova personally shot down about 6 fascist planes and 5 more with her comrades. Katya did not sleep or eat, the plane went on combat missions around the clock. Budanova avenged the death of her family. Experienced aces were amazed at the courage, endurance and self-control of a fragile girl who looked like a guy. In the biography of the great pilot there are such feats - one against 12 enemy aircraft. And this is not the last feat of a woman during the Great Patriotic War. Once, returning from a combat mission, Budanova saw a trio of Me-109s. There was no way to warn her squadron, the girl entered into an unequal battle, despite the fact that there was no longer any fuel in the tanks, the ammunition ran out. Having shot the last cartridges, Budanova starved out the Nazis. Their nerves simply could not stand it, they believed that the girl was attacking them. Budanova bluffed at her own risk, the ammunition ran out. The nerves of the enemy passed, the bombs were dropped without reaching a specific target. In 1943 Budanova made her last flight. In an unequal battle, she was injured, but managed to land the plane on her territory. The landing gear touched the ground, Katya breathed her last. It was her 11th victory, the girl was only 26 years old. Hero Titles Russian Federation was awarded only in 1993.

• - a pilot of a fighter aviation regiment, on whose account there is more than one German soul. Litvyak made more than 150 sorties, she accounted for 6 enemy aircraft. In one of the planes was a colonel of an elite squadron. The German ace did not believe that he was hit by a young girl. The most fierce battles on account of Litvyak - near Stalingrad. 89 sorties and 7 downed aircraft. There were always wild flowers in the Litvyak's cockpit, and the plane has a picture of a white lily. For this, she received the nickname "White Lily of Stalingrad". Litvyak died near Donbass. Having made three sorties, she never returned from the last one. The remains were discovered in 1969 and reburied in a mass grave. The pretty girl was only 21 years old. In 1990 she received the title of Hero Soviet Union.

• On account of her 645 night sorties. Destroyed railway crossings, enemy equipment, manpower. In 1944 she did not return from a combat mission.
• - the famous pilot, Hero of the Soviet Union, founder and commander of the women's aviation regiment. Died in a plane crash.
• Yekaterina Zelenko is the first and only woman to carry out an aerial ramming. During reconnaissance sorties, Soviet aircraft were attacked by Me-109s. Zelenko shot down one plane, and on the second she went to ram. In honor of this girl, a small planet in the solar system was named.

Women pilots were the wings of victory. They carried her on their fragile shoulders. Fighting bravely under the skies, sometimes sacrificing their own lives.

"silent war" of strong women

Underground women, partisans, scouts waged their quiet war. They made their way into the camp of the enemy, staged sabotage. Many were awarded the Order of the Hero of the Soviet Union. Almost all are posthumous. Great feats were accomplished by such girls as Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, Zina Portnova, Lyubov Shevtsova, Ulyana Gromova, Matrena Volskaya, Vera Voloshina. At the cost of their own lives, not surrendering under torture, they forged victory, committed sabotage.

Matrena Volskaya by order of the commander partisan movement brought 3,000 children across the front line. Hungry, exhausted, but alive thanks to the teacher Matryona Volskaya.

Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya - the very first woman Hero of the Great Patriotic War. The girl was a saboteur, an underground partisan. They caught her on a combat mission, a sabotage was being prepared. The girl was tortured for a long time, trying to find out any information. But she steadfastly endured all the torment. The scout was hanged in front of the locals. Last words Zoya was addressed to the people: "Fight, do not be afraid, beat the damned fascists, for the Motherland, for life, for children."

Voloshina Vera served in the same intelligence unit as Kosmodemyanskaya. On one of the tasks, Vera's detachment came under fire, and the wounded girl was taken prisoner. She was tortured all night, but Voloshina was silent, in the morning she was hanged. She was only 22 years old, she dreamed of a wedding and children, but she never had a chance to wear a white dress.

Zina Portnova - the youngest underground worker during the war years. From the age of 15, the girl joined the ranks of the partisan movement. On the territory occupied by the Germans in Vitebsk, the underground organized sabotage against the Nazis. Set fire to flax, destruction of ammunition. Young Portnova killed 100 Germans by poisoning them in the canteen. The girl managed to divert suspicion from herself by tasting the poisoned food. The grandmother managed to pump out the brave granddaughter. Soon she leaves for a partisan detachment and from there begins to conduct her underground sabotage activities. But there is a traitor in the ranks of the partisans, and the girl, like other members of the underground movement, is arrested. After prolonged and painful torture, Zina Portnova was shot. The girl was 17 years old, she was led to the execution blind and completely gray-haired.

The quiet war of strong women during the Great Patriotic War almost always ended in one outcome - death. Until their last breath, they fought the enemy, destroying it slowly, actively operating underground.

Faithful companions on the battlefield - nurses

Medical women have always been at the forefront. They carried out the wounded under shelling and bombing. Many received the title of Heroes posthumously.

For example, the medical instructor of the 355th battalion, sailor Maria Tsukanova. A female volunteer saved the lives of 52 sailors. Tsukanova died in 1945.

Another heroine of the Patriotic War is Zinaida Shipanova. Having forged documents and secretly fled to the front, she saved the lives of more than one hundred wounded. She pulled the soldiers out from under the fire, bandaged the wounds. It calmed the downhearted warriors psychologically. The main feat of a woman took place in 1944 in Romania. In the early morning, she was the first to notice the creeping Nazis through Zina and informed the commander. The battalion commander ordered the fighters to go into battle, but the tired soldiers were confused and were in no hurry to join the fight. Then the young girl rushed to the aid of her commander, not understanding the road, she rushed to the attack. All life flashed before my eyes, and then, inspired by her courage, the fighters rushed to the Nazis. The nurse Shipanova more than once inspired and gathered the soldiers. She did not reach Berlin, she ended up in a hospital with a shrapnel wound and concussion.

Medical women, like guardian angels, protected, healed, encouraged, as if covering the fighters with their wings of mercy.

Women infantrymen are the workhorses of war

Infantrymen have always been considered the workhorses of war. It is they who begin and end each battle, carry all its hardships on their shoulders. Women were here too. They walked side by side with men, mastering hand weapons. The courage of such infantrymen can be envied. Among the women of the infantry there are 6 Heroes of the Soviet Union, five received the title posthumously.

The main character was the machine gunner Freeing Nevel, she single-handedly defended the height with one machine gun against a company of German soldiers, shooting everyone, she died from her wounds, but did not let the Germans through.

Lady death. Great snipers of the Patriotic War

Snipers made a significant contribution to the victory over Nazi Germany. Women during the Great Patriotic War steadfastly endured all the hardships. Being in shelter for days, they tracked down the enemy. Without water, food, in the heat and cold. Many were awarded significant awards, but not all during their lifetime.

Lyubov Makarova, after graduating from a sniper school in 1943, ends up on the Kalinin Front. There are 84 fascists on the account of the green girl. She was awarded the medal "For Military Merit", the "Order of Glory".

Tatyana Baramzina destroyed 36 fascists. Before the war she worked in kindergarten. During World War II, as part of intelligence, it was abandoned behind enemy lines. Managed to destroy 36 soldiers, but was captured. Baramzina was cruelly mocked before her death, she was tortured, that after that she could only be identified by her uniform.

Anastasia Stepanova managed to eliminate 40 fascists. Initially, she served as a nurse, but after graduating from the sniper school, she actively takes part in the battles near Leningrad. She was awarded the "For the Defense of Leningrad" award.

Elizaveta Mironova destroyed 100 Nazis. She served in the 255th Red Banner Brigade of Marines. She died in 1943. Liza destroyed many soldiers of the enemy army, steadfastly endured all the difficulties.

Lady Death, or the great Lyudmila Pavlichenko, destroyed 309 fascists. This legendary Soviet woman in the Great Patriotic War terrified the German invaders. She went to the front as a volunteer. Having successfully completed the first combat mission, Pavlichenko falls into the 25th Infantry Division named after Chapaev. The Nazis were afraid of Pavlichenko like fire. The glory of the female sniper of the Great Patriotic War quickly spread in the circles of the enemy. There were bounties on her head. Despite the weather, hunger and thirst, "Lady Death" coolly waited for her victim. Participated in battles near Odessa and Moldova. She destroyed the Germans in groups, the command sent Lyudmila to the most dangerous missions. Pavlichenko was wounded four times. "Lady Death" was invited with a delegation to the United States. At the conference, she loudly declared to the journalists sitting in the hall: "I have 309 fascists on my account, how much more I will do your work." "Lady Death" entered the history of Russia as the most effective sniper, which saved more than one hundred lives of Soviet soldiers with its well-aimed shots. An amazing woman sniper of the Great Patriotic War was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

A tank built with the money of a female heroine

Women flew, shot, fought on a par with men. Without hesitation, hundreds of thousands of women volunteered to take up arms. There were tankers among them. So, with the proceeds from Maria Oktyabrskaya, the tank "Fighting Girlfriend" was built. Maria was kept in the rear for a long time and was not allowed to go to the front. But she still managed to convince the command that she would be more useful on the battlefields. She proved. Oktyabrskaya was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. She died repairing her tank under shelling.

Signalers - "mail doves" of wartime

Assiduous, attentive, with good hearing. Girls were willingly taken to the front as signalmen, radio operators. They were trained in special schools. But even here there were Heroes of the Soviet Union. Both girls received the title posthumously. The feat of one of them makes one shudder. Elena Stempkovskaya during the battle of her battalion caused artillery fire on herself. The girl died, at the cost of her life a victory was won.

The signalmen were wartime "carrier doves", they could find any person on request. And at the same time they are brave heroes, capable of a feat for the sake of a common victory.

The role of women in the Great Patriotic War

woman in war time became an integral part of the economy. Practically 2/3 workers, 3/4 workers Agriculture were women. From the first hours of the war until the last day there was no longer a division into male and women's professions. Selfless workers plowed the land, sowed bread, loaded bales, worked as welders and lumberjacks. Raise the industry. All forces were directed to fulfill orders for the front.

Hundreds of them came to the factories, working for 16 hours at the machine, still managed to raise children. They sowed in the fields, grew bread to send to the front. Thanks to the work of these women, the army was provided with food, raw materials, parts for aircraft and tanks. The inflexible, steel heroines of the labor front are admirable. It is impossible to single out any one feat of a woman in the rear during the Great Patriotic War. This is a common merit to the Motherland, all women who are not afraid of hard work.

It is impossible to forget their feat before the Motherland

Vera Andrianova, a reconnaissance radio operator, was awarded the medal "For Courage" posthumously. The young girl participated in the liberation of Kaluga in 1941, after completing the courses of radio reconnaissance operators, she was sent to the front for casting behind enemy lines.

On one of the raids behind German troops, the U-2 pilot did not find a place to land, and this woman, a hero of the Great Patriotic War, made a jump without a parachute, jumping into the snow. Despite frostbite, she completed the task of the headquarters. Andrianova many more times made forays into the camp of enemy troops. Thanks to the penetration of the girl into the location of the Army Group "Center", it was possible to destroy the ammunition depot, to block the communication center of the Nazis. The trouble happened in the summer of 1942, Vera was arrested. During interrogations, they tried to lure her to the side of the enemy. Adrianov was not inclined, and during the execution she refused to turn her back on the enemy, calling them worthless cowards. The soldiers shot Vera, unloading their pistols right in her face.

Alexandra Rashchupkina - for the sake of serving in the army she pretended to be a man. Having once again been refused by the military registration and enlistment office, Rashchupkina changed her name and went to fight for the Motherland as a T-34 tank driver under the name Alexander. Only after she was wounded was her secret revealed.

Rimma Shershneva - served in the ranks of the partisans, actively participated in sabotage against the Nazis. She closed the embrasure of the enemy bunker with her body.

Low bow and eternal memory to the Great Heroes of the Patriotic War. We won't forget

How many of them were brave, selfless, covering themselves from bullets going to the embrasure - a great many. The warrior woman became the personification of the Motherland, the mother. They went through all the hardships of the war, bearing on their fragile shoulders grief from the loss of loved ones, hunger, deprivation, military service.

We must remember those who defended the Motherland from the fascist invaders, who gave their lives for the sake of victory, remember the exploits, women and men, children and the elderly. As long as we remember and pass on the memory of that war to our children, they will live. These people gave us the world, we must keep the memory of them. And on May 9, stand on a par with the dead and go through the parade of eternal memory. A deep bow to you, veterans, thank you for the sky above your head, for the sun, for life in a world without war.

Women warriors are an example to follow, how to love your country, your Motherland.

Thank you, your death is not in vain. We will remember your feat, you will live forever in our hearts!

Where the whirlwind of war blows its trumpet,
In gray overcoats next to us
The girls go to mortal combat.
They will not flinch before the projectile
And through the iron blizzard
Look directly and boldly
In the eyes of an arrogant enemy.

