Military medicine during the Great Patriotic War. How they were treated during the Great Patriotic War
In those difficult times, no one ever said anything bad about doctors, nurses, medical instructors and orderlies - simply because they were worth their weight in gold and were needed like air, they were prayed for and respected...
Military paramedic Komsomol member O. Maslichenko provides first aid to wounded soldiers. Southern front. 
Medical instructor V. Nemtsova provides first aid to a wounded soldier on a village street on the Voronezh Front. 
Time taken: March 1943. Author: Yakov Ryumkin
Carrying the wounded in a Soviet field hospital. 
Author: Anatoly Garanin
Unloading Soviet wounded from a ZiS-5 ambulance truck at a field hospital. Kalinin Front. 
Time taken: August 1943
A Soviet military medic provides assistance to residents of a liberated village. 
A Soviet medical officer examines liberated prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp. The emaciated survivor is engineer Rudolf Scherm from Vienna. But the name of the doctor is unknown... 
Location: Auschwitz, Poland. Time taken: January 1945
The Soviet medical commission examines the liberated prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp. 
A doctor from the Soviet medical commission examines a liberated prisoner of the Auschwitz concentration camp. 
Doctors of the Soviet medical commission interview released prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp. 
A former prisoner of the Auschwitz concentration camp shows the Soviet medical commission her personal number stamped on her hand. 
Group portrait of the wounded and doctors of evacuation hospital No. 3056 in Cheboksary. Among the fighters (presumably sitting on the right) is surgeon P.P. Nikolaev. 
A Soviet military doctor talks to a civilian in Germany. 
A group of wounded Soviet military personnel from evacuation hospital No. 424 in the city of Izhevsk with the attending surgeon A.I. Vorobyova. 
Military doctor 3rd rank Antonina Fedosevna Volodkina (born 1912) makes a presentation “Methods of pain relief at field medical posts” at a conference of military surgeons of the Southwestern Front. 
Military doctor senior lieutenant of the medical service Alexandra Georgievna Vasilyeva. 
Military doctor 3rd rank (captain of medical service) Elena Ivanovna Grebeneva (1909-1974), resident doctor of the surgical dressing platoon of the 316th medical battalion of the 276th rifle division. 
Time taken: 02/14/1942
Soviet hospital doctor Nikolai Ivanovich Shatalin. Bryansk Front, November 1942. Signed on the back: “Dear, beloved! I am sending you my card so that you can remember me after 15 months of separation. Yours Kolya. 21/1х 42 g Kaluga ". 
Time taken: November 1942
Soviet hospital staff. In the photo, Nikolai Ivanovich Shatalin is wearing glasses; he was drafted into the army in 1942 to the Bryansk Front in the 19th separate company of the medical department of the 43rd Army. He finished the War in Germany with the rank of major in the medical service. 
Time taken: 1943
Military doctor E.A. Kaverina (first row in the center). Nearby are nurses and the wounded Ryazantsev. 421st evacuation hospital, September 1943. 
Time taken: September 1943
Elena Andreevna Kaverina (1909-1946). She graduated from the Military Medical Academy of the Red Army named after S.M. in 1939. Kirov in Leningrad. 
Elena Andreevna Kaverina (1909-1946). She graduated from the Military Medical Academy of the Red Army named after S.M. in 1939. Kirov in Leningrad. Participant in the Finnish and Great Patriotic Wars. In this photo she is with the rank of military paramedic (corresponding to the rank of lieutenant). She died of tuberculosis (consequences of the Finnish War) in the spring of 1946. She was buried in Kyiv.
Captain of the medical service Galina Aleksandrovna Isakova (1915 - 2000). 
Postgraduate student of the Izhevsk State Medical Institute G.A. Isakova was called up for military service in June 1941. During the war, she served as a military doctor at mobile field hospital No. 571, the 90th army pathological laboratory of the 22nd army, and the head of the pathological department of the 1927 triage evacuation hospital.
Surgeon G.T. Vlasov in the Stalingrad field hospital No. 2208 
Hospital No. 2208. During the operation, the head of the surgical department, military doctor 2nd rank Georgy Timofeevich Vlasov (born in 1909), holder of three Orders of the Red Star and the Order of the Patriotic War, II degree, senior surgical nurse, military paramedic Valentina Gavrilovna Panferova (born in 1922, right), was awarded medals “For military merits", Order of the Patriotic War, II and I degrees, senior dressing sister Zakharova Maria Ivanovna (born in 1923, left), awarded the medal "For Military Merits", Order of the Patriotic War, II degree.
Filming location: Stalingrad. Time taken: 1942
Recovering Red Army soldiers and medical personnel in a field hospital. Southwestern Front. 
Time taken: June 1942. Author: Efim Kopyt
Military paramedic Lyudmila Gumilina assists a wounded soldier 
The commander of the medical platoon of the Guards separate machine gun battalion of the 13th Guards Rifle Division of the Guard, military paramedic Lyudmila Gumilina (born 1923), provides assistance to a wounded Soviet soldier.
Lyudmila Georgievna Gumilina, after completing nursing courses in October 1941, fought on the Crimean, Southern, Stalingrad, Don, Steppe, 2nd and 1st Ukrainian fronts, Guards. military paramedic, since 1943 - guard lieutenant of the medical service, as a commander of a medical platoon she reached Berlin, was wounded three times, awarded the medal “For Courage” (11/28/1942) and the Order of the Red Star (06/06/1945).
After the war, she graduated from the Kiev Medical Institute, worked as a neurologist at the Kiev Hospital for War Invalids, and was awarded the Order of the October Revolution.
Filming location: Stalingrad. Time taken: 11/17/1942. Author: Valentin Orlyankin
Orderly Sadyk Gaifulin assists a wounded man in battle. Western Front. 
A medical instructor assists a wounded soldier during the battle in Stalingrad. 
Filming location: Stalingrad. Filming time: September-November 1942
Medical instructor Bryukova provides assistance to a Red Army soldier who was wounded in the head during the battle for Novorossiysk. 
A Soviet nurse assists a wounded Red Army soldier under enemy fire. 
Medical instructor K.Ya. Danilova treats the leg of a wounded partisan. 
Time taken: June 1943
Nurse of the partisan detachment named after G.I. Kotovsky brigade named after S.M. Budyonny reads during night duty. 
Location: Pinsk, Belarus, USSR. Time taken: 12/23/1943
A nurse bandages a wounded child in a hospital in besieged Leningrad. 
Nurse of the 174th separate fighter anti-tank artillery division named after. Komsomol of Udmurtia Inna Vasilievna Mekhanoshina. 
Wounded children in the ward of the Leningrad State Pediatric Institute. 
Filming location: Leningrad. Time taken: 1942. Author: Boris Kudoyarov
Children wounded during artillery shelling of Leningrad are being treated at the Leningrad State Pediatric Institute. 
Nurse of the 8th Guards Rifle Division V.I. Panfilova (b. 1923). Kalinin Front. 
Valentina Panfilova is the daughter of the commander of the 316th Rifle Division (8th Guards Rifle Division), Major General I.V. Panfilova. The photograph was taken after the death of her father in November 1941. V.I. Panfilova volunteered to join her father’s division immediately after graduating from school. She began serving in the division's medical battalion. After the death of her father, she flatly refused to go home and went through the entire war with the division. She was wounded three times.
