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Soviet Women In World War II
Soviet women played an important role in World War II (whose Eastern Front (World War II), Eastern Front was known as the Great Patriotic War (term), Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Union). While most worked in industry, transport, agriculture and other civilian roles, working double shifts to free up enlisted men to fight and increase military production, a sizable number of women served in the army. The majority were in medical units. There were 800,000 women who served in the Soviet Armed Forces during the war, which is roughly 5 percent of total military personnel. The number of women in the Soviet military in 1943 was 348,309, 473,040 in 1944, and then 463,503 in 1945. Of the medical personnel in the Red Army, 40% of paramedics, 43% of surgeons, 46% of doctors, 57% of medical assistants, and 100% of nurses were women. Nearly 200,000 were decorated and 89 of them eventually received the Soviet Union's highest award, the Hero of the Soviet Union, among which some served as p ...
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Stalingrad
Volgograd,. geographical renaming, formerly Tsaritsyn. (1589–1925) and Stalingrad. (1925–1961), is the largest city and the administrative centre of Volgograd Oblast, Russia. The city lies on the western bank of the Volga, covering an area of , with a population of slightly over one million residents. Volgograd is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, 16th-largest city by population size in Russia, the third-largest city of the Southern Federal District, and the Volga#Biggest cities on the shores of the Volga, fourth-largest city on the Volga. The city was founded as the fortress of ''Tsaritsyn'' in 1589. By the 19th century, Tsaritsyn had become an important river-port and commercial centre, leading to its rapid population growth. In November 1917, at the start of the Russian Civil War, Tsaritsyn came under Bolshevik control. It fell briefly to the White Army in mid-1919 but Battle of Tsaritsyn, returned to Bolshevik control in January 1920. In 1925, the city ...
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Roza Shanina
Roza Georgiyevna Shanina (, ; 3 April 1924 – 28 January 1945) was a Soviet sniper during World War II who was credited with over 50 kills. Shanina volunteered for the military after the death of her brother in 1941 and chose to be a sniper on the front line. Praised for her shooting accuracy, Shanina was capable of precisely hitting enemy personnel and making doublets (two target hits by two rounds fired in quick succession). In 1944, a Canadian newspaper described Shanina as "the unseen terror of East Prussia". She became the first servicewoman of the 3rd Belorussian Front to receive the Order of Glory. Shanina was killed in action during the East Prussian Offensive while shielding the severely wounded commander of an artillery unit. Shanina's actions received praise during her lifetime, but conflicted with the Soviet policy of sparing snipers from heavy battles. Shanina kept a war diary that was first published in 1965. Early life Roza Shanina was born on 3 Ap ...
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Lyudmila Pavlichenko
Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko (; 10 October 1974) was a Soviet sniper in the Red Army during World War II. She is credited with killing 309 enemy combatants, thus being considered as one of the deadliest snipers in history. She served in the Red Army during the siege of Odessa and the siege of Sevastopol, during the early stages of the fighting on the Eastern Front. After she was injured in battle by a mortar shell, she was evacuated to Moscow. After she recovered from her injuries, she trained other Red Army snipers and was a public spokeswoman for the Red Army. In 1942, she toured the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. After the war ended in 1945, she was reassigned as a senior researcher for the Soviet Navy. She died of a stroke at the age of 58. Early life and education Lyudmila Belova was born in Bila Tserkva, Kiev Governorate, in the Russian Empire (now in Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine) on , to Mikhail Belov, a locksmith from Petrograd, and his wife Elena Tr ...
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Snipers Of The Soviet Union
Snipers of the Soviet Union played an important role mainly on the Eastern Front of World War II, apart from other preceding and subsequent conflicts. In World War II, Soviet snipers used the 7.62×54mmR rifle cartridge with light, heavy, armour-piercing (B-30), armour-piercing-incendiary (B-32), zeroing-and-incendiary (P3), and tracer bullets. Most Soviet World War II snipers carried a combat load of 120 rifle cartridges in the field. During World War II, 428,335 individuals, including partisans, are believed to have received Red Army sniper training, and of those 9,534 obtained higher-level qualifications. Unlike the militaries of other states, these snipers could be men or women. Between 1941–1945, a total of 2,484 Soviet female snipers were functioning in this role, of whom about 500 survived the war. History In 1932, the "sharpshooters' movement" started under the supervision of Kliment Voroshilov. In 1938, Red Army snipers took part in the Battle of Lake Khasan agai ...