Alexey Surkov

War. It is always unnatural, ugly in its essence. But the important thing is that it reveals in people their hidden qualities. In Russian women, she highlighted the best features.
Even in the pre-war years, many women "fell ill" with the sky - they learned to fly in flying clubs, in schools, in courses. Among the women were instructor pilots (V. Gvozdikova, L. Litvyak), and an honored test pilot (N. Rusakova), and a participant in air parades (E. Budanova). Studied at the Air Force Engineering Academy S. Davydovskaya, N. Bovkun and others. Among the pilots were Heroes of the Soviet Union - M. Raskova, P. Osipenko, V. Grizodubova. Women worked in the civil air fleet, like E. Bershanskaya; some served in parts of the Air Force.

With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the command of the Armed Forces decides to create combat aviation units from volunteer pilots, given their ardent desire to go to the front.

On October 8, 1941, the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR issues an order to form women's aviation regiments of the Red Army Air Force: the 588th Night Bomber Aviation Regiment, which later became the 46th Guards; 587th Day Bomber Aviation Regiment, which later became the 125th Guards, and the 586th Air Defense Fighter Aviation Regiment. Their formation was entrusted to the Hero of the Soviet Union M. M. Raskova, the famous pilot, navigator of the Rodina crew, who made the legendary non-stop flight from Moscow to the Far East.

The texts of the orders of the period of the Great Patriotic War concerning women and included in the book are given in the appendices. The originals are in the Russian State Military Archive (RGVA).

O.P. Kulikova put a lot of work into this responsible task. In 1938 she graduated from the Engineering Department of the Air Force Academy, then worked at the Air Force Research Institute on a test job as a senior experimental engineer. Unexpected for her was a call in October 1941 to the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army and an offer to become a commissar in one of the 3 women's aviation regiments being created. At the end of October 1941, she took up her new duties, choosing a fighter regiment, the selection for which was the most stringent, since the pilots had to fly the Yak-1 (new aircraft).

Former students of the same academy, experienced military engineers G.M. Volova, M.A. Kazarinova, A.K. Muratova, M.F. Orlova, M.Ya. Skvortsova also arrived to recruit and train women's air regiments for flights on Yak-1, Pe-2 aircraft.
Most of the women enrolled in the pilot school (city of Engels), where they were trained, had previously graduated flight schools, flying clubs, had experience as instructors, worked in the Civil Air Fleet. Now, having become cadets, they studied complex combat equipment, studied theory in classes for 10-12 hours a day, since they had to complete a three-year military school course in 3 months. After theoretical classes - flights. Persistent and persistent, they quickly mastered the new aircraft.

Six months later, the 586th Women's Fighter Aviation Regiment began combat work in the air defense system to protect the city of Saratov; female pilots escorted special-purpose transport aircraft to Stalingrad and other areas.
On September 24, 1942, in a night battle in the Saratov region, V. Khomyakova shot down a Yu-88. This was the first victory, besides, the pilot opened an account of enemy bombers destroyed by women.
The 586th Air Defense Fighter Aviation Regiment was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel T.A.Kazarinova. The personnel of this regiment performed the tasks of air cover industrial centers, protected Stalingrad, Saratov, Voronezh, Kursk, Kyiv, Zhitomir and other cities from enemy air raids; covered fighting Steppe, 2nd Ukrainian fronts; escorted the bombers. As a cereal of special trust, recognition of the skill of the pilots, their courage and courage, the regiment was entrusted with accompanying aircraft from. members of the Soviet government and representatives of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, commanders and members of the military councils of the fronts. The regiment covered crossings across the Volga, Don, Voronezh, Dnieper, Dniester, supported the actions of ground forces, and stormed enemy airfields.

In September 1942, from among the best female pilots of the regiment, a squadron was trained and sent to the Stalingrad region, the commander of which was appointed R. Belyaeva, who had considerable experience in piloting before the war. The squadron included K. Blinova, E. Budanova, A. Demchenko, M. Kuznetsova, A. Lebedeva, L. Litvyak, K. Nechaeva, O. Shakhova, as well as technicians: Gubareva, Krasnoshchekov, Malkov, Osipova, Pasportnikova, Skachkov, Terekhov, Shabalin, Eskin.
With their skill, courage, women amazed the imagination. The very fact that women fought in fighter planes evoked various emotions: admiration, bewilderment ...
The fight between T. Pamyatnykh and R. Surnachevskaya with 42 "Junkers" struck the imagination of foreign journalists as well. On March 19, 1943, they carried out the task of covering a large railway junction - the Kastornaya station. From the southwest, like a flock, appeared enemy aircraft. Hiding behind the sun, the girls went on the attack, dived and opened fire on the center of the formation of German aircraft. The Germans began to drop the load aimlessly. Taking advantage of the confusion, the "yaks" attacked again. Again, the bombs of enemy aircraft were dropped far from the target. However, both aircraft of our brave pilots were badly damaged. The plane of the Memorables was torn off - the pilot jumped out with a parachute. The engine of Surnachevskaya's plane was damaged, but she managed to land it.

Amazing! Two women - against 42 enemy planes! For courage and bravery shown in the super-unequal battle, for comradely mutual assistance, support of the fighter pilot of the 586th Aviation Regiment, junior lieutenants Pamyatnykh and Surnachevskaya were awarded the Order of the Red Banner and personalized gold watches.

In the 586th regiment, Z.G. Seid-Mamedova served as deputy regiment commander. For 3 years of instructor work, she trained 75 pilots and 80 paratroopers. She was the first female student at the navigation department of the N.E. Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy, from which she graduated in 1941.
In the same heroic regiment, A.K. Skvortsova worked as an armaments engineer, who in 1937 graduated from the aviation armament faculty of the Air Force Engineering Academy. Before the war, she worked as an engineer at the Air Force Research Institute. She tested weapons on Yak-1, Yak-3 aircraft.
In the battles for the Motherland, female fighters showed examples of heroism, courage, fearlessness, which were appreciated both by their fellow pilots and by the command of the armies and fronts in which women fought.

The former commander of the Stalingrad Front, Marshal of the Soviet Union A.I. Eremenko, wrote in his memoirs: “At the end of September, the situation continued to be very difficult. Enemy aviation, as before, acted in close cooperation with ground troops, its activity increased significantly during the days of enemy attacks. So, on September 27, German aviation in groups of up to 30 bombers, under the strong cover of their fighters, continuously operated throughout the day against the troops of the front in the area of ​​​​Stalingrad and the Volga crossing. Our fighter pilots were required to take decisive action to destroy the bombers (Ju-88) and the fighters covering them (Me-109), heading to bomb Stalingrad.
As a result of the skilful actions of our pilots, in front of the troops, 5 Junkers and 2 Messerschmitts were shot down, which fell burning into the location of the battle formations of the 64th Army. Colonel Danilov, Sergeant Litvyak, senior lieutenants Shutov and Nina Belyaeva, lieutenant Dranishchev distinguished themselves in this battle, who shot down one plane on their own (the rest of the planes were shot down by them in a group battle).
Heroine pilots, who fought on an equal footing with men, repeatedly came out victorious in air battles. In the battles for Stalingrad, Lydia Litvyak shot down 6 enemy aircraft, Nina Belyaeva - 4.

The image of the girl-hero L.V. Litvyak, who lived in the world for only 22 years (died in July 1943), but managed to destroy 12 fascist aircraft alone and in a group battle, will forever be remembered. In 1990, she was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
The 586th Women's Fighter Aviation Regiment ended its combat career in Austria, having made 4419 sorties, having conducted 125 air battles, during which the pilots shot down 38 enemy aircraft.
In June 1942, the combat life 588th Women's Night Bomber Aviation Regiment - Commander E.D. Bershanskaya. She already had ten years of experience in aviation, led one of the detachments civil aviation in the Krasnodar Territory. The Main Directorate of the Civil Air Fleet, which took part in the creation of women's aviation regiments, called her to Moscow and recommended her as the commander of an aviation regiment. The Po-2 aircraft, on which the pilots of this regiment had to fight, were slow-moving - speed 120 km / h, altitude - up to 3000 m, load - up to 200 kg. And on these, former training aircraft, the 588th air regiment became a nighttime thunderstorm for the Germans. They called the brave female pilots "night witches".

“Night flight is not the time to fly” - these are the words in one of the songs about pilots. And in this, not for flying, the time of a female pilot in an unfamiliar environment, without visible landmarks, pursued by anti-aircraft guns and blinding beams of searchlights, made a bombardment. The first sorties were followed by thousands of others. The pilots returned on planes riddled with bullets. Then, at the airfields, women mechanics and armed men took up the work. Without any devices to facilitate the work, in the dark, in the cold, they changed 150-kilogram motors, adjusted them. Under bombing and shelling, machine guns and cannons were urgently replaced with repaired, cleaned, and tested ones. One can imagine what a burden fell on the women who served the aircraft, if the pilots made several sorties a day.
Armed women studied their specialty in aviation schools and weapons workshops at military units. After completing their studies, they were sent as gunsmiths to airfield maintenance battalions, where they hung bombs from aircraft, repaired aircraft and escorted them into battle, adjusted aircraft armament, and assembled machine-gun disks.

A.L. Molokova, a 1937 graduate of the Air Force Engineering Academy named after N.E. Zhukovsky, this forge of aviation engineering personnel, worked in the front-line workshops. After the war, she was the chief engineer of the Air Force Research Institute. She retired with the rank of lieutenant colonel.
But back to the actions of the pilots of the 588th air regiment. During the Great Patriotic War, they bombed the enemy's manpower and equipment, together with other aviators, supported the landing of amphibious assault forces from the air on the night of November 3, 1943 at the Mayak-Yenikale point. About 50 crews bombed targets at intervals of less than a minute. Their actions helped the landing force to successfully complete the task.

The regiment provided great assistance to the landing of marines in the Eltigen area. The pilots delivered ammunition and food to the paratroopers, flying at an altitude of no more than 300 m. It was very risky and dangerous, because, having heard the rumble of the engines, they opened frantic fire on them with large-caliber anti-aircraft machine guns of the boat, blocking the defending paratroopers from the sea.
Major General V.F. Gladkov recalls: “We began to receive big land albeit in limited quantities, everything you need: ammunition, food, medicine, clothing”3.
During the fighting in the area of ​​Mozdok, the pilots of the regiment made 80 - 90 sorties per night.

They took part in the battles for North Caucasus, Kuban, Crimea, Belarus, Poland, East Prussia, ending his military career in Berlin.
About 24 thousand sorties were made by the regiment during the war, more than 3 million kg of bombs were dropped by pilots and navigators on the head of the enemy. orders Supreme Commander over 20 commendations were announced to the regiment. More than 250 people were awarded orders and medals, and 23 pilots and navigators were awarded the high title of Hero of the Soviet Union (5 of them posthumously)4. One of these 23 Heroes is E.A. Nikulina. From civil aviation, through a military aviation school, she came to a combat aircraft, starting her journey as an ordinary pilot. Smart, fearless, competent pilot, she is appointed squadron commander. Thousands of sorties were made by female pilots under her command, destroying the manpower and equipment of the enemy. On October 26, 1944, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Evdokia Andreevna was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Now Guards Major E.A. Nikulina is on a well-deserved rest.
In February 1943, the 588th Women's Night Bomber Aviation Regiment was transformed into the 46th Guards, and for participation in the liberation of the Taman Peninsula, it was given the name "Taman". Salutes were fired 22 times in honor of the victories of the Tamans. In 1945, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the regiment was awarded the Order of Suvorov 3rd degree and the Order of the Red Banner.

The combat skill and moral qualities of the personnel of this women's regiment were highly appreciated by Marshal of the Soviet Union K.K. Rokossovsky. He wrote: “We, men, have always been struck by the fearlessness of female pilots who took to the air on low-speed U-2 aircraft, exhausting the enemy with endless bombardments. Alone in the night sky, over enemy positions, under heavy anti-aircraft fire, the pilot found a target and bombed it. How many sorties - so many meetings with death.
The 587th Women's Day Bomber Aviation Regiment received a baptism of fire near Stalingrad in August 1942. A group of female pilots of this regiment in high-speed Pe-2 dive bombers successfully attacked an enemy airfield west of Stalingrad, destroying many German aircraft. The raid was very effective. The members of the crews participating in the mission received gratitude from M.M. Raskova, who until her death in 1943 commanded this regiment.

The regiment took part in the battles in the North Caucasus, in the Smolensk operation, in the Oryol-Bryansk, Vitebsk, Orsha and other areas.
Many female pilots showed exceptional courage in battles. For example, A.L. Zubkova, squadron navigator, was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union in 1945 for successful combat sorties and accurate performance of tasks. After the war, she completed interrupted studies at Moscow State University, graduate school, taught at the N.E. Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy.
M. F. Orlova, highly technically trained, served as the senior engineer of the regiment. In 1939, she graduated from the engineering faculty of the Air Force Engineering Academy and was a military representative at aircraft factories. After the war, Lieutenant Colonel M.F. Orlova worked at the Academy of the General Staff.
For heroism and courage shown in battles, fortitude, organization, the 587th Bomber Aviation Regiment on September 3, 1943, by order of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR, was transformed into the 125th Guards Bomber Aviation Regiment named after Hero of the Soviet Union M. Raskova. For accurate bombing attacks on the enemy, successful assistance to the troops of the Red Army in crossing the Berezina River and capturing the city of Borisov, the regiment received the honorary name "Borisov". For military operations, he was awarded the Orders of Suvorov 3rd degree and Kutuzov 3rd degree. Five pilots of the regiment became Heroes of the Soviet Union.
Women pilots fought not only in women's aviation regiments. They served in other parts of the Air Force. Since March 1942, she commanded a long-range aviation regiment, and then a bomber regiment, Hero of the Soviet Union V.S. military rank colonel.