Time taken: 1942. Author: Ivan Nartsisov
The head nurse of the surgical department of the Brest Fortress hospital, Praskovya Leontyevna Tkacheva, with the wives and children of the Red Army commanders, surrounded by German soldiers. 
Location: Brest, Belarus, USSR. Time of shooting: 06.25-26.1941. Author unknown.
Field hospital nurse M. Tkachev at the bed of wounded senior sergeant A. Novikov on the Don Front. The photo was taken in the winter of 1942-1943. 
Nurse of the Leningrad Naval Hospital Anna Yushkevich feeds the wounded Red Navy man of the patrol ship V.A. Ukhova. 
Medical instructor senior sergeant Arkady Fedorovich Bogdarin (born in 1911) bandages Sergeant F.L., who was wounded in the head, in a trench. Lisrata on the Northwestern Front. 
Time taken: 1942. Author: Efim Kopyt
A nurse bandages a Red Army soldier wounded in the arm during a battle on the Southwestern Front. 
Time taken: November-December 1942. Author: Semyon Fridlyand
Military paramedic S.N. Bovunenko bandages the head of a wounded Red Army soldier during a battle on the “small land” near Novorossiysk. 
A Soviet medical instructor bandages a wounded soldier during a bombing raid. The soldier is armed with a Sudaev system submachine gun (PPS). Presumably, the photo was taken no earlier than 1944. 
Medical instructor of the 125th Marine Regiment, Sergeant Nina Stepanovna Burakova (born 1920), bandages a wounded soldier in the Arctic. 
Time taken: 1942. Author: Evgeniy Khaldey
Medical instructor of the 705th Infantry Regiment, senior sergeant V.A. Ponomareva bandages junior lieutenant N.S., who was wounded in the head. Smirnova 
A nurse of the 129th Infantry Oryol Red Banner Division of the 518th Infantry Red Banner Regiment, senior sergeant Olga Ivanovna Borozdina (born in 1923), bandages a wounded soldier on the battlefield in Poland. 
Delivery of Soviet wounded to the medical battalion on a dragnet with dogs. Germany, 1945. 
Evacuation of wounded soldiers on a U-2 plane in the Stalingrad area. To transport the wounded, cassettes mounted on the lower wings are used. The cassettes consisted of a platform for stretchers and a light roof over them. 
Time taken: September 1942
Evacuation of Soviet soldiers from the Kerch Peninsula. The wounded are loaded onto a specially modified U-2 (Po-2) aircraft. 
Loading a wounded person into the carriage of an ambulance train at evacuation point (EP) No. 125 in Moscow. 
Filming location: Moscow. Time taken: May 1942. Author: A. Khlebnikov
Carts with the wounded near the Soviet military hospital train No. 72 at the Guev Tupik station. 
Filming location: Guev Tupik, Ukraine, USSR. Time taken: 06/07/1944. Author: A. Khlebnikov
Doctors give a blood transfusion to a wounded Soviet soldier in Berlin. 
Female doctors bandage a wounded man in the carriage of the Soviet military hospital train No. 111 during the Zhitomir-Chelyabinsk flight. 
Female doctors bandage the wounded in the carriage of the Soviet military hospital train No. 72 during the Zhitomir-Chelyabinsk flight. 
The wounded are waiting for a dressing in the carriage of the Soviet military hospital train No. 72 during the Smorodino-Yerevan flight. 
Time taken: December 1943. Author: A. Khlebnikov
Installing a catheter for a wounded person in the carriage of Soviet ambulance train No. 72 during the Zhitomir-Chelyabinsk flight. 
Time taken: June 1944. Author: A. Khlebnikov
Applying plaster casts to a wounded man in the carriage of the military-Soviet ambulance train No. 72 during the flight Zhitomir - Chelyabinsk. 
Time taken: June 1944. Author: A. Khlebnikov
Dressing a wounded man in the carriage of Soviet military hospital train No. 318 during the Nezhin-Kirov flight. 
Senior surgical nurse of the surgical dressing platoon of the 106th medical battalion of the 52nd rifle division M.D. Curly 
Maria Dementyevna Kucheryavaya, born in 1918, lieutenant of the medical service. At the front from June 22, 1941. In September 1941, during the fighting on the Crimean Peninsula, she received a shell shock. In September 1944 she was awarded the Order of the Red Star.
From the award sheet: “Lieutenant of the Medical Service Kucheryavaya M.D. from August 25 to August 27, 1944, in the village. Tamoi of the Kogul region of the Moldavian SSR, with a flow of seriously wounded, working for two days without leaving the operating table, personally gave anesthesia to 62 seriously wounded, in addition, she assisted in the operations of 18 seriously wounded in the abdomen and chest.”
Filming location: Sevlievo, Bulgaria. Time taken: September 1944
In the forty-first year he graduated from high school in Kharkov with a gold certificate and in June 1941 was accepted to study at the Kharkov Military Medical School - KhVMU. Excellent students were accepted without exams. My choice to join the army was influenced by the example of my older brother. My older brother Ilya had graduated from artillery school by that time and was in command of a battery. Soon after the start of the war, a cadet regiment was created on the basis of the school, and we were brought to the line of defense, to the distant approaches to Kharkov. We did not take part in the battles; the Germans simply did not reach our borders.
Already at the beginning of September, the entire school, which was approximately 1,500 cadets, was evacuated to the city of Ashgabat. We were placed in barracks and classes began. We did our internships in Ashgabat hospitals and clinics.
The main emphasis in the educational process was on military field surgery. We knew sufficiently about the primary treatment of wounds, splinting, desmurgy (application of bandages) and the so-called minor surgical operations.
We knew approximately how to carry out resuscitation measures; then the concept of resuscitation did not exist. Of course, we did not take such things as a Latin exam seriously at such a difficult moment for the country, when the Germans stood at the gates of Moscow, but such was the specificity of our profession.
Many training hours were allocated for field training - setting up battalion first-aid posts and evacuating the wounded. And, of course, step training: drill training took a lot of our nerves and time. It was about hot Turkmenistan. No one wanted to march on the parade ground under the scorching, merciless sun. They fed us well. Camel meat was often given for lunch.
We learned to shoot well with all types of small arms; we had grenade throwing lessons five times. We were not trained as infantry platoon commanders, but I think that in terms of shooting and tactical training, we were not much inferior to graduates of the accelerated infantry courses for junior lieutenants. Once again, I want to note that we were prepared for a strictly defined task - to save the lives of the wounded on the battlefield.
GSS attack pilot Emelianenko also once studied at the conservatory, and the legendary battalion commander Major Rapoport, a future geneticist academician, before the war looked through a microscope in the laboratory, and not through the scope of a sniper rifle.
But here we are talking about cadets of military medical schools or military paramedics. And no one demanded knowledge of the tactics of a rifle company in battle from a certified doctor, or even from an ordinary doctor. In June 1942, we were released from school and awarded the rank of m/s lieutenants.
