Women and war. Poems

The writing

“War has no female face” - this thesis has been true for many centuries. Very strong people are capable of surviving the fire, the horror of war, therefore it is customary to consider war to be a man's business. But the tragedy, the cruelty, the enormity of the war lies in the fact that, along with the men, women stand shoulder to shoulder, who go to kill and die. The essence of war is contrary to human nature, and even more feminine nature. There has never been a single war in the world that women would have unleashed, their participation in a war has never been considered normal and natural.
A woman in war is an inexhaustible topic. It is this motif that runs through the story of Boris Vasilyev "The Dawns Here Are Quiet..."

The characters in this story are very different. Each of them is unique, has an inimitable character and a unique destiny, broken by the war. These young girls are united by the fact that they live for the same purpose. This goal is to protect the Motherland, protect their families, protect people close to them. And for this you need to destroy the enemy. For some of them, to destroy the enemy means to fulfill their duty, to avenge the death of their loved ones and relatives.

Rita Osyanina, who lost her husband in the first days of the war, gave the impression of a very firm, strong and self-confident woman, “she had a job, a duty and very real goals for hatred. And she learned to hate quietly and mercilessly "The war destroyed the family and Zhenya Komelkova, who," despite all the tragedies, was extremely sociable and mischievous "But hatred for the Nazis who killed her family and herself lived in her soul. The Moloch of War devours everything, knowing no boundaries. It destroys people's lives. But it can also destroy the human soul, destroying the unreal. Fantastic world living in it. Galya Chetvertak lived in the world she invented, fabulous and beautiful. She "dreamed all her life of solo parts, long dresses and universal worship." She tried to transfer this world she created into real life, constantly inventing something.
“Actually, it was not a lie, but a desire masquerading as reality.” But the war, which "does not have a woman's face", did not spare the fragile world of the girl, unceremoniously invading it and destroying it. And its destruction is always fraught with fear, which the young girl could not cope with. Fear, on the other hand, always haunts a person in war: “Whoever says that it’s not scary in war knows nothing about war.” War awakens in the human soul not only fear - it exacerbates everything human feelings. Women's hearts are especially sensual and tender. Rita Osyanina outwardly seems very firm and strict, but inside she is a quivering, loving, worried person. Her dying wish was to take care of her son. “My son is there, three years old. Alik is called

Albert. My mother is very sick, she won’t live long, and my father is missing.” But good human feelings lose their meaning. War everywhere establishes its perverted logic. Here, love, pity, sympathy, the desire to help can bring death to the person in whose soul these feelings are born. Liza Brichkina, driven by love and a desire to help people, dies in a swamp. War puts everything in its place. It changes the laws of life. What could never happen in civilian life happens in war. Liza B., who grew up in the forest, knew and loved nature, felt confident and comfortable in it, finds her last refuge here. Her pure soul, radiating comfort and warmth, reaching for the light, hides from it forever. “Liza saw this blue beautiful sky for a long time. Wheezing, spitting out mud and reaching out, reaching out to him, reaching out and believing. Sonya Gurvich, striving to bring joy to a person, driven only by a pure impulse of her soul, comes across a German knife. Galya Chetvertak sobs over her murdered friend when it's wrong to cry. Her heart is filled with only pity for her. This is how Vasiliev tries to emphasize the unnaturalness and enormity of war. A girl with her fiery and tender hearts is faced with the inhumanity and illogicality of war "War does not have a woman's face." This thought sounds piercingly in the story, echoing with unbearable pain in every heart.

The inhumanity of war and unnaturalness is emphasized by the image of quiet dawns, symbolizing eternity and beauty in the land where the thin threads of women's lives are torn. Vasiliev "kills" girls to show the impossibility of the existence of women in
the conditions of the war.

Women in the war perform feats, lead to the attack, save the wounded from death, sacrificing their own lives. They don't think of themselves when saving others. In order to protect their homeland and avenge their loved ones, they are ready to give last strength. “And the Germans wounded her blindly, through the foliage, and she could have hidden, waited out and, maybe, left. But she shot while there were bullets. She shot lying down, no longer trying to escape, because strength was leaving along with the blood. ” They die, and the warmth, the love lurking in their hearts, lies forever in the damp earth:

We did not expect posthumous glory,
They did not want to live with glory.
Why in bloody bandages
The light-haired soldier lies?
(Yu. Drunina. "Zinka")

The destiny of a woman, bestowed upon her by nature, is perverted in the conditions of war. And a woman is the keeper of the hearth, the continuer of the family, which is a symbol of life, warmth and comfort. Red-haired Komelkova with magical green eyes and amazing femininity, it seems, is simply created for procreation. Lisa B., symbolizing a home, a hearth, was created for family life, but this was not destined to come true ... Each of these girls “could give birth to children, and those would be grandchildren and great-grandchildren, but now there will be no this thread. A small thread of the endless yarn of humanity, cut with a knife. This is the tragedy of the fate of a woman in war

But the men who survived the war will always be left with an eternal guilt complex in front of them. Men could not give them love, could not protect them. Therefore, Vasiliev asks if such sacrifices in the war are justified, is it not too high a price for victory, because the lost threads of women's lives will never again merge with the common thread of humanity? “What is it you, a man of our mothers, could not protect from bullets? Why did you marry them with death, and you yourself are whole? You can look at the war through the eyes of a woman. True admiration is caused by the exploits of women, which become even more significant, as they are committed by fragile creatures.
I read the memoirs of one woman, she told me that during the war she somehow left the house, and when she returned, in its place she saw only a huge pit, the consequence of a bomb dropped by a German plane. Husband and children died. There was no point in continuing to live, and this woman went to the front in a penal battalion, hoping to die. But she survived. After the war, she again had a family, but surely nothing will ever drown out the pain that the war caused. And, probably, every woman who survived the war will not be able to free herself from it for the rest of her life. Part of her soul will always remain there...

Women, laying down their heads for a great cause, made victory possible, brought it closer. But the death of every woman in the war is a tragedy. Eternal glory and memory to them!

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Purpose of the event: spiritual and moral education of students on the example of the exploits of women during the war.

Tasks:

Educational:

• To expand the knowledge of students about the events of the world war;
• Based on historical facts, show the courage and heroism of the participants in the wars.

Developing:

• To continue the formation of students' skills to use additional sources of information;
• Develop information and communication skills (make presentations, videos, slide shows);

Educational :

• Formation of patriotic feeling; love for the native land;
• Cultivate a respectful attitude towards women to women fighters, women workers, mothers, wives, sisters.

Expected results:

Students will get to know:

• with unknown facts and events of world wars;
• with the life and exploits of the women of the world war.

Students:

• learn to work with different sources of information (printed, electronic);
• will be able to prepare a multimedia presentation, a video on the topic of the class hour.

Students will receive:

• Experience in speaking to large audiences

Students:

• form their attitude to the concepts: “kindness”, “sensitivity”, “mercy”, “humanity”.