In the 805th attack aviation regiment, A.A. Egorova-Timofeeva served as a navigator on the Il-2, fighting over the Taman Peninsula, Malaya Zemlya, in the skies of Poland. The 277th sortie turned out to be tragic for her. As part of 16 attack aircraft, A.A. Egorova carried out a combat mission to support ground units. The task was completed, but Yegorova's plane was shot down and fell into enemy territory. Wounded, the Germans threw her into a prisoner of war camp. The courageous pilot, like other prisoners, was released by the advancing units of the Red Army. The motherland marked the feats of arms of A.A. Egorova with two orders of the Red Banner, the Order of the Patriotic War of the 1st degree, and many medals. By the 20th anniversary of the victory, in May 1965, she was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. The Polish government awarded the Soviet pilot who fought over its territory with the Order of the Silver Cross of Merit.
Navigator T.F. Konstantinova fought in the 999th assault aviation regiment of the Order of Suvorov in Tallinn on the Il-2, nicknamed the "flying tank", at the age of 26 a Hero of the Soviet Union. She worthily replaced in the sky her husband, a pilot who died in battle (she herself worked as an instructor pilot in an flying club at the beginning of the war). The soldiers of the Leningrad and 3rd Belorussian fronts knew about her military skill, courage and fearlessness. Participated in the Great Patriotic War and the brother of Tamara Fedorovna Vladimir, also a pilot, who even earlier became a Hero of the Soviet Union. Truly, a "winged" family. This example is a vivid evidence of the continuation by the women of the USSR of glorious family traditions in the struggle for their Fatherland, coming from past centuries.
Pilot-instructor M.I. Tolstova trained 58 people in the training regiment of the 16th Air Army to fly the Il-2. For the training of pilots she was awarded the Order of the Red Star. At the end of 1944, she was sent to the front. As part of the 175th Guards Regiment, Lieutenant Tolstova made dozens of sorties, was awarded 2 Orders of the Red Banner, and many medals.

On September 12, 1941, in the sky near Sumy region, a senior lieutenant, deputy squadron commander of the 135th short-range bomber regiment, E.I. Zelenko, died in an air battle.
Ekaterina Zelenko was a career pilot, she was fluent in piloting. She was assigned to test new machines, parachutes, and train young pilots. E. Zelenko participated in the Soviet-Finnish war and was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, together with her comrades-in-arms, she carried out important tasks, daily making 2-3 sorties behind enemy lines for reconnaissance and bombing. On September 12, in a pair, she flew out on reconnaissance to detect and bomb an enemy column moving towards Romny-Konotop. Giving another plane the opportunity to escape from the enemy vehicles that attacked them, she entered into battle with 7 Messerschmitts, knocked out 1, but she herself died in an unequal battle. She was posthumously awarded the Order of Lenin, and on May 5, 1990, she was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

There are many more examples of courage, selflessness of women who fought in the sky with the enemy. Suffice it to say that 32 of them were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union and 5 - Hero of Russia (for participation in the Great Patriotic War). One - gunner-radio operator Pe-2 of the 99th separate guards reconnaissance aviation regiment of the 15th air army N.A. Zhurkina became a full holder of the Order of Glory.
In the most difficult year of 1942, the mobilization of women into the army in all branches of the Armed Forces and branches of service was especially intensive.
On the basis of the Central School of Sniper Instructors at the Main Directorate of Vsevobuch NPO, there were courses for training women snipers.
Many women mastered the art of sniper shooting right at the front, being trained in units and formations. active army. Women snipers fought on all fronts, destroying many enemies, for example, A. Bogomolova - 67 people, N. Belobrova - 79 people, she was awarded the Orders of Glory III and II degrees. N.P. Petrova, who at the age of 48 voluntarily went to the front, became a full holder of the Order of Glory. After graduating from sniper school, she trained many "super accurate shooters, hitting the enemy with the first shot," as snipers were called. Presenting the Order of Glory of the 1st degree to Petrova, the commander of the 2nd shock army I.I. Fedyuninsky also presented a watch with the inscription “Nina Pavlovna Petrova from the army commander Fedyuninsky. March 14, 1945". As a sign of admiration for her skill, he also presented a sniper rifle with a gilded plate. Having passed the battle path from Leningrad to Stettin, N.P. Petrova died in the victorious May 1945.

M. Morozova - sniper of the 1160th regiment of the 352nd Orsha Red Banner Order of the Suvorov Rifle Division, a graduate of the Central Women's School of Sniper Training participated in the operation "Bagration", in the liberation of Borisov, Minsk, Poland, fought in East Prussia, met victory in Prague.
The female sniper company was commanded by Guards Lieutenant N. Lobkovskaya. She fought on the Kalinin front, in the Baltic states, participated in the storming of Berlin. Orders of the Red Banner, Glory, Patriotic War I and II degrees, many medals deservedly adorned the chest of this woman.
On May 21, 1943, by order of NPO No. 0367, women's courses for excellent shooters of sniper training were reorganized into the Central Women's School of Sniper Training (TsZHShSP) (Appendix 26). During its existence, the school made 7 graduations, trained 1061 snipers and 407 sniper instructors6. In January 1944 the school became Red Banner. During the war years, graduates of the women's school destroyed thousands of fascist soldiers and.

The motherland adequately appreciated the feat of arms of the pupils of the school. 102 women received Orders of Glory of III and II degrees, 7 of the Red Banner, 7 of the Red Star, 7 of the Patriotic War, 299 medals "For Courage", 70 "For Military Merit", the Central Committee of the Komsomol awarded 114 female snipers with Certificates of Honor , 22 - personalized sniper rifles, 7 - valuable gifts. The badge "Excellent worker of the Red Army" was awarded to 56 girls7.
During the years of the Great Patriotic War, 5 women snipers received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union (N. Kovshova, T. Kostyrina, A. Moldagulova (graduate of TsZHShSP), L. Pavlichenko, M. Polivanova) and 1 - full holder of the Order of Glory (N. Petrova ).
In 1942, on the basis of orders from the NPO of the USSR on the mobilization of women, hundreds of thousands of them were drafted into the army. So, on March 26, 1942, in pursuance of the decision of the USSR State Defense Committee, order No. 0058 was issued on the mobilization of 100 thousand girls into the air defense forces (Appendix 27). It should be noted that, in addition to medicine, perhaps more than in air defense, such a number of women did not serve in any of the military branches. In some regiments and divisions, they made up from 50 to 100% of the personnel. On the Northern Front of Air Defense in some units and subunits - 80-100%. Already in 1942, more than 20,000 women served in the Moscow Air Defense Front, over 9,000 women in the Leningrad Army, and 8,000 in the Stalingrad Air Defense Corps. About 6,000 women served in the troops of the Baku Air Defense District.

In October 1942, by decision of the State Defense Committee, a second mass mobilization of women into the Air Defense Forces was carried out. By January 1943, 123,884 volunteer girls had come to these troops on Komsomol vouchers. In total, from April 1942 to May 1945, up to 300,000 women served in the Air Defense Forces9.
Sayings are known: the war has no female face, war is not a woman's business and others. However, in the most severe conditions, women joined the ranks, stood up to defend the Fatherland. They coped well with aircraft of various types, they destroyed thousands of enemies with a sniper rifle. But special courage and endurance were needed in order to stand at the turret of an anti-aircraft machine gun, which was not protected by anything, during a raid by enemy aircraft, engaging in single combat with enemy aircraft. Many women served in the anti-aircraft artillery, anti-aircraft machine-gun, anti-aircraft searchlight units for 4 long war years.
Characteristically, women from all over the country went to the army. In April 1942, 350 young Stavropol women volunteered for the front, they were enrolled in the 485th anti-aircraft artillery regiment of air defense. 3747 girls from Bashkiria became machine gunners, nurses, radio operators, snipers, anti-aircraft gunners. Some of them served in the 47th separate anti-aircraft artillery regiment, participated in the battles for Stalingrad. Others - in the 80th anti-aircraft artillery division, in the 40th, 43rd anti-aircraft searchlight regiments. In the 40th regiment, 313 girls were awarded orders and medals. In the 178th separate anti-aircraft artillery division, Guards Sergeant V. Lytkina served, an excellent air defense student, who graduated from the chemical faculty of the university before the war.
In 1942, Z. Litvinova voluntarily went to the front. As a former nurse, she was sent to the medical unit of the 115th anti-aircraft artillery regiment. However, the girl wanted to become an anti-aircraft gunner. After a short study, she is the gunner of the first women's anti-aircraft battery. Then Sergeant Litvinova commanded the calculation of 7 girls, who distinguished themselves on the Karelian Isthmus in the summer of 1944 during the breakthrough of defense in depth. For accurate, efficient shooting at tanks, infantry, positions of artillery and mortar batteries of the enemy, the entire personnel of the women's battery was awarded orders and medals, and the gun commander, Sergeant Z. Litvinova, was awarded the Order of Glory III degree.

It is interesting in this connection to draw a parallel between the Patriotic War and previous wars. The readiness of Russian women to stand up for the defense of the Motherland manifested itself at any time, but then, making their way to the front, women acted only as volunteers, acting on their own behalf, only on their own initiative. During the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. mobilization of hundreds of thousands of women into the army was carried out on the basis of orders of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR, although the principle of voluntariness was preserved along with mobilization.
The need to recruit a large number of women was due to the fact that in connection with the creation of multimillion-strong armies, the development of technology, weapons, heavy losses at the front, the recruitment of women into military service becomes the imperative of the times, a necessary need. And now hundreds of thousands of women different ages and specialties are in the army: on anti-aircraft guns, in the signal troops, snipers, at the helm of an aircraft and tank control levers, in sailor jackets and with flags of a traffic controller in their hands, there was practically no military specialty in which women would not fight together with men for their Fatherland in 1941-1945.

Everywhere in the war it is difficult, dangerous, difficult, but it is impossible not to admire the courage of young girls who served in anti-aircraft machine gun units. During enemy air raids, everyone hid in shelters, and they stood up to the gun to meet the enemy. A striking example is the service of women in the 7th anti-aircraft machine gun regiment, which during the Battle of Stalingrad in the hardest summer of 1942 stood on the cover of the railway junction - Povorino station. The 1st company of the 1st battalion of the regiment guarded the airfield of the fighter aviation regiment all 200 days of the Battle of Stalingrad.
After Stalingrad, the 7th anti-aircraft machine gun regiment arrived in Valuyki, which was the main railway junction on the Yelets-Kupyansk line, the ammunition base Soviet troops operating in the Kharkov direction. Enemy aviation stubbornly sought to paralyze this knot. The sky over Valuyki was protected by women who had come with a regiment from near Stalingrad.

The 1st company took up combat positions at the sorting station. Few planes managed to break through the barrage, although the enemy swooped in in large groups, rushing at the anti-aircraft gunners with the howling of sirens. But the women withstood the onslaught, as well as the tactics of exhaustion, which replaced the tactics of fright, when the Junkers, both alone and in groups, circled over the station day and night. We needed strong nerves, willpower, and a quick reaction in order not only to withstand all this, but also not to be confused during a sudden attack, and to prevent enemy aircraft from breaking through.
Battles on the Dnieper followed the Kursk salient. I got up here difficult task to ensure the safety of railway bridges and crossings, since the pace of the offensive largely depended on their clear, intensive work. The 7th Anti-Aircraft Machine Gun Regiment guarded the railroad tracks. All of its quadruple machine-gun mounts stood in open areas on both sides of the railway track and on coastal towers. There was nowhere to hide from massive raids that lasted 2.5 hours. However, women were not inferior in courage to men and carried out the task. Many have received military awards. The regiment for the protection of the Kyiv bridge became the Red Banner.
If during the years of the Great Patriotic War the Air Defense Forces of the country repulsed about 20 thousand enemy air raids on railway facilities, then it is impossible to say exactly how many of them were repulsed by the gentle and firm hand of our heroic female warrior.
In general, many women served in anti-aircraft machine-gun units and subunits. For example, the 1st anti-aircraft machine gun division, which defended Moscow, consisted mainly of women. In the 9th Stalingrad Air Defense Corps District, thousands of women served as machine gunners for anti-aircraft machine guns, gunners, spotters, and rangefinders.