The whole war is in the floodplains. The soldiers' legs became swollen, and after several days in the water they could no longer walk on land.
I crashed my MP on some island in the middle of the water, but how was it possible to send the wounded to the rear?! They made rafts for the wounded and pushed them to the rear, while being almost up to their necks in water. A wounded soldier lies in front of you, still conscious, holding his guts in his hands, looking at you with prayer and hope, and what could I do. Sanbat God knows where, the painkillers have run out. There is another soldier nearby with his legs torn off, asking to shoot him... The entire island is filled with bleeding bodies.
I still sometimes see these moments in front of me...
But the most difficult memory of that period is participation in the battle of our officer’s penal battalion against the Vlasov battalion. May God bless you, in the area of the village of Kavkazskaya or Kazanskaya. I personally saw with my own eyes that only every second penalty box had a weapon. I repeat - only every second!..
I pull a wounded penalty box out of the battlefield. We are lying behind some hummock, waiting for the Vlasov machine gunner to get rid of us. The penalty officer, writhing in pain, pale from loss of blood, suddenly says to me: “I am a sailor, captain-lieutenant, they put me in a penal battalion for talking. Here they are now, all this tribunal bastard!..”
They went into the landing force with their usual weapons, no one hung themselves with bunches of grenades or belted themselves with machine gun belts. Everything was according to our standard - we got up and went, and then we’ll see...
Everyone intuitively gathered as much ammunition as possible, and, of course, everyone took an extra cracker or something more substantial. Everyone knew 100% in advance that at this bridgehead we would be eating the ninth horseradish without salt.
My opinion is personal, I am not a prosecutor or a war historian. Our job in the war was the calf’s, the infantry’s was to fight, my job was to save the wounded, not to reason. And the KGB ears stuck out cool. But to be honest...
For your information, the great leader of all peoples, Comrade Stalin, was very often openly cursed and cursed in the trenches, on the front line. Without fear of anything! Because they won’t send you further than the front! And those who were not political instructors, but prayed to Stalin or raised a toast to his health, were considered on the front line to be not entirely healthy in the head. I myself went to war as a Komsomol fanatic, but only by 1945 I saw and understood a lot.
What else to say? We had a duty to our Motherland, a soldier's duty.
And the fact that they would kill us someday was as clear as two times two... There is a proverb - lieutenants die in battle, and only generals die in their beds...
...Sometimes you go alone at night to the regimental rear for dressings, there is shooting here and there, and you feel uneasy, your soul is restless, you feel some kind of shock. What if German intelligence catches me now? I feared captivity more than my own death...
There was a joke at the front: whoever is not afraid is not a hero!
In an attack, a person is insane!.. You just don’t understand anything, you run forward towards the Germans, shoot somewhere in front of you... They shoot us from machine guns from above.
Independents in Western Ukraine treated us with hatred. Let me give you one example. It was in the Carpathians. The regiment was on the march to the front line. According to the map, seven kilometers from us there was a village that had already been liberated from the Germans. Five people had to go ahead and scout out what was what, and look for places for the battalions to spend the night. They named five names of officers led by the party organizer, including my name. They jumped onto the car, suddenly there was a random shot, the soldier was wounded. I got off the car and started bandaging the fighter. And the Komsomol organizer of the regiment went instead of me. Two hours later we entered the village. Our comrades were hanging from trees, tortured, mutilated and naked...
Bandera's men hanged them... We burned this village down to the last log.
I actually didn’t see any obvious crossbows.
If the crossbow was not a complete idiot, he immediately after being wounded in battle fled to the regimental rear, to the infantry squad. Why? Yes, if the battalion suspected that he had shot himself, his company comrades would have killed him immediately, on the spot, without hesitation or delay.
We, cadets of the KhVMU, during our studies did internships in Ashgabat hospitals and everyone was surprised - where did the national men get so many wounded in the left arm? At the front I understood - these, if I may say so, some soldiers voted in the elections to the Supreme Council - they stuck their hand out of the trench and waited for the German to relent and shoot. But in 1943 such a number no longer took place...
And by that time the special officers had already become cunning guys.
During the Carpathian battles, the so-called soap people appeared: they swallowed soap so as not to go on the attack, and then writhed from abdominal pain, rolling on the ground, pretending to have a twisted intestine. These knew that no one would impose self-harm or simulation on them. But there were only a few such bastards, and if such a bastard got into his company again, then he could be killed... I’ll say it again - such nets were rare.
Generally speaking, people fought honestly, not sparing their lives.
Our losses were very heavy; sometimes our own infantry even pitied us. I don’t remember that there were more than two medical instructors left alive in my medical platoon.
There has always been a shortage of frontline doctors. Healthy, sedate men, 30-35 years old, were selected as orderlies. In order to carry a wounded man with a weapon from the battlefield, you must have the proper strength for this. So, orderlies in rifle companies died very often, rarely was anyone able to hold out for more than two or three battles, there was no choice: either to the People's Commissar of Land or to the People's Commissar of Health.
Not everyone trusted in God, but the soldiers always relied on the battalion’s medical workers and trusted us. They knew that we would save our wounded comrades and would not leave them on the battlefield to bleed. Even if we are destined to die. This was our work at the front... And we justified the soldiers’ trust...
Excerpts are based on the edition by Artem Drabkin “Up to the elbows in blood. Red Cross of the Red Army"
From the very first days of the war, the medical service of the Soviet Army was faced with extremely difficult and responsible tasks. In a situation of fierce defensive battles with the advancing enemy, all its units were required to be especially efficient in helping the wounded and evacuating them from threatened areas. It was also necessary, in an extremely limited time, to deploy the medical service of units and formations, armies and fronts according to wartime states, to establish the smooth functioning of all medical units and institutions.
The situation was further complicated by the fact that many hospitals, medical warehouses and other medical institutions, including newly formed ones, were destroyed, disabled or captured by the enemy.
The Main Military Sanitary Directorate (GVSU, chief, Lieutenant General of the Medical Service E.I. Smirnov) took energetic measures to make up for the losses incurred and to satisfy the growing demands of the fronts for medical forces and equipment. If by the beginning of the war 35,540 beds were deployed in garrison and evacuation hospitals, then by July 1, 1941 in the active army the number of hospital beds was increased to 122 thousand, and by August 1, 1942 - to 658 thousand. 388
However, the active army continued to experience an acute shortage of hospitals, ambulance transport, and medical equipment. By July 16, 1941, the Western Front had only 17 thousand beds. By the beginning of the Smolensk defensive battle (July - August 1941), the armies of this front had less than one third of the medical units and institutions they needed. In the armies of the Northwestern Front during approximately the same period, there were on average 700-800 beds and 1000 places in evacuation centers, and in the front hospital base there were only 1800 beds. In the armies of the Western and Kalinin fronts, by the beginning of the counter-offensive near Moscow, an average of 2,500-300 beds were deployed 389.
The created situation was largely explained by the fact that a significant part of the mobilized medical institutions at that time relocated from west to east.
As a result of the evacuation of enterprises in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry, production and, consequently, the supply of many types of medical and sanitary equipment and medicines to the troops sharply decreased or stopped altogether. At the beginning of the war, the Northwestern Front's need for divisional medical post (DMP) tents was, on average, only 20 percent satisfied. Some medical and sanitary institutions were called to the front without having sufficient quantities of the most necessary medical equipment.