Conduct form: oral journal

Equipment:

• Screen, multimedia projector, PC;
• Poems: R. Verzakova “The war has an unfeminine face”, N. Gumilyov “Answer of the sister of mercy”, a poster with the name of the event, photographs of women war heroes, photographs of women home front workers, “Petrovsky News newspapers”, the film “I Remember”, presentation .
• Stand “Photographs of participants in wars”, a video with a speech by Anna Ivanovna Kudryashova, an excerpt from the film about the war “I Remember”.

Preliminary preparation: students prepare presentations, a video; find the necessary information (music and songs, photos, etc.); as well as works by contemporary authors; the teacher prepares the script for the class hour, selects performers from among the students.

Methodology for conducting a class hour: ICT techniques, an activity campaign is carried out.

Class hour progress

Not! War has no feminine face.
Though the name of a woman is enclosed in it.
War contradicts the essence of a woman,
God did not give her love to kill.
A woman has her power over the world -
Love yearning, fiery passion.
And women's destiny is to keep the hearth.
Life extension is a step into infinity.
A man to wait home; bear the need.
With gentle hands to prevent trouble.
And keep the native porch clean,
Raise children in the traditions of their fathers.
Not! War has no woman's face...

Slide 1. It just so happened that our memory of the war and all our ideas about the war are masculine. This is understandable: for centuries, war was the lot of only men. But over the years, we more and more comprehend the immortal feat of women in the war, its greatest sacrifice, brought on the altar of victory.

Presenter: Woman and war... Both of these words are feminine... But they are incompatible. Woman and war...

(The girls enter the stage one at a time: one finishes talking and the next one appears.)

A woman comes into the world
To light a candle.
A woman comes into the world
To save the hearth.
A woman comes into the world.
To be loved.
A woman comes into the world
To give birth to children.
A woman comes into the world
For a flower to bloom.
A woman comes into the world
To save the world.

Leading; We dedicate today's class hour to women who carried the brunt of the war on a par with men on their fragile shoulders. The war, which flooded the native land with blood, took away the house, children, husband from women, but they could not take away the most important thing - hope. And a Russian woman can hope, believe and love like no other.

Wars ... wars .. it seems that there will be no end to them

Patriotic War of 1812

The War of 1812 was the subject of many memoirs and fiction, essays, letters, notes of eyewitnesses of the events of those years.

From these letters we learn that women of all classes could not remain deaf to the military events of 1812.

The Napoleonic invasion was a huge misfortune for Russia.

In the provinces affected by the invasion, women and children helped their husbands and fathers, went to the partisans.

The names of Vasilisa Kozhina are known,

Slide 6 representatives of the royal family, Catherine Skavronskaya

Slide 7. Margarita Tuchkova, Nadezhda Durova,

The fate of a Russian woman is amazing Margarita Tuchkova, born in 1781. Margarita Tuchkova (née Naryshkina) wife of General Alexander Tuchkov (IV), hero of Borodin. This woman, in the name of boundless love for her husband who died in the battle of Borodino, created the first monument in Russia to the heroes of the War of 1812. She was not a saint, did not perform miracles ... but in fact Margarita Tuchkova was her - just like thousands other Russian women who lost loved ones and remained faithful to their memory to the end. It is to her that we also owe the fact that now there is both the Borodino field and the Spaso-Borodino monastery, built with her money in memory of her husband and all those killed on the Borodino field. Mother Superior Maria took the initiative to hold the annual Borodino celebrations and round-the-clock commemoration of Russian soldiers, which took place in the monastery.

Slide 8-9 Student 2

Nadezhda Durova (cavalry girl)

The cross of George sparkles under the epaulette,
Hope on the glorious day of Borodino,
Rushing on a horse, not yet glorified by the poet,
French saber cuts like a shadow!
The Emperor himself is in awe of the girl,
He gave her his name for a nickname,

Memoirs, letters, and especially notes of Nadezhda Durova were material of paramount importance, which, better than any fiction, told contemporaries about the real life and situation of Russian women, who shared all the hardships of the war on an equal footing with men.

Nadezhda Durova was awarded the 4th Class Military Order for rescuing a wounded officer.

Classroom teacher:

During the Russo-Japanese War, four brave Russian women were awarded soldiers' St. George's Crosses.

When the First World War broke out, their account went to dozens ... The Military Order of the Holy Great Martyr and Victorious George, for almost a century and a half of the history of the order, more than 10 thousand men were awarded it. And only one (!) woman. The name of this heroine is Rimma Ivanova

slide #10 Student 3)

Classroom teacher. Russian women participated in the First World War as sisters of mercy. But the laurels of the first Russian female officer, Nadezhda Durova, haunted Russian noblewomen. Therefore, as soon as the military thunders rumbled again, many of them wanted to put on a military uniform. The Vitebsk gymnasium student Olga Shidlovskaya turned out to be braver than the others. Among the “Russian Amazons” there were also those who, with their courage and valor, deserved two St. George's crosses.

The most famous among them is Antonina Palshina, who was born in a remote village in the Vyatka province. Representatives of all classes - both noblewomen, and bourgeois women, and peasant women, who wanted to get into combat military units at the front, were forced to “turn” into men. The only ones who did not experience difficulties in this matter were the Cossacks: those of them who from childhood were accustomed to ride in the saddle, shoot from a carbine, wield a saber and dagger, easily sought permission from regiment commanders to serve on an equal basis with men. And they showed miracles of courage.
For example, Natalya Komarova fled to the front, where her father and older brother, a military foreman (lieutenant colonel) and a centurion of the Ural Cossack army, had already fought, respectively. She fled, having bought a horse and all the Cossack ammunition with the money set aside for the purchase of a dowry.

And the Cossack Maria Smirnova, who went to the front instead of her consumptive husband, managed to earn as many as three St. George's crosses by the summer of 1917: they were awarded to her for carrying a wounded officer from the battlefield, after capturing an Austrian gun and two machine guns, as well as for valuable information about the location enemy, obtained in night reconnaissance ...

This woman was feared and hated, admired and proud of. Participant of the First World War, the only woman - a full St. George's Cavalier. In 1917, the initiator of the creation of women's battalions, in October the commander of the battalion guarding the Winter Palace in Petrograd, was Maria Leontievna Bochkareva. Kornilov asked her to go to America and England for help in the fight against the Bolsheviks ... Bochkareva met at a dinner at the White House on July 4, 1918 with Woodrow Wilson. The Minister of War provided the 1st Russian female officer with a 5-minute audience in August 1918 with King George V of England at Buckingham Palace.

Classroom teacher. Now a feature film about the women of the women's battalion is coming out on the screens, I think you all will look at the modern interpretation of the terrible life of women in the war. Truly, a country in which there are such women is invincible!

slide 13.

Presenter 1: In the most terrible war of the 20th century, the Great Patriotic War, a woman had to become a soldier. She not only saved, bandaged the wounded, but also shot, bombed, undermined bridges, went on reconnaissance, took the language. The woman killed...

1st reader.

The uncompressed rye sways,
Soldiers are walking along it.
We walk and we are girls,
Similar to guys.
No - it's not the huts that are burning,
That my youth is on fire,
Girls go to war
Similar to guys.
(Yu. Druzhinina)

1st student:

Can you tell me about it
What years did you live in?
What an immeasurable weight
On women's shoulders lay down!
That morning I said goodbye to you

And you with your destiny
Left alone.