On the critical day for Stalingrad, August 23, 1942, when the fascist group broke through to the Volga in the area of ​​​​the Tractor Plant, and enemy aircraft made a massive raid on the city, women of the 1077th, 1078th anti-aircraft artillery regiments, along with parts of the NKVD troops, sailors of the Volga the military flotilla, the city's militia, and the training tank battalion did not let the enemy into the city, holding him until the troops approached.
No less complex and responsible was the service of women in units and subunits of air surveillance, warning and communications (VNOS). Here, special responsibility for the sector, vigilance, efficiency, and good combat training were needed. The success of the fight against the enemy depended on timely identification, accurate targeting data.
Observers, signalers, projectorists, who, as was said, served a lot in units and subunits of the Moscow Air Defense Front, the Leningrad Air Defense Army, the Stalingrad Air Defense Corps, selflessly performed their difficult, dangerous duties.
In parts of the air barrage balloons that covered the approaches to big cities and industrial areas, women have almost completely replaced men. There were especially many girls in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd barrage balloon divisions that defended Moscow. So, in the 1st division, out of 2925 personnel, 2281 were women.
In the 1st division of the VNOS of the Moscow Air Defense Front, which was defending Moscow, there were 256 female sergeants, 96 of them worked as heads of observation posts, 174 as radio operators10.
By the end of the Great Patriotic War, the proportion of women reached 24% of the contingent of the country's Air Defense Forces, which made it possible to release hundreds of thousands of men from these units fit to serve in the field forces.

Many women served as signalmen.
Starting from August 1941, when 10,000 girls were drafted into the signal troops, all subsequent years there was a replacement of male signalmen of various communication specialties by women: body operators, estists, morse operators, telephone operators, radio operators, telegraph operators, telegraph technicians, projectionists, field workers mail and forwarders, etc. The released men were sent to the active army. And one more circumstance should be paid attention to. Women not only did an excellent job, but also brought with them order, great responsibility for the assigned work and its precise execution.
In 1942, the mass mobilization of women in all branches of the military, including the signal troops, continued. By order of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR dated April 13, 1942, No. 0276, about 6 thousand women are sent to various fronts to replace the Red Army. 24,000 women are enrolled in spare parts and training courses for communications specialists.
If during the First World War 1914 - 1918. there were only attempts to create communication teams from women, who, before they had time to enter service, were disbanded, then only a quarter of a century later - in 1941 - 1945. women made up 12% of the personnel of the signal troops, and in some units - up to 80%. In the signal troops (unlike, for example, aviation and especially the navy), women were not an unusual phenomenon. Even before the war, some women studied at various communications schools. So, Z.N. Stepanova graduated from the Kiev military school connections. She served in the Belarusian military district, participated in a campaign in Western Belarus. Fought in the Great Patriotic War.

In a separate communications battalion of the 32nd Rifle Corps of the 5th Shock Army, where Major Stepanova was the chief of staff, 32 girls served as radio operators, telephone operators, and telegraph operators.
No matter how well people fight, but without clear management, interaction, it is very difficult to achieve a successful result. And communication was the link that served as the main means of command and control of troops in battle.
Signalers-specialists for the army were trained by military communications schools. So, Kiev and Leningrad - many women commanders of communications units were trained, most of them served in the army. The Kuibyshev Military School of Communications has been graduating female radio specialists for about 3 years. Trained women - communication specialists military schools of communications: Stalingrad, Murom, Ordzhonikidze, Ulyanovsk, Voronezh. In addition, women received the specialty of military signalmen in separate reserve regiments of communications, radio schools. Voronezh courses of radio specialists were preparing female signalmen. Thousands of women were trained in the 5th courses of the North Caucasian Military District, which began to operate in September 1941, and in November 107 cadets were thanked for their successful performance in their studies. Many of the students of these courses arrived in the army, becoming commanders of platoons and squads. Others served in units and subunits of the rear. Only in the Komsomol youth divisions of Vsevobuch specialist fighters under the People's Commissariat of Defense, 49,509 signalmen were trained.

Many female signalmen participated in the Battle of Stalingrad. In separate communications units, they numbered up to 90% of the personnel. Their professionalism and combativeness were noted in the memoirs by the former commander of the 62nd Army, Marshal of the Soviet Union V.I. Chuikov: “In the second half of October, the situation in the city became so complicated, the distance between the front line of battle and the Volga was so units and institutions to transfer to the left bank, so as not to have unnecessary losses. First of all, it was decided to send women to the left bank. The commanders and chiefs were ordered to suggest that the female fighters temporarily go to the left bank to rest there and return to us in a few days.
This decision was taken by the military council on October 17, and on the morning of the 18th, a delegation of female communications fighters came to me. The delegation was headed by Valya Tokareva, a native of Kamyshin. She put the question, as they say, point-blank:
- Comrade Commander, why are you escorting us out of the city? Why do you make a difference between women and men? Are we worse at work? As you wish, but we will not go beyond the Volga.

I told them that at the new command post we would be able to deploy walkie-talkies, and that only this compelled me to send them to the left bank until jobs were prepared for heavy communications equipment.
The delegation of women agreed to comply with the order of the military council, but demanded that I give honestly that as soon as the conditions necessary for work are created, we will transport them back to the right bank.
They crossed the Volga on October 18, and starting from October 20, the signalmen did not give us rest. “We have already rested,” they said. “When will you take us back to the city?” Or: “Comrade Commander, when will you keep your word?”
We kept our word. At the end of October, they, along with communications equipment, were transported to prepared dugouts, which they were very happy about.
The commander of the 62nd in the same memoirs appreciated the exceptional fidelity to duty and the greatest diligence of women. He wrote: “If they were sent to an intermediate point of communication, then one could be sure that communication would be provided. Let artillery and mortars hit this point, let bombs fall on it from aircraft, let enemies surround this point - women will not leave without an order, even if they are threatened with death.
These words of the marshal are confirmed by dozens of examples, in particular, the feat of senior sergeant E.K. Stempkovskaya, a radio operator in the battalion of the 216th rifle regiment, 76th Rifle Division, 21st Army of the South Western front. On June 26, 1942, during the exit of the battalion from the encirclement, she provided communication with the headquarters of the regiment, replacing the deceased spotter, called fire on herself. Then, as part of a platoon, she covered the retreat of the battalion. The title of Hero of the Soviet Union was awarded posthumously.

The signalmen of the 42nd Communications Regiment, which served the headquarters of the Stalingrad Front, and then the Southern and 4th Ukrainian Front, worked conscientiously and highly qualified. The girls went from the Volga to Prague.
On April 14, 1942, the order of the People's Commissar of Defense No. 0284 was issued on the mobilization of 30 thousand women into the signal troops to replace the Red Army soldiers (Appendix 29). Male signalmen released from front-line, army and spare signal units were sent to staff and replenish rifle divisions, brigades, artillery, tank, mortar units located at the front.
Heavy losses at the front required replenishment. And since the number of women who wanted to join the army was large, this made it possible in various types of the Armed Forces and branches of the military to replace men with women who were sent directly to combat units. For example, from the rear units of rifle troops, fortified areas, political institutions of the Red Army, men were sent to the active army, and their positions were replaced by women with enrollment in the cadres of the Red Army.
By order of the People's Commissar of Defense No. 0297 of April 19, 1942, 40,000 women were mobilized to replace the Red Army soldiers in the Air Force. Women were appointed communication specialists, drivers, warehouses, clerks, clerks, cooks, librarians, accountants and other positions in the administrative and economic service, in addition, to the positions of riflemen.

In 1942 and in subsequent years, a number of orders were issued by the People's Commissar of Defense on the replacement of command and command staff, which, by the nature of the work, could be replaced by command personnel of limited fit and older ages, as well as female military personnel and civilians (appendices 32, 34).
On June 4, 1942, the order of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR No. 0459 was issued on the replacement of certain positions in the armored military educational institutions and in the rear establishments of the Red Army of military men, civilians and women (Appendix 35).
Let us pay attention to the fact that women replaced men not only in the military educational institutions of the armored forces, they themselves served at the front as tankers. For 4-6 months they mastered the tank and successfully fought on it.
In the armored and mechanized troops we meet women drivers, gunners, radio operators, commanders of tanks, tank units.
Hero of the Soviet Union, tank driver of the 26th Guards Tank Brigade of the 2nd Guards Tank Corps M.V. Oktyabrskaya went to the front to avenge her Motherland, for her dead husband. Tank T-34 "Fighting friend", built at her own expense, she drove into battle until January 1944, then she was seriously wounded and died. Battle comrades fulfilled the order of a brave woman to reach Berlin on the "Fighting Girlfriend".
I.N. Levchenko carried 168 wounded from the battlefield, later she completed an accelerated course at the Stalingrad Tank School. She served as a communications officer in the 41st Guards Tank Brigade of the 7th Mechanized Corps. For military exploits, in 1965 she was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
A driver, then a tank commander 3. Podolskaya began fighting in 1941 in Sevastopol, providing medical care to the wounded, and then became a tanker, graduating from a tank school, where she was the second female student. She fought on the 1st Ukrainian Front in the 1st Tank Brigade of the 8th Guards Mechanized Corps. Amazing willpower helped not only to leave the crutches (in December 1944, she became an invalid of the 2nd group, returned to Sevastopol), but also to become in 1950 the champion of the Black Sea Fleet in sailing. The next year, at the Olympic, she became the champion of the Navy.
Captain Alexandra Samusenko, an officer for special assignments of the headquarters of the 1st Guards Tank Brigade, arrived in this position in August 1944, having already fought and having 2 military orders. She was the first female combat officer in the brigade. Died March 3, 1945
The company commander of thirty-fours - Senior Lieutenant E.S. Kostrikova was awarded the Order of the Red Star.
Ekaterina Petlyuk - tank driver on the Stalingrad front. In one of the battles, she covered the commander’s wrecked tank with her tank and saved him. In 1967, she came to the hero city, so remembered by her battles, the loss of friends. A cheerful, energetic, charming woman handed over a tunic that had been preserved since the war to the Museum of the Battle of Stalingrad, telling a lot of interesting things.
Olga Porshonok, a mechanic-driver of the T-34, IS-122 tank, participated in the Battle of Stalingrad. Then there were battles on the Kursk Bulge, for Belarus, Poland, Berlin.
G. Sorokina, who also fought for Stalingrad, after graduating from a tank school, came as a T-34 driver in the 1126th tank brigade, reorganized into the 234th separate tank regiment.

Sergeant V. Gribaleva was a driver in the 84th heavy tank battalion, who was named after the first commander, Major Konstantin Ushakov, for bold raids behind enemy lines. At the Magnushevsky bridgehead, Valentina especially distinguished herself: she crushed 2 enemy bunkers, 2 anti-tank guns, a six-barreled mortar and an all-terrain vehicle. Commander N.E. Berzarin awarded her the Order of the Red Banner right on the battlefield. She died while crossing the Oder.
Military engineer 3rd rank L.I. military academy mechanization and motorization of the Red Army. The Motherland noted her military work with ten awards. In 1955, engineer-colonel L.I. Kalinina retired.
Difficult summer of 1942. The vast territory of the Soviet country was seized by the aggressor. The situation is getting more and more difficult every day. Bloody battles unfolded in the bend of the Don and the Volga. The enemy at the walls of Stalingrad.
Great psychological burdens are endured by the soldiers of the Red Army. In such an environment, the ability of women to reach the heart with a word, to show care, to inspire for a feat has also found application in the political agencies of the army.
In order to train political staff from among female communists at the district Military-Political School of the Moscow Military District, by order of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR dated July 15, 1942 No. 0555, two-month courses are organized for women with the number of cadets 200 people.

The training of women for political work in the army was also carried out in other military districts. Rostov military-political school graduated from A.V. Nikulina, who in August 1941 worked as a commissar of the evacuation hospital. After graduating from college from November 1942 until the end of the war, she served as a senior instructor in the political department and secretary of the party commission of the 9th Rifle Corps, with whom she went through the combat path to Berlin, through the North Caucasus, Donbass, Dnieper, Dniester, Poland. Major A.V. Nikulina on June 24, 1945 participated in the Victory Parade on Red Square in Moscow. Before the Great Patriotic War, Anna Vladimirovna wanted to become a sea captain and entered the Academy water transport in Leningrad. Seven women studied then at the Academy, six - at the department of port facilities, and she alone - at the operational one. The war disrupted her plans, another profession led her along the roads of war. And Nikulina Dignifiedly carried her through the fiery blizzards.
G.K. Zhukov wrote about her in his memoirs: “The last battle for the imperial office, which was fought by the 301st and 248th rifle divisions, was very difficult. The fight on the outskirts and inside the building was especially fierce.