The situation with medical personnel was not entirely successful either. On July 12, 1941, on the Western Front there were only half the number of doctors on staff. The situation with orderlies, orderlies-porters and sanitary instructors was extremely difficult.
To rectify the situation, the State Defense Committee and the Main Military Sanitary Directorate carried out a number of important organizational measures during the summer-autumn campaign of 1941 and the winter campaign of 1941/42. Some institutions, units and governing bodies of the medical service were abolished, and some of them underwent serious reorganization. Staffing levels and health care records have been significantly reduced. Instead of three types of field mobile hospitals (corps, military and army), one was created; the Evacuation Point Directorate and the Front Hospital Base Directorate merged. As a result, health service authorities have become more flexible and institutions have become less cumbersome.
The main attention of the medical service during the period of forced withdrawal of our troops was focused on ensuring the rapid removal and removal of the wounded from the battlefield, providing them with qualified medical care and further evacuation. The Central Committee of the Party and the Soviet government in August 1941 decided to present military orderlies and porters with government awards for carrying the wounded from the battlefield with their weapons or light machine guns, regarding their rescue as a manifestation of high military valor.
In the summer and autumn of 1941, throughout the country, in cities and workers’ settlements, sanatoriums and rest homes, a wide network of military hospitals was created, equipped with the necessary equipment and instruments, provided with medical personnel and medicines, clothing and food. In order to improve medical care for wounded and sick soldiers, civilian doctors were mobilized and extensive training was organized for paramedical personnel. The wounded arriving from the front were treated in hospitals with great attention and care. Doctors and nurses did everything necessary to quickly get them back into action. Soviet people became donors. Created at the beginning of the war under the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the All-Union Committee for the Care of Wounded and Sick Soldiers and Commanders of the Soviet Army united the efforts of a number of departments and organizations (Narkomzdrav, All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, Komsomol, Executive Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent and others) to create and improve hospitals, improving the organization of nutrition for the wounded, collecting gifts for them and cultural services 390.
By a resolution of September 22, 1941, the State Defense Committee assigned responsibility for the medical care of the wounded on the territory of the country to the People's Commissariat of Health of the USSR, and in the rear areas of the fronts and armies - to the Main Military Sanitary Directorate of the Soviet Army. All evacuation hospitals formed during wartime were transferred to the subordination of the People's Commissariat of Health of the USSR, and evacuation points to the Main Military Sanitary Directorate of the Soviet Army. At the same time, the department retained the right to control the work of evacuation hospitals of the USSR People's Commissariat of Health. Treatment of the lightly wounded directly in the rear areas of divisions and armies was organized, which made it possible to sharply reduce evacuation to the rear and speed up the return of soldiers to their units. In each army, battalions of recovering lightly wounded soldiers (500 people) were formed, and in the rifle division (with medical battalions) - teams of recovering lightly wounded soldiers (100 people), requiring hospital treatment for no more than 10-12 days.
During the defensive battle and counteroffensive of Soviet troops near Moscow in October 1941 - January 1942, the medical service acquired extremely valuable experience, which was subsequently successfully used in organizing and implementing medical support for front troops in major offensive operations of the second and third periods of the war.
The activities of the medical service in the Battle of Moscow took place under unique conditions. Heavy defensive defensive battles and retreat to new lines led to large sanitary losses; the fronts had a relatively small depth of army and front-line rear areas, a limited number of medical forces and equipment. Significant difficulties in providing medical care to the troops were associated with a rather harsh winter.
A difficult situation was created in the medical service of the Western Front, which had lost a lot of manpower and resources and, by the beginning of the defensive battle near Moscow, was far from fully equipped with medical units and institutions. There were not enough hospital beds and sanitary evacuation transport. On November 2, 1941, the 5th Army of the Western Front had only four field hospitals with 800 beds, the 16th Army had two hospitals with 400 beds, and the 33rd Army had three hospitals with 600 beds. The remaining armies of this front were somewhat better equipped with hospitals. The military medical service did everything possible to ensure timely search, collection and removal of the wounded from the battlefield. The early, harsh winter exacerbated the problem of heating the wounded along the evacuation routes. In off-road conditions and deep snow cover, the small number of ambulance transports could not cope with the evacuation of the wounded. The cavalry ambulance companies urgently formed first on the Western and then on other fronts helped resolve this issue.
A particularly heavy burden fell on the medical battalions. During the days of intense defensive battles, up to 500-600 wounded were received at divisional medical centers (DMP). In view of this, it was necessary to reduce the volume of surgical care. In some medical battalions, only 12-14 percent of the wounded who required surgical intervention were operated on. After providing qualified assistance to the wounded at these points, they were evacuated to medical institutions of the armies and fronts.
Given the small number of army forces and equipment and the complexity of the situation, the leadership of the medical service of the Western Front shifted the center of gravity of treatment and evacuation measures to front-line hospitals. They were moved to the army rear areas and received the main flow of wounded directly from the troops (DMP). The main part of the medical institutions of the first echelon of the front-line hospital base was deployed in Moscow and its suburbs, which somewhat alleviated the situation. The second echelon of this base was located in cities located northeast and east of the capital.
Throughout the entire defensive battle near Moscow, while evacuating and treating the wounded, the medical service of the Center, fronts and armies at the same time increased forces and resources, preparing them for medical support of troops during the counteroffensive. By the beginning of December 1941, the provision of armies and fronts with hospitals and other medical institutions had noticeably improved. The armies of the Western Front already had an average of 12 thousand hospital beds, and in the front - about 71 thousand.
With the start of the counteroffensive near Moscow, the medical service of the Western, Kalinin and other fronts focused on the uninterrupted evacuation of the wounded from the troops to army and front-line medical institutions. In the very first days of the offensive, the workload of army hospitals was several times higher than the standard capacity. The medical service bodies of the Western and other fronts resorted to effective maneuver with the forces and means at their disposal. Having evacuated the wounded from part of the medical facilities of the hospital base of the fronts into the interior of the country, they moved them to the army rear areas. On the Western Front, until the end of the counteroffensive, three field evacuation points with their medical evacuation facilities were moved behind the advancing armies and deployed in the main operational directions. A significant part of the front hospitals were deployed in Moscow. The clear organization of sorting and distribution of the wounded to the appropriate medical institutions made it possible to effectively use the available hospital forces and resources and to carry out medical work well. The second echelon of the Western Front's hospital base was located in Ivanovo, Vladimir, Murom, and Sasovo. The increase in its bed capacity made it possible to transfer a significant flow of wounded from the armies here, to create conditions for unloading the hospitals of the first echelon of the front hospital base and the subsequent maneuver of front-line hospitals.
The experience of organizing medical support for troops in the Battle of Moscow, especially during the counteroffensive, showed the exceptional importance of rational and effective use of available forces and means, their bold maneuver, and close interaction between the army and front-line medical service units. The enormous importance of mobility, maneuverability of units and medical service institutions, and the ability to continuously advance behind advancing troops in conditions of significant medical losses also became obvious. The medical service of the fronts, armies and formations at that time still lacked these qualities.