2nd student:

One on one with tears
With uncompressed bread in the field
You met this war
And all - without end and without counting -
Sorrows, labors and worries
Came to you for one.
Willy-nilly to you alone -
And you have to hurry everywhere
You are alone in the house and in the field,
You alone cry and sing.
Host: Bride, wife, widow...

The fates of these women are in many ways the same, but at the same time they are somewhat different.

Presenter 1: Just like the sisters of mercy of past wars, the women of the Second World War were nurses. Today we want to remember the nurses, whose names are forever recorded in the book of the Great Patriotic War.

Courageous Nurse.

The daughter of Skvarchinsky, a blacksmith from the Arsenal factory, 16-year-old Masha, appeared in the artillery division of the 14th cavalry division and, after repeated requests, was left in the division as a nurse. During the actions of the mobile group of the 26th army, she, neglecting the danger, during the bombing by enemy aircraft, assisted the wounded, took them to shelters and, when she herself could not bring the victim, forced the fighters to help her. The fearless patriot of the Motherland Masha saved the lives of dozens of fighters and commanders. Given the exceptional heroism and courage, the command presented her to the government award.

(Their archive of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR)

Our sister's name was Masha,
She was loved by everyone in the regiment,
In any regiment, our little sister
Chagall with a bag on her side.
In battle, it happened, a bullet hurts,
Masha does not hesitate and does not wait,
She is skillful hands
Gets bandages from the bag.
And by the fire at rest time,
To make the heart happy
She used to sing
About two friends.
For now, comrades, we will
In any region, in any battle,
We will not forget our Masha,
My faithful sister.

Slide 18. Student 5

Pilot girls. White Lily.

On the Southern Front near Melitopol and in the male fighter regiment, a Russian pilot girl, whose name was White Lily, fought. It was impossible to shoot her down in aerial combat. A flower was painted on board her fighter - a white lily. Once the regiment was returning from a combat mission, the White Lily flew at the rear - only the most experienced pilots are honored with such an honor.

The German fighter Me-109 guarded her, hiding in a cloud. He fired a burst at the White Lily and disappeared into the cloud again. Wounded, she turned the plane around and rushed after the German. She never returned back ... After the war, her remains were accidentally discovered by local boys when they were catching snakes at a mass grave in the village of Dmitrievka, Shakhtersky district of Donetsk region

Slide 18 Student 6.

tank girls

The tanker has a very hard job: loading shells, collecting and repairing broken tracks, working with a shovel, crowbar, sledgehammer, and carrying logs. And most often under enemy fire.

In the 220th tank brigade, the T-34 was with us on the Leningrad Front as a driver, technician-lieutenant Valya Krikaleva. In battle, a German anti-tank gun smashed the caterpillar of her tank. Valya jumped out of the tank and began to repair the caterpillar. A German machine gunner scribbled it across her chest. Comrades did not have time to cover it. So the wonderful girl tanker went into eternity.

On the Western Front in 1941, the company commander, tanker Captain Oktyabrsky, fought on the T-34. He died a heroic death in August 1941. The young wife Maria Oktyabrskaya, who remained in the rear, decided to take revenge on the Germans for the death of her husband. She sold her house, all her property and sent a letter to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Stalin Iosif Vissarionovich with a request to allow her to buy a T-34 tank with the proceeds and take revenge on the Germans for their tanker husband killed by them.

Slide 18 Student 7.

Night Witches

The women's regiment of night bombers, Lieutenant Colonel of the Guards Evdokia Bershanskaya, flying on U-2 single-engine aircraft, bombed German troops on the Kerch Peninsula in 1943 and 1944. And later in 1944-45. fought on the first Belorussian front, supporting the troops of Marshal Zhukov and the troops of the 1st Army of the Polish Army.

Aircraft U-2 (since 1944 - Po-2, in honor of the designer N. Polikarpov) flew at night. They were based 8-10 km from the front line. They needed a small runway, only 200 meters. During the night in the battles for the Kerch Peninsula, they made 10-12 sorties. Carried U2 up to 200 kg of bombs at a distance of up to 100 km to the German rear. . During the night, they dropped up to 2 tons of bombs and incendiary ampoules on German positions and fortifications. They approached the target with the engine turned off, silently: the aircraft had good aerodynamic properties: the U-2 could glide from a height of 1 kilometer to a distance of 10 to 20 kilometers. It was difficult for the Germans to shoot them down. I myself have seen many times how German anti-aircraft gunners drove heavy machine guns across the sky, trying to find a silent U2. Now the Poles do not remember how Russian beautiful pilots in the winter of 1944 dropped weapons, ammunition, food, medicine...

Slide number 19. Student 8

Women participants in the war of the Stavropol Territory

Abramova Claudia Ilyinichna

Born in 1906 in a peasant family. She has been working since the age of 14. After graduating from the institute, she was assigned to the Stavropol Territory and at the beginning of the war became an assistant to the regional prosecutor. In the occupied regional center, she became an organizer and participant in the anti-fascist underground, destroyed archival documents so that the Nazis would not get them.

She was arrested by the Gestapo along with her children. Despite threats of reprisals against her daughters and terrible torture, she refused to sign an appeal to the population and call for cooperation with the invaders.

On October 3, 1942, the Nazis shot her daughters Lira and Rita, and then Claudia Ilyinichna Abramova.

By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, she was posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st class.

Kuznetsova-Listopadova Maria Ivanovna.

At the age of 20, she went to the front. She began her combat career in October 1942. volunteered to join the Red Army. She received her first baptism of fire near Mozdok, then battles in the village of Voznesenskaya. Ends up in Grozny, then in Tuapse. Arriving in Tuapse, she did not stay there for a long time, and through the city of Gelendzhik and Kabardinka she landed on the “Malaya Zemlya”, fierce battles on Malaya Zemlya. The fighters called her brave Maria where she stayed for 7 months. For her exploits, she was awarded 8 government awards: the Order of the Red Star - for Kerch, the medal "For Military Merit", "For the Victory over Germany".

Lyubimtseva Lyubov Stepanovna

Born in 1922, on May 5, 1942, she was mobilized by the Mozdok district military registration and enlistment office into the ranks of the Red Army. The combat path began from the city of Cherkessk in 492 BAO of the 5th air army of the North Caucasian Front. Participated in the battles for Krasnodar, Ukraine, Moldova. Finished the war in Romania.

Gromova Zinaida Nikolaevna

Gromova Zinaida Nikolaevna was born on October 5, 1925, studied in Pavlodolsk high school, on the day of the prom, the beginning of the war was announced. In September 1942, as a railway worker, she was drafted into the army on the second Ukrainian front. In the position of senior switchman, under fire from enemy troops, she restored railways, bridges, carried out the loading of the wounded, guarded the railway tracks. The war ended in Poland. After demobilization, she returned to her native village. He has awards: a medal "For the victory over Germany", thanks to the command, a medal "For Valiant Labor".

In the occupied territories, women organized and supported the work of partisan detachments, lived and worked in the occupation.