The senior instructor of the political department of the 9th Rifle Corps, Major Anna Vladimirovna Nikulina, acted with extreme courage. As part of the assault group ... she made her way up through the gap in the roof and, pulling out a red cloth from under her jacket, tied it to a metal spire with a piece of telephone wire. The Banner of the Soviet Union flew over the Imperial Chancellery.
In 1941 she became a cadet of the Military-Political School of A.G. Odinokov. After graduation - she was the political officer of a rifle company, the party organizer of a separate anti-tank fighter division, deputy head of the sanitary unit for political affairs - the first woman political officer on the 2nd Belorussian Front. For personal courage, skillful organization of work, Lieutenant Odinokova was awarded the Order of the Red Star.
The courses of political workers, organized in the summer of 1942 at the 33rd Army of the Western Front, enrolled 10 girls who had combat experience, awards, and wounds. Among them was Lieutenant T.S. Makharadze, who completed the course with excellent marks. At graduation, she was awarded the Order of the Red Star - the first Georgian commissar. Bold, energetic, she was everywhere with the fighters. She made sure that during the battle there were fewer losses. In difficult moments of the battle, she carried the fighters with her. Fiery military kilometers: Medyn, Istra, Yasnaya Polyana, Yelnya, Kursk Bulge... a 22-year-old female commissar walked.
In rifle units and subunits, women fought as machine gunners, submachine gunners, etc. Among them were commanders. Women are commanders of crews, squads, platoons, companies. They studied in various women's units that trained military personnel for the front and rear: in schools, courses, in reserve rifle regiments.

For example, the 1st Separate Women's Reserve Rifle Regiment, formed in November 1942 under the Moscow Military District, trained 5175 female fighters and commanders of the Red Army (3892 ordinary soldiers, 986 sergeants and foremen and 297). In addition, in 1943, 514 women and 1,504 women sergeants were retrained in the regiment, including about 500 front-line soldiers.
An indicator of the application of the acquired knowledge in practice was the combat affairs of women, marked by the highest state awards. M.S.Batrakova, M.Zh.Mametova, A.A.Nikandrova, N.A.Onilova were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. The commander of the machine-gun crew of the 16th Lithuanian Rifle Division, D.Yu.
It is unusual for a girl at the age of 18 to be appointed commander of a machine gun company. Valentina Vasilievna Chudakova was entrusted with such a company. Valentina began to fight at the age of 16 in the 183rd Infantry Division as a medical instructor. Participated in the battles near Staraya Russa, Smolensk, Novgorod, on the Rzhev-Vyazemsky bridgehead, Vistula. In one of the battles, she replaced a wounded machine gunner. She herself was wounded, but even after being wounded, she accurately struck the enemy. Under a male surname, she was enrolled in courses for junior lieutenants - commanders of machine-gun platoons. After completing the course, she arrives at the front as the commander of a machine-gun company. For a woman, of course, an exceptional phenomenon, since such companies were recruited from strong, hardy, courageous men and were located in the hottest spots. Regular officers were appointed commanders of machine-gun companies. Senior Lieutenant V.V. Chudakova commanded such a company. Having successfully ended the war, she, decades later, is still the same energetic, active, open to people.

The Ryazan Infantry School was engaged in the training of women capable of performing combat and operational tasks in the active and rear units of the Red Army. 80% of cadets d studied only excellently.
In 1943, the Ryazan Infantry School trained 1,388 commanders for the front. 704 of its graduates were appointed as commanders of rifle, 382 - machine gun and 302 - mortar units of the army16.
Although the advance of the enemy deep into the territory of the Soviet Union slowed down, the fighting was fierce and cost heavy losses. The front constantly demanded replenishment. And the replacement of men leaving for the front by women continued.

It would not be superfluous to say about a profession that is not quite usual for a woman - a sapper. She served as the commander of a sapper platoon of A.P. Turova, who graduated from the Moscow Military Engineering School at the age of 20 (out of 24 disciplines, she passed 22 with excellent marks). She worked precisely, in a jeweler's way, laying mines or clearing mines, freed the way for units of the Red Army, acted boldly, smartly. Her authority with 18 subordinates, most of whom were twice as old as their commander, was indisputable. All over engineering team there was fame about the military affairs of a female sapper.
On November 21, 1942, the order of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR No. 0902 was issued on the initial training of women in the Komsomol and youth special forces of Vsevobuch (Appendix 39). In this regard, it should be noted that as early as September 16, 1941, by a decree of the State Defense Committee, universal military training (Vsevobuch) was introduced in the country. For the military training of women under Vsevobuch, Komsomol youth units were created in which they were trained in military specialties.
During the war, over 222,000 women underwent military training in the Komsomol and youth divisions of Vsevobuch during the war, over 222 thousand women underwent military training, of which 6,097 received the specialty of mortar gunners, 12,318 - easel and light machine gunners, 15,290 - submachine gunners, 29,509 - signalmen and 11,061 - specialists for military units. - highways17.
Since we touched on the activities of Vsevobuch, we also note that during the war years, Vsevobuch bodies conducted 7 rounds of non-arms training according to a 110-hour program. Men and women aged 16 to 50 were involved in the training. Total number citizens covered by Vsevobuch amounted to 9862 thousand people. This was almost one and a half times the size of the active army, together with the reserves of the Stavka, by the beginning of 1944. Thus, the Vsevobuch bodies, which worked in all corners of the Soviet country, made a significant contribution to winning victory over the enemy.
The replacement of men by women who were fit for military service in many specialties was carried out constantly. They were sent to different kinds Armed Forces.
Women also served in the Navy. On May 6, 1942, order No. 0365 was issued on the mobilization of young Komsomol and non-Komsomol girls - volunteers in the Navy19 (Appendix 33). In 1942, there were already 25 thousand women in various specialties in the Navy: doctors, signalmen, topographers, drivers, clerks, etc. In connection with the increase in the number of women in the Navy, on May 10, 1942, the Main Political Directorate of the Navy issued a special directive on the organization of political work with mobilized girls.

Platoon leader marines E.N. Zavaliy fought. She completed a six-month course for junior officers. From October 1943, junior lieutenant Zavaliy was a platoon commander of a separate company of submachine gunners of the 83rd Marine Brigade.
The company was the strike force of the brigade, and in the company the platoon of Evdokia Zavaliy was the penetrating force. When the fighting went for Budapest, the platoon was assigned without hesitation to carry out one of the most difficult tasks - to get into the center of the fortified city and capture the "language" - one of the representatives of the highest command personnel or start a fight, raise a panic. After reviewing the intelligence data, Evdokia Nikolaevna led a platoon through the sewer pipes. In order not to suffocate, they used gas masks and oxygen pillows. In the very center of the city, paratroopers emerged from the ground, destroyed the guards and captured the headquarters of the Nazi troops.

Evdokia Nikolaevna Zavaliy passed a difficult and dangerous path from the first to last days war... For exploits on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, Guard Lieutenant E.N. Zavaliy was awarded the Orders of the Red Banner, the Red Star, the Patriotic War, and many medals20.
The right commander of the 180-mm gun O. Smirnov, a fighter of the only troops of the naval railway artillery, fought for Leningrad.
In the Navy, a woman served in an unusual profession for this gender. “In 1930, by special permission of the People's Commissar K.E. Voroshilov, she became the first girl who came to serve in the fleet. She was the first to put on the uniform of a naval commander and the first of the women to receive a purely male specialty as a pyrotechnics-miner. This is the lieutenant colonel of the guard Navy Taisiya Petrovna Sheveleva. So begins an article about T.P. Sheveleva in the newspaper Trud.

In 1933 Sheveleva graduated from the Leningrad Artillery Technical School. She received a referral to the Black Sea Fleet, where her appearance caused a stir, since Sheveleva was the first woman - a naval commander, and even an unprecedented specialty for a woman - pyrotechnics-miner. Many did not believe in her, but she worked masterfully and soon Black Sea Fleet she was nicknamed the pyrotechnic surgeon.
Since 1936, she has been a pyrotechnician of the Dnieper flotilla. Before the Great Patriotic War, she commanded a company of the joint school of the naval crew. The entire military service of T.P. Sheveleva before her dismissal from the ranks of the Navy in 1956 was one way or another connected with the artillery armament of the fleet.
Taisiya Petrovna's own sister, Maria, was also an artillery officer. Their fates are similar: each served more than 25 calendar years in the Armed Forces, fought, retired with the same ranks, and their awards are almost the same - the Order of Lenin, the Red Banner, the Red Star, equally and medals *.

* See: Kanevsky G. Lady with daggers // Week. 1984. No. 12. S. 6.

During the Great Patriotic War, in the 176th separate engineer battalion of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet, the girls who cleared the coast of the Gulf of Finland, L. Babaeva, L. Voronova, M. Kilunova, M. Plotnikova, E. Kharin, Z. Khryapchenkova, M. Sherstobitova, served and others.
The work of a detachment of two hundred divers in Leningrad was led by engineer-colonel N.V. Sokolova, the only woman in the world who worked underwater in a heavy diving suit.

We have already met Russian women who, during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. on the floating hospitals of Amur and Sungari they provided medical assistance to the wounded and sick soldiers. In 1941 - 1945 on the Amur, women on steamships, the crews of which almost entirely consisted only of them, carried out defense transportation. For example, the crew of the steamer "Astrakhan" from a sailor and a stoker to captain Z.P. Savchenko (a navigator by education, who graduated from the Blagoveshchensk water technical school), first mate P.S. Grishina consisted of women who replaced husbands and fathers who went to the front . "Astrakhan" and 65 more ships, on which a quarter of the crews were women, went along with the advancing Red Army in Manchuria, transporting food, fuel, military units, wounded along the Amur and Sungari.
For their titanic work and the heroism shown at the same time, the commander of the Red Banner Amur Flotilla awarded Captain Z.P. Savchenko the Order of the Red Star, and 5 women received medals "For Military Merit".
During the war, half of the women's teams worked on the steamships Krasnaya Zvezda, Kommunist, F. Mukhin, 21st MYUD, Kokkinaki and many other Amur ships.
38 women rivermen of the Far East were awarded various military awards.
AI Shchetinina graduated from a water technical school before the Great Patriotic War, worked as a navigator, first mate, and captain. During the Great Patriotic War - she was the captain of the steamer "Saule", delivered ammunition, fuel, transported the wounded. The Order of the Red Star was an award to the courageous captain. Faithfully serving the Motherland, Anna Ivanovna, in any weather, happened to be on the bridge of the ships for days - Karl Liebknecht, Rodina, Jean Zhores and others, on which she happened to be a captain. She is the first female sea captain in the world, who, in addition to the star of the Hero of Socialist Labor, also has military awards. February 26, 1993 Anna Ivanovna Shchetinina turned 85 years old.

Midshipman L.S. Grineva before the war studied at the navigation department of the Odessa Naval School. She began to fight as a nurse, smashed the enemy with a shooter on an attack aircraft, served as an assistant to the commander of a sea hunter. A woman in love with the sea, after the war, went to Vladivostok, where she worked as the fourth mate on the Khabarovsk steamer.
On the Volga, the crew of a minesweeper boat, consisting of women, cleared the fairway from mines.
Women also contributed to the defense of the northern maritime frontiers.

No less selfless than the sisters of mercy of previous wars, female doctors of the combat years of 1941-1945 were distinguished.
Medical instructor N. Kapitonova served in the 92nd separate Red Banner Rifle Brigade of the Marine Corps, formed from the sailors of the Northern Fleet. Fighting for Stalingrad, she carried 160 wounded from the battlefield. Awarded the Order of Lenin. She died in the battles for the city.
About 400 people were saved during the war years by Chief Sergeant E.I. After the war, she graduated from the Leningrad Medical Institute. She was awarded the Order of the Red Banner, the Order of the Patriotic War and many medals, including the Florence Nightingale Medal, which is awarded only to women. This medal was established by the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1912 in memory of an English nurse who devoted her life to caring for the wounded and sick from 1854-1856. (Crimean War).
The regulations on the medal say that it is provided as a reward for especially selfless deeds in recognition of the exceptional moral and professional qualities shown by nurses and Red Cross activists. In the treatment of the sick and wounded in difficult and dangerous conditions, which especially often occur during wars. About a thousand women have been awarded such a medal all over the world, including about fifty of our compatriots. E.I.Mikhailova (Demina) on May 5, 1990 was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
Considering the importance of medical care in the active army, on September 22, 1941, the State Defense Committee adopts a resolution to improve medical care for wounded soldiers and commanders of the Red Army.
The Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, in a directive to the party and Soviet organizations of the front-line regions, demanded that the buildings of hospitals, schools, clubs, and institutions be transferred to hospitals. As early as July 1941, the formation of 1,600 evacuation hospitals for 750,000 beds began in the country. By December 20, 1941, 395 thousand beds were deployed to treat the wounded. Thousands of doctors, nurses, students and graduates medical institutes came to the military registration and enlistment offices with a request to send them to the front.

In addition, as in previous wars, different cities countries, women through the Red Cross were preparing to care for the wounded and sick soldiers. Thousands of applications were submitted to the Red Cross organizations, in Moscow alone, at the very beginning of the war, over 10 thousand people applied.
Along with mobilization into the Air Defense Forces, Air Force, communications, etc. medical workers are called up from the reserve to the army; Military medical schools organize courses for the training of military paramedics. Big role in teaching medical personnel played by the Red Cross, which during the war years trained about 300 thousand nurses (almost half of them were sent to military units, military sanitary trains, various medical institutions of the Red Cross), over 500 thousand nurses and up to 300 thousand orderlies.