In addition, during the counter-offensive near Moscow, the decisive importance for the successful organization and implementation of medical support was revealed to be the presence in any, even the most tense, situation on the fronts of a reserve force and means of the medical service.
By the beginning of the second period of the Great Patriotic War, the medical service had accumulated significant experience. In carrying out medical evacuation measures, uniform principles were established, the work of medical units and institutions was structured more clearly, organizedly, and efficiently. This was facilitated by the strengthening of the medical service, the expansion of the bed capacity of medical institutions, and a more expedient distribution of the bed network between the fronts, armies and the deep rear. By January 1, 1943, the number of hospital beds in the active army increased by 21.2 percent 391 compared to the same period in 1942.
The ratio of hospital facilities for various purposes has also changed. On August 1, 1941, the bulk of the bed capacity (68.1 percent) was concentrated in the deep rear, 22.8 percent of it was in the front rear and only 9.1 percent in the army rear 392. By the beginning of 1942, the situation was almost hasn't changed. This caused great difficulties in organizing and providing medical care, sharply reduced the capabilities of the army medical service, and forced the evacuation of a large number of wounded and sick to the interior of the country. If in the first months of the war the current situation to some extent corresponded to the conditions of the combat situation, then subsequently, with the stabilization of the strategic defense of our troops and the conduct of major offensive operations, it only created difficulties in providing medical support to the front troops. Measures were taken to move the main part of the hospital bed network to the front-line and army rear areas. In September 1942, the number of hospital beds in the deep rear amounted to 48.3 percent, in the fronts - 35.3 and in the armies - 16.4 percent of the total bed capacity, and by January 1943 - 44.9 and 27.5, respectively percent 393.
An equally important event was a significant increase in the provision of the medical service of the army with field mobile hospitals. On January 1, 1942, the number of beds in field mobile hospitals was only 9.1 percent of the total bed capacity of hospital bases of the fronts and armies. In the second period of the war, the number of these beds increased significantly and on January 1, 1943 amounted to 27.6 percent 394.
The staffing of medical units and institutions of the active army with medical personnel has significantly improved. As of May 1, 1943, the medical service of fronts, armies, formations and units was staffed by 92 percent of doctors and 92.9 percent of paramedics. The supply of the active army and medical specialists has improved 395. All this has made it possible to make serious changes in the organization of medical and evacuation measures, to improve the work of medical institutions, and to more expediently resolve many issues of medical support for front-line troops during ongoing operations. This was manifested primarily in the increasing role of army and front-line hospital bases, in a sharp increase in the number of wounded who completed treatment in medical institutions of the armies and fronts and returned to duty. If during the battle of Moscow 70 percent of the wounded were evacuated outside the rear areas of the fronts, then in the Battle of Stalingrad - 53.8 percent. In the Battle of Kursk, 17.6 percent of all wounded were evacuated from the medical institutions of the hospital base of the Voronezh Front, 28 percent of the Bryansk Front, and 7.5 percent of all wounded on the Steppe Front. Overall, only 22.9 percent of the wounded were evacuated from the hospital bases of the four fronts that participated in the Battle of Kursk. The overwhelming number of patients were also treated within the rear areas of the fronts. In this operation, only 8.9 percent of patients were sent to the interior regions of the country (46 percent near Moscow) 396. The growth of the hospital bed network in the active army, the strengthening of hospital bases of armies and fronts with hospitals of various profiles, especially those operating in the most important operational-strategic directions, created more favorable conditions for the successful implementation of medical and evacuation measures than in the first period of the war.
Of exceptional importance for improving the quality of the medical service and improving the results of treatment of the wounded and sick was the fact that during this period the problem of organizing and implementing specialized medical care was successfully solved, essentially for the first time in the history of domestic military medicine. The provision of specialized medical care to the wounded and sick in medical institutions of army and front-line hospital bases was regulated by a system of staged treatment with evacuation by appointment and was one of its most important features. However, in the first years of the war it was not possible to implement this provision. And although elements of specialization of medical institutions of front-line hospital bases (and to a lesser extent army) were noted on a number of fronts back in 1941, the difficult situation with bed capacity, the lack of medical personnel, primarily medical specialists, the necessary instruments, equipment and other circumstances did not made it possible to deploy specialized medical care to the required extent. During this period it was carried out only in medical institutions in the rear.
In the second period of the war, thanks to the comprehensive assistance provided to the medical service by the Communist Party, the Soviet government, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command and the Logistics Command of the Soviet Army, appropriate material and organizational prerequisites were created for the widespread deployment of specialized medical care for the wounded and sick, starting with medical institutions of army hospital bases . The specialization of field hospitals that were part of army and front-line hospital bases was carried out by assigning them specialized groups from individual medical reinforcement companies (ORMU). Along with this, specialized evacuation hospitals (surgical, therapeutic, psychoneurological and others) were included in the hospital bases of the fronts, and in some cases in the army hospital bases. In general, the bed network of hospital bases was profiled in 10-12 or more specialties. This made it possible, in case of severe and complex injuries or illnesses of military personnel, to provide assistance from highly qualified medical specialists at a fairly early date. Despite the difficult conditions in which the medical service had to work in the second period of the war, the outcome indicators for treating the wounded and sick compared to the previous period of the war have improved markedly. According to the Main Military Sanitary Directorate of the Soviet Army, in 1942, 52.6 percent of the total number of wounded and sick with definite outcomes were returned to service from field medical institutions and evacuation hospitals of the fronts. In 1943, this figure increased to 65 percent 397.
Along with the improvement in the quality of work of medical institutions of army and front-line hospital bases, the increased efficiency of treatment of the wounded and sick was also due to a significant increase in the level of work of the military level of the medical service, a more precise organization and implementation of the removal and removal of the wounded from the battlefield and the expansion of the activity of surgical work at divisional medical points. In the second period of the war, divisional medical centers became the center of qualified surgical care for the wounded in the military rear. If in the first year of the war, in the context of the forced withdrawal of our troops and the intensive evacuation of the wounded to the deep rear, surgical care at divisional medical stations averaged 26.7 percent of the wounded received, then in subsequent years the situation changed significantly. Surgical care at divisional medical centers during the destruction of the encircled group of Nazi troops near Stalingrad was 42.8 percent, during the Battle of Kursk - 48.7 percent, in the Belarusian operation - 62.1 percent 398. High rates of qualified medical care at these points were also noted in subsequent offensive operations.
The majority of primary surgical wound treatments were performed at the DMP. Serious surgical interventions for penetrating wounds of the chest and abdomen were also performed there. According to generalized data, 72.6 percent of the wounded who received primary surgical treatment were operated on at the DMP, 18.8 percent were operated on in surgical field mobile hospitals (SFMG), 7 percent were operated on at army hospital bases, and 0.9 percent were performed at front hospital bases. Thus, the vast majority of the wounded were operated on at DMP 399. It is no coincidence that the divisional medical centers were called the “main operating room.”