Dora Karabut lived in our Petrovsky district of the Stavropol Territory. Dora Evdokimovna Karabut was born in Ipatovo, graduated from school No. 1 in the village of Petrovsky. Entered the Agricultural Institute. But the war interrupted the peaceful course of life. For health reasons, Dora was not taken to the front, then she joined the partisan detachment, saying goodbye to her mother: “Take care of yourself, dear, don’t worry about me. I won't let you down. We'll meet when we defeat the enemy.” In the partisan detachment, Dora became the soul of the Stavropol people. She was a fighter and scout, performed responsible tasks. In December 1942, during one of the tasks, Dora and several partisans were captured, they were tortured for a long time, but they could not achieve anything. Not for nothing was Dora's favorite hero Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya.

Nina Nikolaevna Zakopaylo. Ninochka met the news of the Victory in Sevastopol, on Malakhov Hill. The sounds of the button accordion, songs, bright lights on ships, rejoicing in the streets - all this remained in my memory.

“I would very much like to bequeath peace to all future generations,” says Nina Nikolaevna

Anna Maksimovna Motuz - recalls how she and her fellow villagers lived under the Germans for five and a half months. How they worked to win, giving everything of themselves.

Women heroes, women fighters, women women

Presenter: No matter how terrible the reality is, a woman remains a woman in war. Wherever a woman is, she seeks to create comfort. Snowdrops in a tin can, footcloth curtains. The trifles of military life caused smiles.

1st girl: Once in the forest after the battle, I saw violets in the forest and could not resist, picked up a bouquet and tied it to a bayonet. We arrived at the military camp. The commander has lined up everyone and calls me. I'm out of action... and forgot I had flowers on my rifle. And he began to scold me: “A soldier should be a soldier, not a flower picker…”. It was incomprehensible to him how it was possible to think about flowers in such an environment.

Remarkable and brave artists helped to support the fighting spirit of the Soviet soldier, give hope for an unconditional victory, help to remember the peaceful life: Lidia Ruslanova, Klavdia Shulzhenko, Lyubov Orlova .

Presenter: In Volgograd, a monument to the feat of a woman was erected on Mamaev Kurgan. This is the pain and cry of the entire Soviet people. But there is another memory. It doesn't grow grass. This is the memory of the heart. The memory of the heroism of women during the Great Patriotic War is always alive in our hearts. And it will stay there forever.

A woman is with us when we are born
The woman is with us in our last hour,
The woman is the banner when we fight
A woman is the joy of opened eyes.
Our first love and happiness.
In the best aspiration, the first hello,
In the battle for the right - the fire of complicity.
The woman is music. The woman is the light.

Presenter: Bride, wife, widow Many brides, not becoming wives, have become widows. The merciless war divided many loving hearts. How many female widows are left after the war. Despite suffering, grief, women were not sufferers, but workers in the war. The hardest part was for those who stayed with small children. What to feed? How to get out? How to save?

Presenter 1: They forged victory not only at the front, but also in the rear. Caring female hands sewed, knitted, and their eyes, inflamed from tears, did not close day or night. Nothing could break the spirit of a Russian woman, ready to do anything for the sake of her family and Motherland.

Reader.

Can you tell me about it,
What years did you live in!
What an immeasurable heaviness
On women's shoulders lay down! ..
That morning I said goodbye to you
Your husband, or brother, or son,
And you with your destiny
Left alone.
One on one with tears
With uncompressed bread in the field
You met this war.
And all - without end and without counting -
Sorrows, labors and worries
Came to you for one.
M.Isakovsky. Russian woman.

During the war, the successes of the Soviet people at the front and in the rear largely depended on the work of millions of women. Housewives, retired women, and high school students came to industrial enterprises, replacing men.

Video with the performance of Kudryashova Anna Ivanovna. She was only 12 years old during the war and 2 younger sisters, three brothers went to war

Slide number 25 (Student 9)

Praskovya Fedorovna Angelina was a leader in agricultural production, the organizer of the first tractor brigade. On the eve of the war, she appealed to Soviet women: "One hundred thousand friends - to the tractor!" 200 thousand women responded to her call The training of tractor drivers played a big role in providing the people with food

Slide #26:

During the war years, Soviet teachers worked selflessly, there were not enough premises, fuel, educational supplies, but they still performed their main task - teaching the younger generation

Slide number 27 (Student 10)

Izotova Kira Ivanovna was from December 1942 to September 1944 the senior pioneer leader of school No. 30 in Leningrad. She recalled: “In the 1942/43 academic year, both boys and girls studied at the school. It was very cold, hungry. The school was seven years old that year. incendiary bombs), the rest were in bomb shelters. In the summer of 1943, all the senior classes worked on agricultural work. It was very difficult: everyone was weak: both adults and children, they did not know how to work with rural equipment. They collected young nettles, sorrel, quinoa - all this was added into food.

Slide 28

The most the main role women are mothers

Girl: Mother. There are millions of them, and each carries a feat in the heart - maternal love. How many sons and daughters, and the very first days of the war sent their mothers to the front. And every minute, every second, mothers were with their hearts where their children fought.

The mother of the son gave birth not for the war!
Not for the war, the primer gave him,
Anxious, proud, sad.
Lifelong in love, like a mother,
Ready to darn and dream
And wait for mean, sluggish letters
From some part of the country.

The mother of the son gave birth not for the war! (N. Burova)

Presenter: Yes, her child is always dear to a mother - even if he is not a genius, not a star, not very lucky. But the Mother escorted her son to the front, with her last strength tried to encourage him, going to a mortal battle ... And somewhere far away her son, her blood was met by an enemy bullet. He fell face down, hugging the ground with his hands, as one hugs a mother, and finally called in a fading voice: “MAMA ...” Many people turn to God and mother before death ... And if a mother could, she would give her life, to bring back the life of your son or daughter. That's what a mother's love can do!

The writer A. Fadeev has exciting lines addressed to his mother:

“But if even in the days of war people have a piece of bread, and there are clothes on their bodies, and if trains run along the rails, and cherries bloom in the garden, and the flame rages in the blast furnace, and someone’s invisible force raises the warrior from the ground or bed when he falls ill or is wounded - all these are the hands of my mother - mine, and his, and him.

She escorted them out of the village -
And since that day, I haven't slept well.
In what region were they covered with snow?
Where did you find the stray bullet?
Years go by.
The mother is patiently waiting.
Waiting outside the village in bad weather and frost,
For a long time, the old woman cried tears.
She chose one concern -
Walk here the rest of my life is small,
And again see them off to war,
And repeat what they then said.
Eyes do not see. But the past hurts -
Rivers of memories run...
The sons did not leave her.
Sons are alive.
They are with her. Forever!
(T. Tetsaev)

Leading: There is nothing worse in the world than mothers burying their sons.

And how many such mothers do not know where their children are buried: a son or a daughter. The war took from mothers the most precious thing - the child. But until the end of her days, the mother will remember her child, come to him, wait for him.

Slide with Frolova V.A.

Class teacher: I want to tell you about my grandmother Frolova Varvara Alekseevna. ( Watch an excerpt from the film about the war "I Remember")

Memory area, memory area,
This memory knocks on the whiskey.
Mothers come to the gray stones
Grey-haired from longing.