Hundreds of thousands of women selflessly worked to save lives and preserve the health of soldiers at the front.
For comparison, let us recall the Russian-Turkish war of 1877 - 1878, when for the first time nurses were trained at the official level for the army and rear hospitals. At that time, about one and a half thousand sisters of mercy were sent to the active army, more than a thousand worked in hospitals on the territory of the Empire.
At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. Over 225,000 nurses and activists came to medical institutions Russian Society Red Cross. Only in Moscow and the Moscow region in 1941, the organizations of the ROKK trained 160 thousand nurses and sanitary workers. Leningrad for the first 2 years of the war gave the army and civilian medical institutions 8860 nurses, 14638 sanitary troopers and 636165 GSO badges.
Again, a comparison with past wars suggests itself - doctors and surgeons at the front in the Russian-Turkish war of 1877 - 1878. there were a few women, along with the sisters, "brothers of mercy" worked.
During the Great Patriotic War of 1941 - 1945. female doctors in the active army accounted for 41% of front-line doctors, 43% of military surgeons and military paramedics, 100% of nurses and 40% of medical instructors and nurses24.
The noble mission of medicine - the salvation of man in such extreme conditions as war, manifested itself even brighter.
Heroically defending the wounded, Natalya Kochuevskaya, a 19-year-old nurse on the Stalingrad front, died. A street in the center of Moscow is named after her. Continuing the list of glorious names, we will name some more of them. VF Vasilevskaya worked as a evacuator at the front-line evacuation center in Yugo-Zapadny, Donskoy, Stepnoy; 1st - Belorussian fronts. M. M. Epshtein from July 5, 1941 until the end of the war - divisional doctor, and then head of the army hospital. O.P. Tarasenko - doctor of the military hospital train, doctor of the evacuation department, surgeon of the medical battalion. A.S. Sokol - commander of a medical company in the 415th rifle division. O.P. Dzhigurda - Navy surgeon. The surgeons of the evacuation hospitals were Z.I. Ovcharenko, M.I. Titenko and others. Doctor L.T. Malaya (now an academician of the Academy of Medical Sciences) worked as an assistant to the head of the sorting evacuation hospital for the medical unit. And many, many selfless war workers under fire received the wounded, provided assistance, saved lives.
Almost 90 years after the defense of Sevastopol in the war of 1853-1856. Russian women continued the work of their predecessors - sisters of mercy.
After more than three weeks of preparation, on December 17, 1941, the general assault on Sevastopol began. For 17 days the roar of guns, explosions of bombs, the whistle of bullets did not stop, blood flowed. 2.5 thousand wounded per day were admitted to the medical institutions of the city, which turned out to be overcrowded. Sometimes there were more than 6000-7000 people in them.

During the heroic 250-day defense of Sevastopol, male and female doctors returned to service 36.7% of the wounded who were treated in the hospitals of the Sevastopol defensive region. More than 400 thousand wounded were transported across the Black Sea.
The eternal struggle of two opposites - good and evil, destruction and salvation - comes out especially naked during the war, being an indicator of high spirituality, culture, humanity, or completely polar qualities of people.
The Germans, as in the period of the First World War, did not observe the international laws of the immunity of medical personnel, medical trains, cars, hospitals, which they bombed, shot the wounded, doctors, sisters. Saving the lives of the wounded, many medical workers died in the process themselves. For days they stood by operating tables to fainting from overwork, were injured or killed at work.
The work in the medical battalions and front-line hospitals was very intense. The most complex operations on a par with men were done by their colleagues - women. As for the organization of primary care and observation of the wounded during the period of transportation to the rear, the decisive role in this belonged, of course, to women. During the years of the Great Patriotic War, they received and served hundreds of thousands of wounded. In the medical battalions, a continuous stream of wounded was received, sorted, bandaged, operated on, anti-shock therapy was carried out, and non-transportables were treated.

In addition to special medical institutions, physicians served in a variety of units and formations. Not a single branch of the military could do without medical workers. In the cavalry squadron of the 4th cavalry-mechanized group of the Hero of the Soviet Union I.A. Plieva, Sergeant Major 3.V. Korzh served as a medical instructor of the guard. Near Budapest, in 4 days, she carried 150 wounded from the battlefield, for which she was awarded the Order of the Red Star.
Women often led medical units in battle formations. For example, S.A. Kuntsevich was the commander of the sanitary platoon of the 2nd battalion of the 119th regiment of the 40th Guards Rifle Division. In 1981, she received the highest award of the International Committee of the Red Cross - the Florence Nightingale Medal for rescuing wounded soldiers.
In field hospitals, next to surgeons, doctors, nurses, pharmacists also worked selflessly. In the field camp surgical hospital No. 5230, a graduate of the Ulyanovsk Pharmaceutical School, V.I. Goncharova, served as the head of the pharmacy. In the field hospital No. 5216, the head of the pharmacy was L.I. Koroleva, who had traveled all the military roads with the hospital.
The combined efforts of front-line doctors helped to return a large number of the wounded to service. For example, the medical service of the 2nd Belorussian Front in 1943 evacuated only 32% of the wounded outside its borders, and 68% remained until complete recovery in medical institutions of divisions, in army and front-line hospitals26. The care of them fell primarily on women. The participants in the war, with whom I had to talk, with great gratitude and warmth remember the care and attention of women.

It should be noted that the military affairs of doctors were in the field of view of the command.
Already at the very beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the selfless work of orderlies and porters on the battlefield in rescuing the wounded was assessed in the order of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR No. light machine guns - represent to government award the medal "For Military Merit" or "For Courage" of each orderly or porter. For the removal of 25 wounded with personal weapons, orderlies and porters are presented to be awarded the Order of the Red Star, for the removal of 40 wounded - to be awarded the Order of the Red Banner, for the removal of 80 wounded - to be awarded the Order of Lenin.
Any work in the war is difficult and dangerous, but to take the wounded out of the fire and return there again - you need to have extraordinary courage, ardent love for a person, sincere mercy, exceptional willpower. And fragile women several dozen times in one battle returned to the fiery hell to pull out those in need of help. The poetess Yulia Drunina, who herself fought as a front-line nurse, wrote wonderful lines coming from the heart about the feelings of a woman saving a fellow soldier.

But there is nothing more beautiful, believe me
(And I had everything in my life!),

How to protect a friend from death

And get him out of the fire...

These words echo the letter of the front-line nurse of the Hero of the Soviet Union M.Z. A soldier on the defensive fires from his trench, and a nurse runs from one wounded man to another under machine-gun and mortar fire, constantly exposed to mortal danger. But you don’t think about yourself, not about your life, when you see the bleeding wounded, when you feel that your help is urgently needed and life often depends on it ... ”27
And not sparing themselves, women carried the wounded from the battlefield in incredibly difficult conditions, when the loss of personnel of the fighting troops reached 75%, as, for example, during the Battle of Stalingrad in the divisions of V.G. Zholudev and V.A. Gorishny for the hardest days 13 and 15 October 1942
The former commander of the 62nd Army, V.I. Chuikov, spoke warmly about the army nurses in his memoirs. In particular, he wrote: “A nurse Tamara Shmakova served in Batyuk’s division. I knew her personally. She became famous for carrying the seriously wounded from the front line of battle, when it seemed impossible to raise her hand above the ground.
Crawling closer to the wounded, Tamara, lying next to him, did the dressing. Having determined the degree of injury, she decided what to do with him. If the seriously wounded could not be left on the battlefield, Tamara took measures for urgent evacuation. It usually takes two people with or without a stretcher to carry the wounded from the battlefield. But Tamara most often coped with this matter alone. Her evacuation techniques were as follows: she crawled under the wounded and, having gathered all her strength, dragged a live load on her back, often one and a half to two times heavier than herself. And when the wounded could not be lifted, Tamara spread out a raincoat, rolled the wounded on it and also crawled along with a heavy burden.
Many lives were saved by Tamara Shmakova. Many survivors should thank her for saving her. And it happened that the fighters saved from death could not even find out the name of this girl. Now she works in Tomsk region doctor.

And there were many heroines like Tamara in the 62nd Army. The lists of those awarded in units of the 62nd Army included over a thousand women. Among them: Maria Ulyanova, who from the beginning to the end of the defense was in the house of Sergeant Pavlov; Valya Pakhomova, who carried more than a hundred wounded from the battlefield; Nadya Koltsova, awarded two Orders of the Red Banner; doctor Maria Velyaminova, who bandaged hundreds of fighters and commanders under fire at the forefront; Lyuba Nesterenko, who, finding herself in the besieged garrison of senior lieutenant Dragan, bandaged dozens of wounded guardsmen and, bleeding, died with a bandage in her hands near a wounded comrade.
I remember the women doctors who worked in the medical battalions of the divisions and at the evacuation centers at the crossing of the Volga, each of which bandaged a hundred or even more wounded during the night. There are cases when the medical staff of the evacuation center sent two to three thousand wounded to the left bank in one night.
And all this under constant fire from all types of weapons and air bombing28.
As the first sister of mercy, who provided assistance on the battlefield to the wounded defenders of Sevastopol in Crimean War 1853 - 1856, Dasha Sevastopolskaya is known to us. During the Patriotic War of 1941-1945, like the young Dasha, Pasha Mikhailova and Dina Kritskaya appeared on the battlefield, bandaging the wounded sailors of the 1st Perekop Regiment, transferring them to a safe place. The girls helped the military orderlies and carried up to 50 wounded from the battlefield. For participation in the battles during the defense of Sevastopol, they were awarded orders and medals.
Whatever we take the war of past centuries, none of them could do without epidemic diseases that claimed more soldiers' lives than bullets and cannonballs. Epidemics killed 2-6 times more than weapons - about 10% of the personnel.

So, in the Russo-Japanese war, there were almost 4 times more sick people than the wounded.
To combat the prevention of epidemics during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. a network of sanitary and hygienic, anti-epidemic institutions is being created: by the beginning of the war, 1,760 sanitary and epidemiological stations, 1,406 sanitary and bacteriological laboratories, 2,388 disinfection stations and points were operating in the country.
Considering the importance of preventing epidemic diseases, on February 2, 1942, the State Defense Committee adopted a resolution "On measures to prevent epidemic diseases in the country and in the Red Army." This decision of the GKO was the guiding one for military doctors.
During the Great Patriotic War, a clear, well-coordinated system of sanitary and epidemic service operated in the country. Military sanitary anti-epidemic detachments, field bath detachments, field laundries and laundry-disinfection detachments of field evacuation centers, washing-disinfection companies, bath-laundry-disinfection trains, etc., were organized, in which many women served. Immunization was carried out with vaccines against typhus, created by the remarkable scientists M.K. Krontovskaya and M.M. Maevsky, for which in 1943 they were awarded the Stalin Prize. All these measures and a number of others contributed to the prevention of epidemics in the army.
In the multi-volume work "The Experience of Soviet Medicine in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945" it is noted that the war was not accompanied by the massive development of epidemic diseases, as might be expected. Epidemic diseases, even in the most difficult periods of the war, did not reach such a level of development that could to some extent adversely affect the country's economy, the combat capability of the Red Army troops and the strength of its rear.
Thus, the contribution of medical workers to the victory is difficult to overestimate. Their main task - saving lives and returning to the ranks of the defenders of the Fatherland, preventing epidemic diseases, was successfully completed. The very fact that, thanks to the courage and tireless work of doctors, 72% of the wounded and 90% of the sick returned to the army, speaks of the importance of medicine and its contribution to victory.
The work of doctors was appreciated by the government. 116 thousand received various awards, among them over 40 thousand women. Of the 53 Heroes of the Soviet Union, 16 are women. Many became holders of the Order of Soldier's Glory of various degrees, and the foreman of the medical service M.S. Necheporchukova (Nozdracheva) was awarded the Order of Glory of all three degrees.
During the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. more than 200,000 doctors and over 500,000 paramedics, nurses, health instructors, and orderlies served in the army and navy.
Thanks to their efforts, assistance was provided to 10 million defenders of the Motherland30.
Soviet women made a great contribution to the liberation of their Fatherland, the defeat of Nazi Germany. They steadfastly endured the hardships of the war, won victories in single combat with the enemy, saved the lives of the wounded, returned them to duty.
Women fought fearlessly, desperately, boldly, but still they were not only warriors, but also loving, beloved, who wanted to have a family, children. Marriages were made, women became mothers. The cases were far from isolated. A pregnant warrior, a warrior with a child in his arms - a considerable problem that required the adoption of a series of normative documents. So, in 1942 - 1944. Decrees of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, Decrees of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, orders of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR were issued, which determined the procedure for issuing benefits, maternity leave to female military personnel, civilian workers, as well as those dismissed from the Red Army and the Navy due to pregnancy ; providing benefits to pregnant women. Which, to a certain extent, contributed to the preservation of women's health and the restoration of the country's population.
In difficult war years, in the most difficult front-line conditions, the needs of the Zheshtsin warriors were taken into account: they were given additional soap, non-smokers - instead of tobacco allowances - chocolate and sweets.
Let's finish the story about the women of the Great Patriotic War with the words of the commander of the Stalingrad Front A.I. Eremenko, said about the defenders of Stalingrad, who, by right, can refer to all women participating in the Great Patriotic War: Stalingrad. We know about exploits Soviet women in the rear, in factories and factories, collective farm fields. Here, men's work and a huge responsibility for providing the country and the front with everything necessary fell on the shoulders of women. But we must not forget the unprecedented feat of those female volunteers who, together with the men, stood at the forefront of the fight against the enemy. Women pilots, women rivermen, women snipers, women signalmen, women gunners. There is hardly any military specialty that our brave women would not have coped with as well as their brothers, husbands and fathers. Pilots Lidiya Litvyak and Nina Belyaeva, female sailor Maria Yagunova, Komsomol nurse Natalya Kochuevskaya, signalmen A. Litvina and M. Litvinenko. And how much bright heroism was shown by the Komsomol girls who were in the Air Defense Forces and sometimes made up the majority in anti-aircraft batteries and divisions, in instrument, rangefinder and other calculations!