It should be emphasized that surgical activity at divisional medical stations contributed to bringing surgical care closer to the wounded, and possibly early performance of necessary operations. Carrying out the bulk of primary surgical treatments and surgical interventions at the emergency department made it possible to concentrate the efforts of medical institutions at hospital bases of armies and fronts on providing specialized medical care to the wounded, on performing complex operations that require the participation of highly qualified medical specialists, appropriate equipment and conditions.
In the second period of the war, the introduction of effective methods of treating the wounded and sick into the practice of medical support for troops in the active army and the work of medical institutions in the interior of the country, allowing to achieve the best results in the shortest possible time. Preventing various complications and reducing the duration of treatment meant a quick return to duty for many hundreds of soldiers.
Leading scientists of our country were studying the experience of medical institutions, analyzing treatment outcomes, and searching for new effective methods of surgical treatment of wounds and their complications. To develop effective means of combating shock - the most severe complication of gunshot wounds - on the initiative of N. N. Burdenko, special medical teams were created, which included experienced specialists. These brigades went to the active army, to the advanced stages of medical evacuation, and there they tested new treatment methods and determined the most effective and reliable means. The experience gained was generalized and became the property of the entire medical staff. Methodological letters, special instructions from the Main Military Sanitary Directorate and chief specialists explained the procedure for using new methods and means of treatment, and helped military doctors quickly master them.
In the second period of the war, another extremely important task was persistently solved - the introduction of uniform principles of medical care and treatment of the wounded and sick into the medical support of front-line troops and into the work of all medical institutions. The conscription into the Armed Forces of a large number of civilian doctors who had different qualifications and practical experience, belonging to different scientific schools and directions, could lead to the fact that at different stages of medical evacuation doctors would use different methods of treating the wounded and sick.
In peacetime conditions, in civilian medical institutions, where the patient, as a rule, is treated until the final outcome, this approach is quite legitimate, since it has a positive effect on the patient’s health. In wartime conditions, when every wounded and sick person is forced to go through a significant number of stages of medical evacuation, and the activities carried out at each of them were consistently supplemented and expanded, the absence of a unified method of treatment, a unified approach to injury or illness could be fraught with the most severe consequences. The need for such a unified medical tactic was most clearly demonstrated in relation to the application of a primary suture to a gunshot wound. Civilian doctors conscripted into the army, accustomed to working in peaceful conditions, initially sought to suture the wound tightly after surgical treatment, hoping for quick and smooth healing. However, after such treatment, the wounded were admitted to subsequent stages with symptoms of inflammation. Doctors were forced to remove the stitches again and deal with the complications that had developed. That is why the issues of using uniform, successive, most effective methods of treatment, which made it possible to transform the entire treatment and evacuation process into a single inextricable whole, have always been the focus of attention of the leadership of the medical service of the Soviet Army.
In December 1942, the head of the Main Military Sanitary Directorate issued a directive to all heads of front sanitary departments, which stated: “I have information that the chief surgeons of the fronts use methods of treating the wounded that are not provided for by our instructions. I propose: 1) banning gag in military field surgery; 2) any innovation must be carried out only with the permission of the Glavvoensanupra.”
The Main Military Sanitary Directorate persistently and consistently introduced into the practice of the medical service a unified understanding of the principles of medical support for troops and methods of providing qualified and specialized medical care and treatment of the wounded and sick. It took vigorous measures to introduce scientifically based methods of treating the wounded and sick in the rear areas of armies and fronts, as well as in the interior of the country. The central authorities of the military medical service issued a large number of directives, manuals, and service letters that were important for improving the medical support of the troops of the active army. A lot of organizational and methodological work was carried out locally by leading specialists of the military medical service. All this contributed to the fact that in the second period of the war, the uniform provisions and principles of medical support for the troops of the active army became the property of the entire medical staff of the army and navy and formed the basis of their practical activities.
Extremely important in this regard was the role of the Scientific Medical Council under the head of the Main Military Sanitary Directorate, which included prominent medical scientists of our country. During the war years, several plenums of the Scientific Medical Council were convened, at which the most important issues of organizing medical support for front-line troops were discussed, the results of the activities of the army and navy medical services were analyzed, and methods of treating various wounds and diseases were considered. In their work, much attention was paid to the generalization, approval and implementation of uniform principles and methods of work of the medical service of the active army and the deep rear into the practice of medical support for troops.
The materials of the plenums of the Scientific Medical Council, as a rule, became a kind of program for improving the medical support of front-line troops and naval forces, and steadily increasing the level of medical work. They contained scientifically based recommendations based on the experience and capabilities of medical science and practice. The relevance of the issues brought up for discussion at these plenums is evidenced by their listing alone. Thus, at the VI plenum of the Scientific Medical Council, held in August 1942, issues of diagnosis and treatment of shock, organization of neurological care for the wounded with gunshot injuries of the peripheral nervous system, treatment of general nutritional disorders and vitamin deficiencies and other problems were raised. In April 1943, the VII Plenum of the Scientific Medical Council discussed the issues of reconstructive surgery, gunshot wounds of joints, amputation, secondary suture, issues of military field therapy and, in particular, the diagnosis and treatment of wartime nephritis and pneumonia in the wounded. Leading specialists and leaders of the military medical service of the Soviet Army E. I. Smirnov, N. N. Burdenko, S. S. Girgolav, M. S. Vovsi, P. I. Egorov and others made presentations on these problems.
As a result of the measures taken, the quality of medical work in medical institutions of the active army and in the depths of the country has constantly increased. Significant advances have been made in the treatment of severe complications such as shock and anaerobic infection. Blood transfusions to the wounded have become widespread. As is known, the main cause of death for all wounds other than cranial wounds during the war was shock and blood loss. According to special developments, shock in combination with loss of blood and in isolated form was observed in those killed with penetrating wounds of the chest in 68.4 percent, in the abdomen in 42.3 percent, and in gunshot fractures of the hip in 59.7 percent of cases. It is clear that the use of a whole range of anti-shock measures, and above all blood transfusions, played a huge role in the fight to save the lives of the wounded. Due to the constant improvement of blood services, the number of transfusions increased all the time during the war. In 1943, blood transfusions were performed on 13.4 percent of all wounded, in 1944 - 26.1, in 1945 - 28.6 percent 400. Widespread donation in the country made it possible to supply the medical service with canned blood in sufficient quantities. In 1942 alone, 140 thousand liters of preserved blood were sent to the active army, and in 1943 - 250 thousand liters 401.
Treatment of sick soldiers was also carried out successfully. Military therapists were faced with the task of developing a system for the prevention and treatment of diseases associated with the specific conditions of warfare and the geographical features of theaters of military operations. In the difficult situation of defensive operations, such as the defense of blockaded Leningrad, the defense of Sevastopol and Odessa, malnutrition diseases, vitamin deficiencies and others became widespread. Therapists, in collaboration with hygienists, have developed a whole range of measures aimed at preventing diseases among personnel of the active army and naval forces. Despite the extremely difficult conditions, the provision of medical care and treatment of patients was organized at the proper level. Therapists played an important role in organizing the treatment of the wounded in the postoperative period. A thorough analysis of the causes and nature of complications that arise after operations for wounds of the chest, abdomen, and limbs has made it possible to develop a number of measures to prevent them. Most important was the prevention and treatment of pneumonia, a common complication of gunshot wounds.