Tears tremble on the eyelashes.
Like three screams on a gray stone
Three red carnations lie.
Memory area, memory area,
dark night and clear day
Excite people's memory
Unquenchable by its fire.

Woman and war... What could be more unnatural? A woman who gives life, protects her, and the war that takes away this life... Orphaned mother of a soldier, you are not alone in the world. All mothers shared your loss. We are all grateful to her that she raised a real man, a defender, a hero. But let there be no more wars, no more maternal grief!

Host: The war has passed... But the world is again restless and “hot spots” are emerging in different parts of the planet. And again, the crimson reflections of recent conflagrations come to life in the blood. One of the tragic pages of our history was the war in Afghanistan.

Before you are the newspapers Petrovskie Vesti, the newspaper of the city of Svetlograd, Stavropol Territory.

I want to talk about the woman-mother Maria Kovtun

The first cargo-200 from Afghanistan came to Svetlograd with her son Mikhail Kovtun.

Moderator: What about the recent events in Chechnya? How much grief this war brought to mothers who lost their sons. Rulers come and go. But who will return the mother of the son who died in peacetime?

Host: You all know that Vadim Kizilov studied at our school. Do you know how he died?

Listen to his mother's poems (Student 11)

Reader. mother moan

“A corpse came from Afghanistan”, -
Words casually thrown on the bus sometime
“Yes, for you he is just a corpse
And for me it is exorbitant, overwork, ”-
Said the mother of the dead soldier
“With love I raised and cherished him
And he grew up a hero for joy and glory
In soy incomplete twentieth spring
He died for the Motherland, for the honor of his state”
My dear son sleeps in a sound sleep
Flowers on the mound a little breeze sways
The gray-haired mother says with a groan
"Wake up son"
The soldier is silent dressed all in granite
And the moan of the mother does not hear.
P.A. Kizilova

Leading: For loyalty and steadfastness, for strength and tenderness, glory to you, wife, widow, bride and mother!

Leading: We bow to all women, mothers, sisters, friends for your selfless love, kindness, for your hands that do good and justice on earth, decorate life, fill it with meaning, make it happy.

If a moment of silence is declared for every person who died in World War II...

The world would be silent for 50 years!!!

(Moment of silence) (Metronome)

slide 34

A woman doesn't need to fight
Let her, beautiful and fragile,
It will be just a woman and a mother,
Keeping her hearth like a dove...

A woman does not need to fight?
But the soldiers now remember:
- It was a shame to hug the earth,
If the girl's chain is raised.

Quiet in the fields. Though the years go by
Memorable time is dear to the heart,
And at the meetings the veterans are waiting
His brave Komsomol leader,

Her hands are ready to kiss
All soldiers, older and younger.
Glory to female prowess!

But still
A woman does not need to fight!

Outcome

Classroom teacher: Thank you! We will definitely talk more about the war. As long as memory lives, we live with you. This means there is hope for the future. I hope that the time will come when the world will think about the mother's heart, which hurts for her sons, will pity her and there will be no war on earth.

This material is taken from various sources and tells about several participants in the Great Patriotic War.
This article is a tribute to the memory of all those who died, but won in that terrible, inhuman war against fascism.
________________________________

Women of war. Who were they? Doctors, nurses, snipers, pilots, partisans, photojournalists, real heroes of their country!

The first woman to be awarded the high title of Hero of the Soviet Union was the 18-year-old partisan Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. She was awarded the highest degree of distinction in 1942. And in total, 90 women became Heroes of the Soviet Union for their exploits during the Great Patriotic War, more than half of them were awarded the title posthumously.

***
Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko was born on July 12, 1916 in the village (now the city) Belaya Tserkov. Then the family moved to Kyiv. From the very first days of the war, Lyudmila Pavlichenko volunteered for the front. Near Odessa, she received a baptism of fire by opening a battle account.

By July 1942, Pavlichenko already had 309 destroyed Nazis on his account (including 36 snipers). In addition, during the period of defensive battles, she was able to train many snipers.
Every day, as soon as dawn breaks, Lyudmila went "hunting." For hours, or even whole days, in the rain and in the sun, carefully disguised, she lay in ambush, waiting for the appearance of the “target”.

Once on Bezymyannaya, six submachine gunners ambushed her. They noticed her the day before, when she fought an unequal battle all day and even evening. The Nazis sat down above the road, along which they brought ammunition to the neighboring regiment of the division. For a long time, in a plastunsky way, Pavlichenko climbed the mountain. A bullet cut off an oak branch at the very temple, another pierced the top of the cap. And then Pavlichenko fired two shots - the one who almost hit her in the temple fell silent, and the one who almost hit her in the forehead. Four of the living fired hysterically, and again, crawling away, she hit exactly where the shot came from. Three others remained where they were, only one escaped.

Pavlichenko froze. Now we have to wait. One of them may have pretended to be dead, and perhaps he is waiting for her to move. Or the one who ran away has already brought other submachine gunners with him. The fog thickened. Finally, Pavlichenko decided to crawl towards her enemies. I took the dead man's machine gun, a light machine gun. In the meantime, another group of German soldiers approached, and their indiscriminate firing was again heard from the fog. Lyudmila answered now with a machine gun, then with a machine gun, so that the enemies would imagine that there were several fighters here. Lyudmila was able to get out of this battle alive.

Sergeant Lyudmila Pavlichenko was transferred to a neighboring regiment. Hitler's sniper brought too many troubles. He had already killed two of the regiment's snipers.

He had his own maneuver: he crawled out of the nest and went to approach the enemy. Lyuda lay for a long time, waiting. The day passed, the enemy sniper showed no signs of life. She decided to stay the night. After all, the German sniper was probably used to sleeping in a dugout and therefore would be exhausted faster than she. So they lay for days without moving. In the morning it was foggy again. His head was heavy, his throat was itching, his clothes were soaked with dampness, and even his hands ached.

Slowly, reluctantly, the fog cleared, and Pavlichenko saw how, hiding behind a model of driftwood, the sniper moved in barely noticeable jerks. Getting closer and closer to her. She moved forward. The stiff body became heavy and clumsy. Centimeter by centimeter, overcoming the cold rocky bedding, holding the rifle in front of her, Luda did not take her eyes off the optical sight. The second took on a new, almost infinite length. Suddenly, in the scope, Luda caught watery eyes, yellow hair, a heavy jaw. The enemy sniper looked at her, their eyes met. A tense face distorted grimace, he realized - a woman! The moment decided life - she pulled the trigger. For a saving second, Luda's shot was ahead of him. She pressed herself to the ground and managed to see in the scope how an eye filled with horror blinked. Hitler's submachine gunners were silent. Lyuda waited, then crawled towards the sniper. He lay still aiming at her.
She took out the Hitlerite's sniper book and read: Dunkirk. Next to it was a number. More and more French names and numbers. More than four hundred French and English died at his hands.

(The story "Duel" by N. Atarov was written about the fight between Lyudmila Pavlichenko and a German sniper)

***
Marina Raskova. The pilot, Hero of the Soviet Union, set several women's records for the distance of flights. Created a women's combat light bomber regiment, nicknamed by the Germans "Night Witches".