Women's hands, at first glance, weak, did any work quickly and accurately. And who does not know that the hardest and most difficult is military labor, labor under fire, labor with every minute mortal danger.
I think that in those oratorios and symphonies that will undoubtedly be created by our composers in honor of Stalingrad, the highest and most tender note dedicated to Stalingrad women will definitely sound.
With no less warmth and gratitude, Marshal G.K. Zhukov spoke about the women defenders of the Fatherland: “On the eve of the war, more than 50 percent of the country's population were women. It was a great force in building a socialist society. And when the war began, they actively showed themselves in the defense of the Motherland: some in the army, some on the labor front, some in the fight against the invaders in the occupied territory.
Many years have passed since the victory over fascist Germany, and what its participants and contemporaries had to see is impossible to forget - people were at the extreme limit of spiritual and physical human capabilities.
During the war, I repeatedly happened to be at the front lines of medical care - in medical battalions and evacuation hospitals. Unforgettable is the heroism and perseverance of nurses, nurses and doctors. They carried soldiers from the battlefield and nursed them. Snipers, telephone operators, and telegraph operators were distinguished by fearlessness and courage. Many of them were then no more than 18-20 years old. Despising the danger, they bravely fought against the hated enemy, along with the men went on the attack. Hundreds of thousands of warriors are indebted to the heroism and mercy of women.
With their devotion to the Motherland and constant readiness to give their lives for her, Soviet women amazed all progressive mankind. I think I will not be mistaken in expressing my opinion - our women, with their heroic military and labor feat in the war with Nazi Germany, deserved a monument equal to the monument to the Unknown Soldier erected in Moscow near the Kremlin wall.

This is the highest assessment of the feat of Soviet women on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. has a solid foundation. For the exploits shown during the war, 96 women received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union (6 of them Heroes of Russia) (Appendix 46), over 150 thousand women were awarded military orders and medals. Many have received awards more than once, 200 women have been awarded 1-2 Orders of Soldier's Glory, and 4 have become full cavaliers Order of Glory (Appendix 47). 650 women who participated in the liberation of Europe were awarded by the governments of Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and other countries.
Closing the next page of the book, please read the poems of Yulia Drunina, I think the last 2 lines will say especially clearly that as long as we have and will have such Daughters that you just met, our Fatherland - Russia was, is and will be.

I still don't quite understand
How am I, and thin, and small,
Through the fires to the victorious May
She came in kirzachs of one hundred pounds!
And where did so much strength come from
Even in the weakest of us?
What to guess! Was and is in Russia
Eternal strength eternal supply.

So, Russia had and still has “an eternal supply of eternal strength”. It seems that this eternal reserve, stored in the souls, minds, deeds of Russian women, received the greatest implementation in the last war.
In less than 100 years, Russian women have taken an incredible step in asserting equal rights with men to defend the Fatherland, having increased their ranks in the service of it from 120 people to 800 thousand*

* The figure of 800 thousand passes in the studies of V.S. Murmantseva. In the book “Secrecy has been lifted. Losses of the Armed Forces of the USSR in wars, combat operations and military conflicts. Statistical study". Ed. G.F. Krivosheeva. M., 1993, the figure is 490,235 women. It seems that 800 thousand are fuller.

The Russian woman remembered her ancient ancestors - warlike Slavs and used the development of society, the progressive change in views on her role in it and the realization of her mental, physical, professional capabilities, the right to military activity provided to her. She boldly and decisively stepped onto the battlefield. For four years, side by side with men, she shared front-line everyday life, walked tens of thousands of kilometers to Victory.
The last war was distinguished from previous ones by its scope. Scope in everything. In the number of human masses in the army; in the number of days and nights of the war; in the number and variety of weapons of destruction; in the size of the territories engulfed by the fire of war; in the number of killed, maimed; tortured and burned prisoners of war in concentration camps scattered on the territories of many "civilized" states; in the mass of peoples drawn into the destruction of each other; in astronomical figures of the damage caused; in the depths of cruelty...
What to list? More than half a century has passed, and the wounds of the body, soul, Earth, the remains of crippled buildings still do not heal; those 20-year-olds who have remained forever like that are alive in the memory of those who have survived from the meat grinder of war.

Women don't like war. They give the world Love, Life, Future. And for this, millions of young, beautiful, tender and sharp, quiet and lively, shy and hearths broken from the heat and from orphanages, from all over the vast country, stood up in the ranks of the defenders of their Fatherland. Why were there so many - almost a million women - in the ranks of the Red Army? Not enough men? Or were they not protected by the same men? Maybe they fought better? Or men did not want to fight? No. The men were doing their military duty. And women, just like in former times, went voluntarily. And they were facilitated by the fact that, taking into account the persistent requests of hundreds of thousands of patriots, the state, waging a difficult war, experiencing a real need to replenish the active army with healthy, young men, mobilized (preserving the principle of voluntariness) women, as a rule, to replace men with them where it was possible to release those and send them to the hell of war.

There were many women in this hell, especially doctors, who not only nursed the wounded and sick in hospitals, infirmaries, etc., but also pulled them out of the battlefield to the whistle of bullets and shrapnel, the roar of explosions, sometimes sacrificing their lives, amounting to almost half of the medical instructors, orderlies, front-line doctors, military paramedics, and only women were nurses. Through their gentle, caring hands, millions of warriors returned to life and to the ranks of the fighting. Women doctors of the Great Patriotic War, having taken the baton of the predecessors of previous wars, carried it with dignity through a cruel, bloody, destructive war.

Along with this noble mission, women joined the ranks of such military specialties that were not available before, and which did not exist before at all.
This war differed from the previous ones not only by the huge increase in the number of women in the theater of operations, but also by their participation in various fields combat activities in all types of the Armed Forces and branches of the armed forces: machine gunners, signalmen, chauffeurs, traffic controllers, political workers, tank drivers, gunners, radio operators, armed men, clerks, clerks, anti-aircraft gunners, librarians, accountants, sappers, miners, topographers, etc. d.
Among the women were commanders of crews, squads, platoons, companies, regiments. Thousands of women trained military schools in many cities of the country.
Already as many as 3 special women's aviation regiments were formed from "winged" women who passed with successful battles to the capitals of European states. Their martial prowess, bravery, courage led to the admiration of men who not only fought alongside them, but also abroad.

Fighter pilots were not afraid of the number of enemy aircraft. They were beaten not by numbers, but by the skill of an experienced, intelligent, evil, determined male enemy.
But despite the expansion of the spheres military activities and the numerical increase of women in the army in the years last war, they were united with their predecessors by love for the Fatherland, a voluntary desire to protect it in a difficult wartime. From all that has been said, it is clear that the same courage, courage, selflessness, up to self-sacrifice - qualities that were characteristic of Russian women of the past - are inherent in women during the last war.
They not only took up the baton of mercy, love for their neighbor and Fatherland, serving him on the battlefield, but with dignity carried through the fiery blizzards of four war years and finally affirmed their equality with men and the right to protect their homes.

At the end of the Great Patriotic War, there was a mass demobilization of soldiers in connection with the reduction of the Armed Forces. Military women were also demobilized. They returned to normal civil life, to peaceful work, the restoration of destroyed cities, farms, got the opportunity to start a family, children, to revive the population of a country that had lost millions in the four-year war.
The number of women in the Armed Forces has dropped dramatically. However, they remained military service in the army; taught in military schools; worked in laboratories, research institutes, signalmen, translators, doctors, etc. Now they have been replaced by a new generation.
Women who went through the war actively participated in the public life of the country for many decades, spoke to young people with memories of the difficult fiery years of the Great Patriotic War.

Yu.N. Ivanova The bravest of the beautiful. Russian women in wars

5. A girl and a young man from the Leningrad People's Militia on the banks of the Neva. 1941

6. Orderly Claudia Olomskaya assists the crew of a wrecked T-34 tank. Belgorod region. July 9-10, 1943

7. Residents of Leningrad are digging an anti-tank ditch. July 1941

8. Women are engaged in the transportation of gouges on the Moscow highway in besieged Leningrad. November 1941

9. Female doctors make dressings for the wounded in the carriage of the Soviet military hospital train No. 72 during the Zhitomir-Chelyabinsk flight. June 1944

10. The imposition of plaster bandages on the wounded in the carriage of the Soviet military hospital train No. 72 during the flight Zhitomir - Chelyabinsk. June 1944

11. Subcutaneous injection of a wounded man in the car of the Soviet military hospital train No. 234 at the Nizhyn station. February 1944

12. Bandaging of the wounded in the carriage of the Soviet military hospital train No. 318 during the flight Nezhin-Kirov. January 1944

13. Female doctors of the Soviet military hospital train No. 204 give an intravenous infusion to the wounded during the Sapogovo-Guryev flight. December 1943

14. Female doctors bandaging the wounded in the car of the Soviet military hospital train No. 111 during the flight Zhytomyr-Chelyabinsk. December 1943

15. The wounded are waiting for dressing in the car of the Soviet military hospital train No. 72 during the Smorodino-Yerevan flight. December 1943

16. Group portrait of the military division of the 329th anti-aircraft artillery regiment in the city of Komarno, Czechoslovakia. 1945

17. Group portrait of servicemen of the 585th Medical Battalion of the 75th Guards Rifle Division. 1944

18. Yugoslav partisans on the street of the town of Pozhega (Požega, the territory of modern Croatia). 09/17/1944

19. Group photo of female fighters of the 1st battalion of the 17th shock brigade of the 28th shock division of NOAU on the street of the liberated town of Dzhurjevac (the territory of modern Croatia). January 1944

20. A medical instructor bandages the head of a wounded Red Army soldier on a village street.

21. Lepa Radic before execution. Hanged by the Germans in the city of Bosanska Krupa, 17-year-old Yugoslav partisan Lepa Radic (12/19/1925-February 1943).

22. Female air defense fighters are on alert on the roof of house number 4 on Khalturin Street (now Millionnaya Street) in Leningrad. May 1, 1942

23. Girls - fighters of the 1st Krajinsky proletarian shock brigade of the NOAU. Arandjelovac, Yugoslavia. September 1944

24. A female soldier among a group of wounded Red Army prisoners on the outskirts of the village. 1941

25. A lieutenant of the 26th Infantry Division of the US Army communicates with Soviet female medical officers. Czechoslovakia. 1945

26. Attack pilot of the 805th assault aviation regiment, Lieutenant Anna Alexandrovna Egorova (09/23/1918 - 10/29/2009).

27. Captured Soviet female soldiers near the German tractor "Krupp Protze" somewhere in Ukraine. 08/19/1941

28. Two captured Soviet female soldiers at the assembly point. 1941

29. Two elderly residents of Kharkov at the entrance to the basement of a destroyed house. February-March 1943

30. A captured Soviet soldier sits at a desk on the street of an occupied village. 1941

31. A Soviet soldier shakes hands with an American soldier during a meeting in Germany. 1945

32. Air barrier balloon on Stalin Avenue in Murmansk. 1943

33. Women from the militia unit of Murmansk in military training. July 1943

34. Soviet refugees on the outskirts of a village near Kharkov. February-March 1943

35. Signalman-observer of the anti-aircraft battery Maria Travkina. Peninsula Rybachy, Murmansk region. 1943

36. One of the best snipers of the Leningrad Front N.P. Petrova with her students. June 1943

37. Construction of the personnel of the 125th Guards Bomber Regiment on the occasion of the presentation of the guards banner. Aerodrome Leonidovo, Smolensk region. October 1943

38. Guard captain, deputy squadron commander of the 125th Guards Bomber Aviation Regiment of the 4th Guards Bomber Aviation Division Maria Dolina near the Pe-2 aircraft. 1944

39. Captured Soviet female soldiers in Nevel. Pskov region. 07/26/1941

40. German soldiers take the arrested Soviet women partisans out of the forest.

41. Girl-soldier from the Soviet troops-liberators of Czechoslovakia in the cab of the truck. Prague. May 1945

42. Medical instructor of the 369th separate battalion of marines of the Danube military flotilla chief foreman Ekaterina Illarionovna Mikhailova (Dyomina) (b. 1925). In the Red Army since June 1941 (added two years to her 15 years).