In the second period of the war, the medical service solved serious problems of sanitary, hygienic and anti-epidemic support for troops. The sanitary and epidemiological condition of the active army during this period deteriorated. On a number of fronts, there was an increase in the incidence of dysentery, typhus and typhoid fever. A serious outbreak of tularemia occurred on the Western and Don fronts. The condition of the areas of Soviet territory liberated from fascist occupation was dangerous for the troops. The extremely difficult living conditions in which the local population found themselves, hunger, and lack of medical care led to the widespread spread of infectious diseases. There was a threat of these diseases being introduced into the troops. Extensive preventive measures were required among the troops and among the local population.
The medical service carried out an enormous amount of work in this area during this period and in subsequent years. Mass preventive vaccinations were carried out among military personnel, strict control over the water supply was carried out, and contacts of personnel with the population in areas unfavorable in sanitary, hygienic and epidemic terms were excluded. Extensive health promotion activities were carried out among the local population. Thus, in 1943, with the help and means of the medical service of the fronts and armies, more than 1.5 million civilians were sanitized only in epidemic foci and 1.7 million sets of clothing were disinfected 402. Thanks to the precise organization and successful implementation of a wide range of anti-epidemic measures, the troops of the active army were protected from the spread of infectious diseases and the occurrence of mass epidemics.
The medical service of the active army provided enormous assistance to civilian healthcare, helping to restore the system of medical care for the population in the liberated territories. This aspect of the activities of the military medical service was given great attention in the subsequent years of the war, especially during the period of expulsion of Nazi troops from Soviet soil and the liberation of the peoples of European states enslaved by Nazi Germany. In addition to extensive anti-epidemic work in the troops, great efforts were required to provide medical care to the civilian population. In January - March 1944, the hospitals of the 1st Belorussian Front alone admitted over 10 thousand patients with typhus for treatment.
During the operations of the second period of the war, the medical service had to face a number of features and serious difficulties. During the counteroffensive near Stalingrad, medical and evacuation support for troops was carried out with extremely limited forces and means. In view of this, the medical institutions of the hospital bases of the armies and fronts were filled by 80-90 percent with the wounded and sick. Meanwhile, the medical service did not have reserve funds. To receive wounded from the troops, army and front-line hospitals were deployed at 150-200 percent above their normal capacity. Due to the large distance of army and front-line hospital bases from the front line and the lack of ambulance vehicles, serious difficulties arose in organizing and carrying out the evacuation of the wounded and sick. But the relatively low level of sanitary losses and the relatively shallow depth of the offensive made it possible to ensure the evacuation and treatment of the wounded with the available forces and means.
Based on the experience gained in the Battle of Stalingrad, during the counteroffensive near Kursk, a bold and effective maneuver was carried out by the forces and means of the medical service. The approach of the first echelon of the hospital base of the Central Front to the armies made it possible to preserve the army hospital bases for medical support during the most intense period of offensive operations. The deployment of the first echelons of front-line hospital bases in army rear areas in subsequent offensive operations became an effective and widespread type of maneuver by the forces and means of the medical service, creating conditions for the optimal use of army medical institutions during the offensive.
In the Battle of Kursk, only in the medical institutions of the Bryansk Front, 67,073 surgical interventions, 15,634 blood transfusions, and over 90 thousand immobilizations were performed 403. The medical service of the same front returned to service about 34 thousand wounded and sick 404 by the end of the operation.
A major role was played by hospitals for the lightly wounded (GLR), which were officially introduced into the staff of armies and fronts at the end of 1941 - beginning of 1942. In the 2603rd hospital alone, in the six months of 1943, 7840 soldiers 405 were cured and returned to duty.
In the final period of the war, during the implementation of such large offensive operations as Korsun-Shevchenko, Belorussian, Lvov-Sandomierz, Yassy-Kishinev, East Prussian, Vistula-Oder, Berlin, the medical service was required to work extremely hard and widely use new forms and methods of organizing and implementing medical care. The decisive conditions for the success of medical support for the troops of the fronts during this period were the ability of the control bodies of the medical service of the fronts and armies to quickly regroup their forces and means in order to provide rapidly advancing troops, the ability to concentrate the main efforts of the service on the direction of the main attacks, and timely carry out the necessary maneuver with forces and means during the development of operations.
The decisiveness of the targets in offensive operations, the participation in them of huge masses of manpower, military equipment and weapons predetermined the intensity and fierceness of the fighting, and, consequently, large sanitary losses. Medical support for the troops participating in these operations required the solution of extremely complex and difficult tasks of the immediate removal (removal) of the wounded from the battlefield, timely provision of qualified medical care to them, rapid evacuation to army and front-line hospitals and their subsequent treatment. For example, in the Vistula-Oder offensive operation in the 8th Guards Army, 28.3 percent of all wounded were delivered to regimental medical stations within an hour after being wounded, 32 percent - one to two hours and 23.3 percent - two to three hours, that is, more than 83 percent of the wounded were admitted to regimental medical stations (RPM) in the first three hours after injury 406. Such timing ensured the timely provision of necessary medical care to the wounded.
In the third period of the war, the medical service had much greater forces and resources than in the first and second periods. Its bed capacity has increased significantly. The number of field mobile hospitals in the armies and on the fronts has increased. The organizational and staffing structure of all levels of the service has become more perfect, the equipment of medical units and institutions with technical means, and the provision of medicines and medical equipment have improved.
By the beginning of the operations of the final period of the war, the governing bodies of the medical service managed to create a fairly powerful group of medical institutions as part of the hospital bases of the armies and fronts. Nevertheless, during periods of the most intense combat operations, especially in the directions of the main attacks, army and front-line hospitals worked under significant overload. But in general, the provision of operational units with hospital beds was quite satisfactory. During the Berlin offensive operation, only in the medical institutions of the 1st Ukrainian Front there were 141.6 thousand beds, including over 60 thousand in armies 407.
In order for qualified medical care to be as close as possible to the advancing troops - and this principle was the leading one in the work of the medical service throughout the war - medical units and institutions had to move repeatedly during the operation, moving behind the attacking troops, in conditions of high rates of attack. connections. Particularly frequent were the movements of regimental and divisional medical stations. Sufficient experience has already been accumulated in carrying out this type of maneuver with medical forces and means. The reserve of medical units and institutions created by the military sanitary departments of the fronts during the preparation period and during operations was widely used.