She was born on March 28, 1912 in Moscow.
In 1937, as a navigator, she participated in setting the world aviation distance record on the AIR-12 aircraft; in 1938 - in setting 2 world aviation distance records on the MP-1 seaplane.

On September 24-25, 1938, on an ANT-37 plane, Rodina made a non-stop flight from Moscow to the Far East (Kerby) with a length of 6450 km (in a straight line - 5910 km). During a forced landing in the taiga, she jumped out with a parachute and was found only after 10 days. During the flight, a women's world aviation distance record was set.
When the Great Patriotic War began, Raskova used her position and personal contacts with Stalin to obtain permission to form women's combat units.

With the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, Raskova made every effort and connection to obtain permission to form a separate female combat unit. In the autumn of 1941, with the official permission of the government, she began to create women's squadrons. Raskova searched all over the country for pupils of flying clubs and flight schools, only women were selected to be part of the air regiments - from the commander to the attendants.

Under her leadership, air regiments were created and sent to the front - the 586th fighter, 587th bomber and 588th night bomber. For fearlessness and skill, the Germans called the pilots of the regiment "night witches."

Raskova herself, one of the first women to be awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, was awarded two Orders of Lenin and the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st class. She is also the author of the book "Notes of the Navigator":

“The girls of the air regiments flew on U-2 (Po-2) light night bombers. They affectionately called their machines "swallows," but their commonly known name is "Heavenly slug." Plywood airplane with low speed. Each flight on the Po-2 was fraught with dangers. But neither enemy fighters nor anti-aircraft fire that met the "swallows" on the way could stop their flight to the target. I had to fly at an altitude of 400-500 meters. Under these conditions, it cost nothing to shoot down the low-speed Po-2s simply from a heavy machine gun. And often the planes returned from flights with riddled planes.

Our little Po-2s haunted the Germans. In any weather, they appeared over enemy positions at low altitudes and bombed them. The girls had to make 8-9 sorties per night. But there were such nights when they received the task: to bomb "to the maximum." This meant that there should be as many sorties as possible. And then their number reached 16-18 in one night, as it was on the Oder. The pilots were literally taken out of the cockpits and carried in their arms - they fell down. The Germans also appreciated the courage and bravery of our female pilots: the Nazis called them "night witches."

***
When the Great Patriotic War began, thousands of girls applied to be sent to the front. In 1942, a large group of girls left the city for the front. I left voluntarily. Gone to immortality.
Ordinary girls. There were 75 of them in this group. The girls ended up in the 1077th anti-aircraft artillery regiment, which defended Stalingrad.

From the memoirs of M. Yu. Ziganshina:
“I got to the front as part of the first echelon sent to the front. He arrived in Stalingrad. Served in the anti-aircraft artillery regiment. My duties included determining the height of enemy aircraft, their course. According to my information, anti-aircraft gunners opened fire on aircraft ... We fought to the death.
I especially remember one of the fights. In one hour, our artillery shot down 16 enemy planes. In Stalingrad, I was wounded, and there I was awarded the medal "For Courage". There were many such effective battles. In one of them, the regiment destroyed 14 aircraft, 63 tanks, and a lot of enemy manpower. Anti-aircraft gunners left such a deep mark on the history of the defense of Stalingrad that one of the streets of the hero city was called Anti-aircraft gunners street.

***
The former anti-aircraft gunner Natalya Sholokh recalls the Battle of Stalingrad.

Having suffered a defeat near Moscow, Hitler decided to capture the Caucasus, rich in oil, and the grain regions of Russia. He moved his troops to Stalingrad. The German command sought to prepare the ground for the advance of the ground forces. For this purpose, aviation was used. Enemy bombers escorted by "Junkers" were large groups for the bombing of Stalingrad.

The city was full of fire and smoke. Buildings burned and collapsed, people died. The strike of German aviation in Stalingrad was taken over by anti-aircraft gunners, among whom there were many women, girls 19-20 years old. Young girls who came to the front from school, stood at the guns and instruments, replacing the men from whom the special battalions were formed to defend Stalingrad.

From early morning until late at night, they repelled attacks by German aircraft, shot down planes, did not allow them to reach strategic targets, and forced them to drop bombs at random with anti-aircraft fire. Many days were terrible, like, for example, August 23, 1942, when the sky of Stalingrad was almost black from flying German planes. The Nazis sometimes made 200 sorties a day. They fiercely bombed the city, but the defenders of Stalingrad did not give up. "Not a step back - behind the Volga!" - We clearly followed this order, recalls Natalya Sholokh.

“We didn’t perform feats: we didn’t participate in hand-to-hand combat, we didn’t go on reconnaissance, but every day, risking our lives, we repelled the attacks of German aircraft. To be honest, we did not think that we would remain alive after such a massacre. There were 20 girls on our battery. All of them showed genuine courage, steadfastness, no one groaned under the weight of front-line life. Both in the heat and in the cold, they slept in tents, got wet in the rain, and did hard men's work. They withstood everything: heat, cold, bombing, and shelling.

I will tell you about some episodes from our life, which will shed light on the price at which victory was won, what the anti-aircraft gunners, young girls, had to endure. Scouts Raya Kochukova and Anya Didenko discovered a large group of enemy aircraft at a long distance. They reported this to the battalion commander. The battery was preparing to open fire. Having injured my eye during the bombing, I did not work on the rangefinder that day, I stood at the post in the ditch at a distance of 200 meters from the battery.

When the German bombers approached, which were accompanied by "Junkers", the battery opened fire. Anti-aircraft guns fired a battery that disrupted their ranks. The “deadly retinue” was moving towards the central crossing, through which military equipment, military units passed day and night, wounded soldiers and officers were transported to the rear from the front line. The planes almost caught up with me. Suddenly, at some point, a Junkers separated from the group of Heinkels and began to dive at me. I got scared.

I tossed about in my "refuge", but at that moment a huge tumbleweed bush came from nowhere on the left. I grabbed this bush, sat down in the ditch and covered my head with weeds, as if this could save me. But that's what saved me from death.
The Junkers, having descended to the desired height, suddenly began to come out of the dive above me. Apparently, he decided that he was mistaken, taking the bush for the target. All this lasted for a few seconds. Having gained altitude, the Junkers joined the bomber group. I couldn't help myself from fear. I did not believe that this happened to me, and that I survived.

It is hard to put into words what you feel when a Junkers dives at you or a group of enemy planes comes loaded with bombs that can be dropped on you at any moment and end your life. This is not easy to talk about, and even more difficult to experience.
You measure the height and range of enemy aircraft and see through the optics how fascist planes are moving towards you. But you need to forget about fear - the battery needs accurate data, the outcome of the shooting depends on them. And all this happened under flying fragments from mortar fire.
The sun beat down relentlessly. Eyes were watering from dust and smoke, my mouth was dry, I was thirsty, but it was impossible to move away from guns and instruments. The heat was soon replaced by cold. Hands froze, touching the metal, legs and backs froze.