43. Radio operator of the air defense unit K.K. Barysheva (Baranova). Vilnius, Lithuania. 1945

44. Private, treated for a wound in the Arkhangelsk hospital.

45. Soviet anti-aircraft gunners. Vilnius, Lithuania. 1945

46. ​​Soviet rangefinder girls from the Air Defense Forces. Vilnius, Lithuania. 1945

47. Sniper of the 184th Infantry Division, Commander of the Order of Glory II and III degree senior sergeant Roza Georgievna Shanina. 1944

48. Commander of the 23rd Guards Rifle Division, Major General P.M. Shafarenko in the Reichstag with colleagues. May 1945

49. Operating sisters of the 250th medical battalion of the 88th rifle division. 1941

50. The driver of the 171st separate anti-aircraft artillery division, Private S.I. Telegin (Kireeva). 1945

51. Sniper of the 3rd Belorussian Front, holder of the Order of Glory, III degree, senior sergeant Roza Georgievna Shanina in the village of Merzlyaki. Vitebsk region, Belarus. 1944

52. The crew of the T-611 minesweeper of the Volga military flotilla. From left to right: Red Navy sailors Agniya Shabalina (mechanic), Vera Chapova (machine gunner), foreman of the 2nd article Tatyana Kupriyanova (ship commander), Red Navy sailors Vera Ukhlova (sailor) and Anna Tarasova miner). June-August 1943

53. Sniper of the 3rd Belorussian Front, Commander of the Order of Glory II and III degrees, Senior Sergeant Roza Georgievna Shanina in the village of Stolyarishki, Lithuania. 1944

54. Soviet sniper corporal Roza Shanina at the Krynki state farm. Vitebsk region, Byelorussian SSR. June 1944

55. Former nurse and translator of the partisan detachment "Polyarnik" medical service sergeant Anna Vasilievna Vasilyeva (Wet). 1945

56. Sniper of the 3rd Belorussian Front, holder of the Order of Glory II and III degrees, senior sergeant Roza Georgievna Shanina at the celebration of the New Year 1945 in the editorial office of the newspaper "Destroy the Enemy!".

57. Soviet sniper, future Hero of the Soviet Union, senior sergeant Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko (07/01/1916-10/27/1974). 1942

58. Soldiers of the partisan detachment "Polar Explorer" on a halt during a campaign behind enemy lines. From left to right: nurse, intelligence officer Maria Mikhailovna Shilkova, nurse, communication courier Klavdia Stepanovna Krasnolobova (Listova), fighter, political instructor Klavdia Danilovna Vtyurina (Golitskaya). 1943

59. Soldiers of the partisan detachment "Polar Explorer": nurse, demolition worker Zoya Ilyinichna Derevnina (Klimova), nurse Maria Stepanovna Volova, nurse Alexandra Ivanovna Ropotova (Nevzorova).

60. Soldiers of the 2nd platoon of the partisan detachment "Polar Explorer" before going on a mission. Partisan base Shumi-gorodok. Karelian-Finnish SSR. 1943

61. Soldiers of the partisan detachment "Polar explorer" before going on a mission. Partisan base Shumi-gorodok. Karelian-Finnish SSR. 1943

62. Pilots of the 586th Air Defense Fighter Aviation Regiment are discussing the past sortie near the Yak-1 aircraft. Airfield "Anisovka", Saratov region. September 1942

63. Pilot of the 46th Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment, Junior Lieutenant R.V. Yushin. 1945

64. Soviet cameraman Maria Ivanovna Sukhova (1905-1944) in a partisan detachment.

65. Pilot of the 175th Guards Attack Aviation Regiment, Lieutenant Maria Tolstova, in the cockpit of an Il-2 attack aircraft. 1945

66. Women dig anti-tank ditches near Moscow in the fall of 1941.

67. Soviet traffic controller in front of a burning building on a Berlin street. May 1945

68. Deputy commander of the 125th (female) Borisov Guards Bomber Regiment named after the Hero of the Soviet Union Marina Raskova, Major Elena Dmitrievna Timofeeva.

69. Fighter pilot of the 586th Air Defense Fighter Aviation Regiment, Lieutenant Raisa Nefedovna Surnachevskaya. 1943

70. Sniper of the 3rd Belorussian Front Senior Sergeant Roza Shanina. 1944

71. Soldiers of the partisan detachment "Polar Explorer" in the first military campaign. July 1943

72. Marines of the Pacific Fleet on the way to Port Arthur. In the foreground, participant in the defense of Sevastopol, Pacific Fleet paratrooper Anna Yurchenko. August 1945

73. Soviet partisan girl. 1942

74. Officers of the 246th Infantry Division, including women, on the street of a Soviet village. 1942

75. A private girl from the Soviet liberators of Czechoslovakia smiles from the cab of a truck. 1945

76. Three captured Soviet female soldiers.

77. Pilot of the 73rd Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment, Junior Lieutenant Lidia Litvyak (1921-1943) after a sortie on the wing of his Yak-1B fighter.

78. Scout Valentina Oleshko (left) with her friend before being thrown into the German rear in the Gatchina region. 1942

79. A column of captured Red Army soldiers in the vicinity of Kremenchug, Ukraine. September 1941.

80. Gunsmiths load IL-2 attack aircraft cassettes with PTAB anti-tank bombs.

81. Female medical instructors of the 6th Guards Army. 03/08/1944

82. Red Army soldiers of the Leningrad Front on the march. 1944

83. Signalman Lidia Nikolaevna Blokova. Central front. 08/08/1943

84. Military doctor of the 3rd rank (captain of the medical service) Elena Ivanovna Grebeneva (1909-1974), medical resident of the surgical dressing platoon of the 316th medical battalion of the 276th rifle division. February 14, 1942

85. Maria Dementyevna Kucheryavaya, born in 1918, lieutenant of the medical service. Sevlievo, Bulgaria. September 1944

The most important thing that we need to know about women in the Red Army is that quite a lot of them served there, and they played a very important role in the destruction of fascism. Note that not only in the USSR women were drafted into the army, in other countries too, but only in our country the fair sex participated in hostilities, served in combat units.

Researchers note that in different periods, from 500 thousand to 1 million women served in the ranks of the Red Army. That's enough. Why were women drafted into the army? Firstly, among the fair sex, there were initially women liable for military service: doctors, first of all, civil aviation pilots (not so many, but still). And so, when the war began, thousands of women on a voluntary basis began to join the people's militia. True, they were sent back quite quickly, since there was no installation - to draft women into the army. That is, to clarify once again, in the 1920-1930s, women did not serve in the Red Army.

Only in the USSR during the war years did women take part in hostilities.

Actually, the conscription of women into the army began in the spring of 1942. Why at this particular time? There weren't enough people. In 1941 - early 1942 Soviet army suffered enormous losses. In addition, there were tens of millions of people in the German-occupied territory, among them men of military age. And when at the beginning of 1942 they drew up a plan for the formation of new military formations, it turned out that there were not enough people.

Women from the militia unit in military training, 1943

What was the idea of ​​calling women? In that women replace men in those positions where they could really replace them, and men went to combat units. In Soviet terms, it was called very simply - the voluntary mobilization of women. That is, theoretically, women went into the army voluntarily, in practice it was, of course, different.

The parameters for which women should be called up were described: age - 18-25 years old, education not lower than seven classes, it is desirable that they be Komsomol members, healthy, and so on.

To be honest, the statistics on women who were drafted into the army are very scarce. Moreover, for a long time it was under the heading of secrecy. Only in 1993 was it possible to clarify something. Here are some data: about 177 thousand women served in the air defense forces; in the troops of the local air defense (NKVD department) - 70 thousand; there were almost 42 thousand signalmen (this, by the way, is 12% of all signal troops in the Red Army); physicians - over 41 thousand; women who served in the Air Force (mainly as support staff) - over 40 thousand; 28.5 thousand women are cooks; almost 19 thousand are drivers; almost 21,000 served in the Navy; in the ZhDV - 7.5 thousand and about 30 thousand women served in a variety of guises: say, from librarians, for example, to snipers, tank commanders, scouts, pilots, military pilots, and so on (by the way, most of them both written and known).

Age and education were the main selection criteria

It must be said that the mobilization of women passed through the Komsomol (unlike male conscripts, who were registered with the military registration and enlistment offices). But, of course, not only Komsomol members were called up: there would simply not be enough of them.

As for the organization of the life of women in the army, no supernova decisions were made. Gradually (not immediately) they were provided with uniforms, shoes, and some items of women's clothing. They all lived together: both simple peasant girls, “many of whom strove to get pregnant as soon as possible and go home alive,” and intellectuals who read Chateaubriand before going to bed and regretted that the books of the French writer in the original could not be obtained.

Soviet pilots are discussing the last sortie, 1942

It is impossible not to say about the motives that guided women when they went to the service. We have already mentioned that mobilization was considered voluntary. Indeed, many women themselves were eager to join the army, they were annoyed that they did not get into combat units. For example, Elena Rzhevskaya, a well-known writer, the wife of the poet Pavel Kogan, even before being drafted, in 1941, leaving her daughter to her husband's parents, ensured that she was taken to the front as a translator. And Elena went through the whole war, up to the storming of Berlin, where she participated in the search for Hitler, in the identification and investigation of the circumstances of his suicide.

Another example is the squadron navigator Galina Dzhunkovskaya, later a Hero of the Soviet Union. As a child, Galina managed to put a cherry seed in her ear, so she could not hear in one ear. For medical reasons, she was not supposed to be drafted into the army, but she insisted. She served valiantly throughout the war and was wounded.

However, the other half of the women found themselves in the service, as they say, under pressure. There are a lot of complaints about the violation of the principle of voluntariness in the documents of political bodies.

Camping wives even had some representatives of the high command

Let's touch on a rather sensitive issue - the issue of intimate relationships. It is known that during the war the Germans created a whole network of military field brothels, most of which were located on Eastern Front. For ideological reasons, nothing like this could be in the Red Army. However, the Soviet officers and soldiers cut off from their families still got the so-called field wives from among the female military personnel. Even some representatives of the high command had such concubines. For example, marshals Zhukov, Eremenko, Konev. The last two, by the way, married their fighting girlfriends during the war. That is, it happened in different ways: both romantic relationships, and love, and coercion to cohabitation.

Soviet female partisans

In this context, it is best to quote a letter from Elena Deichman, a nurse student at the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History, who volunteered for the army even before being drafted. Here is what she wrote to her father in the camp at the beginning of 1944: “Most of the girls - and among them there are good people and workers - married officers here who live with them and take care of them, and yet, these are temporary , fickle and fragile marriages, because each of them has a family and children at home and is not going to leave them; it is simply difficult for a man to live at the front without affection and alone. I am an exception in this respect, and for this, I feel, I am especially respected and distinguished. And he continues: “Many men here say that after the war they will not come up and talk to a military girl. If she has medals, then they supposedly know for what "military merit" the medal was received. It is very hard to realize that many girls deserve such an attitude by their behavior. In units, in war, we need to be especially strict with ourselves. I have nothing to reproach myself with, but sometimes I think with a heavy heart that maybe someone who did not know me here, seeing me in a tunic with a medal, will also say about me with an ambiguous laugh.

For feats, about a hundred women were awarded the highest awards

As for pregnancy, this topic was perceived in the army as a completely normal phenomenon. Already in September 1942, a special decree was adopted on the supply of pregnant female soldiers with everything (if possible, of course) necessary. That is, everyone perfectly understood that the country needed people, it was necessary to somehow replace all these gigantic losses. By the way, in the first post-war decade, 8 million children were born out of wedlock. And it was the choice of women.

There is one very curious, but at the same time tragic story related to this topic. Vera Belik, a navigator, served in the famous Taman Guards Aviation Regiment. She married a pilot from a neighboring regiment and became pregnant. And now she faced a choice: either finish the fight, or go on with her fighting girlfriends. And she had an abortion (abortions, of course, were banned in the USSR, but, in general, during the war they turned a blind eye to this) secretly from her husband. There was a terrible fight. And in one of the subsequent sorties, Vera Belik died along with Tatyana Makarova. The pilots were burned alive.

"Lady Death", sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko, 1942

Speaking about the mobilization of women in the Red Army, the question involuntarily arises: did the country's leadership manage to solve the tasks set? Yes, sure. Just think: for the exploits during the Great Patriotic War, about a hundred women were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union (mostly they were pilots and snipers). Unfortunately, most of them were posthumously... At the same time, one should not forget about female partisans, underground fighters, doctors, intelligence officers, about those who did not receive a big award, but made a real feat - went through the war and contributed to the victory.