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Valentin Markov
Valentin Vasilevich Markov (; 21 January 1910 1 July 1992) was the Soviet Air Force officer posted to command the women's 587th Bomber Aviation Regiment (later honored with the guards designation and renamed as the 125th Guards Bomber Aviation Regiment) after the death of its original commanding officer and founder, Marina Raskova. Early life Markov was born on 21 January 1910 to a Russian family in Pakhomovo village, located in the present-day Moscow oblast. Before joining the military in October 1927 he worked at a factory, and upon enlistment he trained at the 1st Soviet Joint Military School and subsequently the 2nd Military Aviation School of Pilots, which he graduated from in 1933; in 1938 he was admitted to the Communist Party. Later he took part in combat during the Winter War for which he was awarded the Medal "For Courage" and an Order of Lenin. World War II Immediately after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Markov was deployed to the frontlines of the co ...
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125th Guards Dive Bomber Regiment
The 125th Borisov Guards Bomber Aviation Regiment named after Marina Raskova () was one of the three Soviet women's aviation regiments founded by Marina Raskova at the start of the Second World War. The unit was founded as the 587th Bomber Aviation Regiment in the 223rd Bomber Air Division, 2nd Bomber Aviation Corps of the 16th Air Army on 8 October 1941, and later honored with the guards designation, being renamed 125th Guards Bomber Aviation Regiment in September 1943 and reorganized into 4th Guards Bomber Aviation Division, 1st Bomber Aviation Corps, 3rd Air Army, in the 1st Baltic Front. Unlike the 46th Taman Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment, which used Polikarpov Po-2 utility aircraft, the unit was assigned modern Petlyakov Pe-2 aircraft, which caused some resentment among male units that had older aircraft. Throughout the course of the war, the unit flew 1,134 missions and dropped over 980 tons of bombs on the Axis. Notable members Five members of the unit were awa ...
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Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalitarianism, totalitarian dictatorship. The Third Reich, meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", referred to the Nazi claim that Nazi Germany was the successor to the earlier Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) and German Empire (1871–1918). The Third Reich, which the Nazis referred to as the Thousand-Year Reich, ended in May 1945, after 12 years, when the Allies of World War II, Allies defeated Germany and entered the capital, Berlin, End of World War II in Europe, ending World War II in Europe. After Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany in 1933, the Nazi Party began to eliminate political opposition and consolidate power. A 1934 German referendum confirmed Hitler as sole ''Führer'' (leader). Power was centralised in Hitler's person, an ...
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Biplane
A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While a biplane wing structure has a structural advantage over a monoplane, it produces more drag than a monoplane wing. Improved structural techniques, better materials and higher speeds made the biplane configuration obsolete for most purposes by the late 1930s. Biplanes offer several advantages over conventional cantilever monoplane designs: they permit lighter wing structures, low wing loading and smaller span for a given wing area. However, interference between the airflow over each wing increases drag substantially, and biplanes generally need extensive bracing, which causes additional drag. Biplanes are distinguished from tandem wing arrangements, where the wings are placed forward and aft, instead of above and below. The term is als ...
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Polikarpov Po-2
The Polikarpov Po-2 (also U-2 before 1944, for its initial Glossary of Russian and USSR aviation acronyms: Aircraft designations, ''uchebnyy'', 'training', role as a flight instruction aircraft) was an all-weather multirole Soviet Union, Soviet biplane, nicknamed ''Kukuruznik'' (,Gunston 1995, p. 292. NATO reporting name "Mule"). The reliable, uncomplicated design of the Po-2 made it an ideal trainer aircraft, as well as doubling as a low-cost attack aircraft, ground attack, aerial reconnaissance, psychological warfare and liaison aircraft during war, proving to be one of the most versatile light combat types to be built in the Soviet Union.Angelucci and Matricardi 1978, p. 214. As of 1978, it remained in production for a longer period of time than any other Soviet-era aircraft. It holds the distinction of the only biplane to take down a jet aircraft. Production figures for Polikarpov U-2 and Po-2 bombers and trainers combined are between 20,000 and 30,000
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Yevdokiya Bershanskaya
Yevdokiya Davidovna Bershanskaya (Russian: Евдокия Давыдовна Бершанская; 6 February 1913, in Dobrovolnoye, Stavropol – 16 September 1982, in Moscow) was the regimental commander of the 46th Taman Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment during World War II and became the only woman ever awarded the Order of Suvorov. Under her command twenty-three aviators in the regiment became Heroes of the Soviet Union for their successful bombing missions against the Axis. Early life Bershanskaya was born on 6 February 1913 in Dobrovolnoye, in what was then the Russian Empire. After both of her parents died in the Russian Civil War she was raised by her uncle. After graduating from secondary school in Blagodarny she enrolled in the Bataysk School of Pilots in 1931, where after graduating she trained other pilots from 1932 to 1939, before she was appointed as commander of the 218th Special Operations Aviation Squadron and became a deputy of the Krasnodar City Counci ...
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