Once, one of the scout girls lit a stove in a dugout. The Germans, seeing the smoke, began to hit the battery with a mortar. I was sitting on my bunk at the entrance to the dugout, almost all the girls gathered around me, as they discussed the events of the previous day. I thought that if the shell fell into the dugout, then we could all die en masse. Who will work on the instruments tomorrow? She asked everyone to take their seats.

In less than 10 minutes, the shell slammed right into the dugout. The pieces scattered in all directions. If we had not left the place where we were sitting, then everyone would have died. Two huge fragments crashed into the wall above my bunk. It’s good that I left that place, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to tell about these events now. The shelling lasted more than an hour, there were wounded.

Sanitary instructor Anya Rakovskaya with a medical bag under fire ran to the wounded to help them. But the worst thing was when the German planes bombed the battery. They made visits one after another, trying to destroy the battery, but they did not succeed. The fire of our anti-aircraft guns did not give them the opportunity to approach desired distance so that the bombs fall on the gun crews. Bombs flew past, did not reach the target. Having finished the bombing, the Messerschmitts tried to dive and dive into the gun crews.

The gunners were their direct fire. Those were terrible days. By order of the battalion commander, the girls - Klavdia Goryacheva, Maria Kuzmenko, Katya Novikova, Larisa Polevaya, Pavlina Kislova and I - under fire served shells to the gunners. The shells were 100 meters from the guns. We dragged them crawling, and each projectile weighed 16 kg. What we felt in those moments cannot be expressed in words.

***
They say that war has no woman's face. Yes, this is true, but the Great Patriotic War showed that women and young girls fought shoulder to shoulder with men at the front, defending their land, their home, their family.

Happy is he who survived this terrible war. And many gave their lives for the freedom of the Motherland, they gave it for the happiness of future generations. So let them be worthy of it. Let them not forget those who won the victory. They were young, full of energy, they also wanted to live. War is death, loss, tears, blood. Young people, be worthy of their feat, take care of your native land.
Eternal glory to soldiers and officers, participants of the Great Patriotic War!

Muslims took an active part in the war and contributed to the victory

This year marks the 67th anniversary of the Great Patriotic War. It would seem that so many years have passed, and that pain should be dulled, forgotten. But no! How can the mind and heart forget the terrible tragedy that shook our country?

Thousands of volunteers went to the front and fought to the last, to the bitter end!

The pain that we had to endure, over the years, on the contrary, becomes more and more tangible. After all, every year those who fought for the Motherland leave us, thanks to whom we live under a peaceful blue sky.

It should be noted that the whole country rose to the defense against the aggressor, against fascism. Not only men went to war, but also old people, children helped with everything they could. Women also played an important role.

Women left a bright mark in the history of this cruel war. History remembers them, respects and appreciates them. Many glorious pages of the military chronicle were written by fragile female hands, which during the war years took upon themselves all male professions, male concerns. Work in the rear became the main female profession, with which they coped with "excellent".

According to the 13th article of the Law on universal military duty, adopted by the IV session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on September 1, 1939, women, along with men, had the right to perform military service. The only difference is that they had to have medical, veterinary and special technical training. They could be involved in training camps. In wartime, women with such training could be drafted into the army and navy for auxiliary and special service. From the first days of the war, about half of the applications to become a volunteer came from the female half of the country's population. And it simply could not be otherwise, because the Motherland is one for all, and the feeling of patriotism is inherent in any person, regardless of nationality, race, gender, social status.

There is such an expression: "Love for the Motherland - from faith." Any misfortune and grief in different historical epochs and years has always united all the people.

Created on June 30, 1941, the State Defense Committee (GKO) adopted a number of resolutions on the mobilization of women to serve in the air defense forces, communications, internal security, on military highways ... Several Komsomol mobilizations were carried out, in particular, the mobilization of Komsomol women in the Military Marine Fleet, Air Force and Signal Corps (http://topwar.ru).

Many legendary Soviet films tell us young people about the exploits of girls: remember at least the films “The Dawns Here Are Quiet” or “Only Old Men Go to Battle”. When you see such courage, courage, courage, fighting acumen of very young girls, you become ashamed of yourself. We become limp for any, the smallest reason, and even without it, and those girls sometimes didn’t even have time to think, and after thinking, make decisions. They acted decisively, turned on all their skill and went forward, towards their enemy.

Of course, during the war, doctors who provided timely assistance were of great importance. So, during the Second World War, more than 40% were female doctors and more than 80% were middle and junior doctors. medical workers.

Many women for services to the Fatherland were awarded the highest title: "Hero of the Soviet Union."

Both machine gunners and scouts

The Great Patriotic War is the clearest example of how women can master all military professions, because they were machine gunners, scouts, signalers, tankers, pilots, and snipers.

It may seem to some that the phrase "woman soldier" sounds strange, that she should not have climbed under fire. But again, I repeat that war has no face and no gender. War concerns everyone without exception, and everyone must do everything to the best of their ability.

Moving a little away from our topic, let us recall how, for example, women helped Imam Shamil during the years of the Caucasian War. There is a well-known case during the defense of Akhulgo, when women dressed in men's clothes and, with their total number, created the illusion that there were a lot of highlanders to the enemy. Women then helped their imam with everything they could.

Returning to the topic of our conversation, I note that the same and, perhaps, even more difficult situation developed in those 40s. The question was about enslavement, about the sovereignty of the native country. So how could women be left out?

Tin soldiers

It is impossible to discount the rear of the country, where women stood like real tin soldiers, ready to do any of the dirtiest work. They stood behind the machines, made shells, helped dig trenches, worked in mines, at metallurgical plants. Yes, you can't list everything. I would like to pay tribute to the memory of these women heroes.

Giving an assessment of the feat of arms of Soviet women, who went through the entire military path together with male soldiers, Marshal of the Soviet Union A. I. Eremenko wrote: “There is hardly a single military specialty that our brave women did not cope with as well as their brothers , husbands and fathers.

For 1418 days they walked along the front roads, overcoming all the difficulties and hardships of military life, admiring men with their courage and endurance, inspiring young inexperienced soldiers. In the last strikes against the fascist army, a new strategic weapon was used - searchlights, the calculations of which consisted mainly of girls. Soviet patriots were proud of their participation in this important and responsible mission.

“The enemy was blinded and confused by the bright beams of searchlights, and while the Nazis came to their senses from a powerful light strike, our artillery and tanks broke through the enemy’s defenses, and the infantrymen went on the attack; together with the projectorists, 40 female snipers also took part in this historic operation (it happened during the attack on Berlin. - Ed.). And the Motherland appreciated the feats of arms of its brave daughters, surrounded them with attention and care. Over 150 thousand women were awarded military orders and medals for military merits in the fight against the Nazi invaders. Many of them received several combat awards. 200 women were awarded Orders of Soldier's Glory, and four patriots became full holders of the Order of Glory” (A.F. Shmeleva, “Soviet Women in the Great Patriotic War”).

guerrilla war

One of milestones guerrilla warfare also appeared in the fight against the enemy. The number of female partisans is large, here they coped with their tasks no worse than those who openly fought.

I remember that in our home library there was a book dedicated to Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. I loved this book and every time I re-read it, I admired the courage of this girl in a new way. She is the first woman to be awarded the title "Hero of the Soviet Union" (posthumously) during the Great Patriotic War.

One of the witnesses describes the execution itself as follows: “Until the gallows, they led her by the arms. She walked straight, with her head held high, silently, proudly. They took me to the gallows. There were many Germans and civilians around the gallows. They led her to the gallows, ordered to expand the circle around the gallows and began to photograph her ... She had a bag with bottles with her. She shouted: “Citizens! You do not stand, do not look, but you need to help fight! This death of mine is my achievement.” After that, one officer swung, while others shouted at her. Then she said: “Comrades, victory will be ours. German soldiers, before it's too late, surrender." The officer yelled angrily: "Rus!" - “The Soviet Union is invincible and will not be defeated,” she said all this at the moment when she was photographed ... Then they set up a box. She, without any command, stood on the box herself. A German approached and began to put on a noose. At that time, she shouted: “No matter how much you hang us, you don’t hang everyone, we are 170 million! But our comrades will avenge you for me!” She said this already with a noose around her neck. She wanted to say something else, but at that moment the box was removed from under her feet, and she hung. She grabbed the rope with her hand, but the German hit her on the hands. After that, everyone dispersed” (M. M. Gorinov, “Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya” // Domestic History).

I wonder if we could face death so courageously?

Let us also not forget the contribution of the Muslims of our country to the cause of the defeat of German fascism. Here is how the President of the Academy of Military Sciences, General of the Army Makhmut Gareev writes about him: “Our victory in the Great Patriotic War is of global significance. The Muslim peoples of the former Soviet Union, as well as the peoples of other religions, took an active part in the war and contributed to the victory. Among those who received government awards - orders and medals on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War - tens and hundreds of thousands of representatives of the Muslim people. More than 200 people from my native people, the Tatars, became Heroes of the Soviet Union alone. There are many of them among other Muslim peoples” (http://damir-sh.livejournal.com).

Muslim women also played a huge role in the war, helping their fathers, husbands, and sons.

Time will never be able to erase from memory the feat that our grandfathers and fathers accomplished in the most difficult years of our country. Women's help turned out to be very useful, we have no right to write off the merits of the fair sex.

In the article “On the moral character of our people”, M. I. Kalinin wrote: “... everything that has gone before pales before the great epic of the current war, before the heroism and sacrifice of Soviet women, who show civic prowess, endurance in the loss of loved ones and enthusiasm in the fight against such a force and , I would say, majesty, which has never been seen in the past.

Nobody is forgotten and nothing is forgotten. We promise to remember you always. Thanks to you, we live in peace and harmony no matter what. I would like to sincerely thank our older generation for giving us the opportunity to LIVE!

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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 (the city of Engels), where they were trained, had previously graduated from flight schools, flying clubs, had experience as instructors, and 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 covering industrial centers from the air, defended 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. Enemy planes appeared from the southwest like a flock. 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 skillful 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. In this battle, Colonel Danilov, Sergeant Litvyak, senior lieutenants Shutov and Nina Belyaeva, Lieutenant Dranishchev distinguished themselves, who shot down one plane each 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 remain in the memory. 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, making 4419 sorties, conducting 125 air battles, during which the pilots shot down 38 enemy aircraft.
In June 1942, the combat life of the 588th Women's Night Bomber Aviation Regiment began - commander E.D. Bershanskaya. She already had ten years of experience in aviation, she headed one of the civil aviation units 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 manpower and equipment of the enemy, 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 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 participated in the battles for the North Caucasus, Kuban, Crimea, Belarus, Poland, East Prussia, ending their combat 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. By orders of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, over 20 thanks 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 on 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 precise 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 of the army in the field. 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 Bagration operation, 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 the 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 female 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.
There are well-known sayings: war has no woman's 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 a crew of 7 girls, who distinguished themselves in Karelian Isthmus in the summer of 1944 during the breakthrough of defense in depth. For accurate, effective 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 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 of various ages and specialties are in the army: on anti-aircraft guns, in the signal troops, snipers, at the helm of an aircraft and tank controls, 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. Here a difficult task arose 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 large cities and industrial areas, women 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 defended 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 thousand 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 communications 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 individual divisions- 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, ZN Stepanova graduated from the Kiev military school of communications. 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 made 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 across the Volga.

I told them that at the new command post we would be able to deploy walkie-talkies, and that this alone 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 instructions of the military council, but demanded that I give my word of honor that as soon as the conditions necessary for work were created, we would ferry 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.
Dozens of examples confirm these words of the marshal, 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 Southwestern 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 In 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 to replace the 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 individual positions in armored military educational institutions and in the rear institutions of the Red Army of military men with civilian personnel 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. Comrades-in-arms carried out the order of a brave woman to reach Berlin on the "Combat 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 trainee. 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. On 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. Kalinina, who graduated from the Military Academy of Mechanization and Motorization of the Red Army in 1939, served as a senior assistant to the head of the department (later head of the department) for the repair and evacuation of armored and mechanized troops of the Southern Front. 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 of 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 military deeds of women, marked with 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. Turov, at the age of 20 she graduated from the Moscow Military Engineering School (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. Throughout the engineering brigade, 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 222,000 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. The total number of citizens covered by Vsevobuch was 9862 thousand people. This was almost one and a half times the size of the active army, together with the reserves of the Headquarters, 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 political work with mobilized girls.

E.N. Zavaliy fought as the commander of a marine platoon. 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 along 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 the last days of the war ... For exploits on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, 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 Guard Lieutenant Colonel of the 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 she was called a pyrotechnic surgeon in the Black Sea Fleet.
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 in 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, 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 in the 176th separate engineer battalion of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet other.
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 Astrakhan steamship, from a sailor and a stoker to captain Z.P. Savchenko (a navigator by education, 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 formations, 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, Motherland, 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 hazardous conditions which are especially common 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 of 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. The Red Cross played an important role in the training of medical personnel, 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, remember Russian-Turkish war 1877 - 1878, when for the first time at the official level nurses were trained 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. more than 225,000 nurses and activists of the Russian Red Cross Society came to medical institutions. 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 respect the international laws of immunity medical personnel, ambulance 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 at the operating tables until they fainted from overwork, they 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 - to present to the government award with the medal "For Military Merit" or "For Courage" 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 the Tomsk region as a 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 whom 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.
Dasha Sevastopolskaya is known to us as the first sister of mercy who provided assistance on the battlefield to the wounded defenders of Sevastopol in the Crimean War of 1853-1856. 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 is a considerable problem that required the adoption of a number of regulatory documents to solve it. 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. Stalingrad. We know about the exploits of 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 feat of arms and labor 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 holders of the 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 Research". 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 - militant Slavs and used the development of society, the progressive change in her views on her role in it and the realization of 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 across 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 patriot women, 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, taking over the baton of their predecessors previous wars, worthily carried it 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 of military activity and the numerical increase in women in the army during the 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 civilian life, to peaceful work, to the restoration of destroyed cities, farms, they 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 in 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 difficult fiery years Great Patriotic.

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