However, it should be noted that in the offensive operations of the final period of the war, the medical service often had great difficulty in coping with the tasks of quickly regrouping hospitals and other medical institutions over long distances, with their advancement behind the advancing troops, especially in the difficult conditions of the spring thaw. The nature of hostilities and the current situation often required more advanced technical equipment for medical units and institutions. In general, clear planning for the organization of medical support, the use of effective forms and methods of work, bold and operational maneuver with available forces and means, the creation of a sufficiently powerful reserve of medical units and institutions at the disposal of the heads of the military sanitary departments of the fronts and its correct use ensured the successful solution of all tasks . As a rule, the removal (removal) of the wounded from the battlefield and provision of first aid to them was carried out in an extremely short time. During the Berlin operation, regimental medical stations received 74.5 percent of all wounded in the first four hours after injury. Some categories of wounded, and especially the seriously wounded, were operated on mainly at divisional medical stations. On the 3rd Belorussian Front in the East Prussian operation, 93.8 percent of those wounded in the chest with penetrating wounds and open pneumothorax were operated on at divisional medical stations, 73.7 percent without open pneumothorax, 76.8 percent of those wounded in the abdomen with penetrating wounds, wounded in the thigh with bone injuries - 94.2 percent 408. Along with this, the organization of specialized medical care has noticeably improved. It was provided to medical institutions at army and front-line hospital bases at an early stage, which increased its effectiveness and ensured high treatment results. Its differentiation has increased significantly. In army hospital bases, specialized medical care was provided to the wounded and sick in 10-12 areas, in front hospital bases - in 20-24 areas.
The qualifications and practical experience of all medical personnel have increased, their preparedness to work in difficult environmental conditions, and the ability to successfully solve complex large-scale tasks of organizing and implementing medical support for large offensive operations.
The clear and effective organization of the work of the medical service during the Great Patriotic War made it possible to achieve high results in the treatment of the wounded and sick. The medical service of the 1st Ukrainian Front, for example, in the first half of 1944 alone returned over 286 thousand wounded and sick soldiers to duty. This personnel was enough to staff almost 50 divisions at that time. Over the last two years of the war, the medical service of the 2nd Ukrainian Front returned 1,055 thousand 409 soldiers to the troops.
During the years of the last war, the military medical service returned 72.3 percent of the wounded and 90.6 percent of the sick to duty. Throughout the war, the personnel of the Soviet Armed Forces were reliably protected from mass epidemics - an inevitable and terrible companion of past wars. No army of capitalist countries could achieve such high results in medical support for the troops of the active army, either during the Second World War or in previous wars.
Military doctors had to operate in complex and difficult conditions - on the front line under enemy fire, in partisan detachments, in besieged cities, in assault groups and airborne troops, in the Far North, in the Caucasus Mountains and the Carpathians, in wooded, swampy and desert areas . And everywhere military doctors skillfully and selflessly fulfilled their noble and humane duty. The history of the Great Patriotic War preserves many examples of high courage and heroism shown by military doctors.
In a battle near the village of Verbovye, Zaporozhye region, medical instructor of the 907th Infantry Regiment of the 244th Infantry Division V. Gnarovskaya, protecting the wounded who were awaiting evacuation to the rear from the breaking through fascists, blew up an enemy tank with a bunch of grenades and saved the wounded at the cost of her life. She was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
When crossing the Kerch Strait and seizing a bridgehead on the Kerch Peninsula, medical service sergeant S. Abdullaev was among the first to land on the coast in the Eltigen area. Under heavy enemy fire, he provided medical assistance to the wounded and carried them to cover. Protecting the wounded from the advancing enemy, he destroyed five fascists in hand-to-hand combat, but he himself was seriously wounded. Foreman of the medical service S. Abdullaev was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. In the summer of 1944 he died a heroic death.
The sanitary instructor of the tank unit, V. Gaponov, became a full holder of the Order of Glory. Gaponov showed particular courage and fearlessness during the crossing of the Vistula. He pulled 27 wounded from burning tanks, carried them off the battlefield and provided first aid. There are many similar examples that can be given.
The massive heroism of military doctors and their selfless work was highly appreciated by the Communist Party and the Soviet government. 44 medical workers were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, more than 115 thousand were awarded orders and medals, of which 285 people received the Order of Lenin.
It was possible to successfully cope with the complex and difficult problems of organizing and implementing medical support for the troops of the active army during the Great Patriotic War, primarily due to the fact that the military medical service of the Soviet Army relied in its work on advanced scientific principles. During the war years, it successfully implemented a scientifically based, effective system of staged treatment of the wounded and sick in combination with evacuation for medical reasons. During the war, expedient organizational forms, methods and methods of medical-evacuation, sanitary-hygienic and anti-epidemic support for the troops of the active army were developed. The high scientific level of medical evacuation measures, in-depth analysis and generalization of the experience of the medical service in various conditions, the use of the most advanced and effective treatment methods, and the desire to widely use the latest achievements of medical science and practice contributed to the constant increase in the level of medical support for troops.
The successful results of the military medical service during the war were also ensured by the fact that it had experienced, highly trained medical personnel, selflessly devoted to the Communist Party and the socialist Motherland. In the active army, on numerous fronts, major scientists and specialists known throughout the country worked together with ordinary doctors. Among the personnel of the military medical service during the war there were 4 academicians, 22 honored scientists, 275 professors, 308 doctors of science, 558 associate professors and 2000 candidates of science 410. Military doctors and specialists from medical institutions were also distinguished by their high professional training. The Military Medical Academy named after S. M. Kirov and other educational institutions played a major role in the training of military medical personnel in the pre-war years and during the war.
During the war years, many officers and generals of the medical service, who led the activities of the personnel of command and control bodies, medical units and institutions, proved themselves to be talented, skillful leaders of the medical service and organizers of medical support for the troops of the active army. They owe considerable credit for the effective organization and successful implementation of medical support for front-line troops in a number of large defensive and especially offensive operations of the Soviet troops. It is no coincidence that many of these generals were awarded military orders, including M. N. Akhutin, A. Ya. Barabanov, E. I. Smirnov, N. N. Elansky and others. N. N. Burdenko, Yu. Yu. Dzhanelidze, L. A. Orbeli were awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.
During the war, the military medical service in its daily activities relied on all possible assistance and support of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, the State Defense Committee, the Soviet government, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, the Logistics Command of the Soviet Army, and the entire Soviet people. More than 25 thousand sanitary warriors and about 200 thousand activists trained by Red Cross and Red Crescent organizations took part in providing assistance to military doctors and caring for the wounded and sick. During the war, there were 5.5 million donors in the country. They gave over 1.7 million liters of blood to the front and helped save the lives of thousands of wounded 411 soldiers.
During the Great Patriotic War, the medical service personnel successfully completed their tasks and made a worthy contribution to the victory over the enemy. He gained invaluable experience in organizing and implementing medical support for troops in the active army.
The rear of the Soviet Armed Forces in the Great Patriotic War
Who can say the doctor didn’t fight?
That he did not shed his blood,
That he slept all night long,
Or that he was hiding like a mole.
If someone tells this news,
I want to move them all,
There, where the earth groaned,
There, where the fields were burning,
Human, where blood was shed,
Where a terrible groan was heard,
It was impossible to look at everything,
Only a doctor could help them.
The Great Patriotic War was the most difficult and bloody of all the wars our people have ever experienced. She took more than twenty million human lives. In this war, millions of people were killed, burned in crematoria and exterminated in concentration camps. Groaning and pain stood on the ground. The peoples of the Soviet Union closed into a single fist.
the terrible, harsh days of 1941 until the victorious spring of May 1945, Soviet doctors, women doctors.
During these years, more than two hundred thousand doctors and half a million paramedical personnel worked at the front and in the rear. And half of them were women. They provided assistance to more than ten million wounded. In all units and units of the active army, in partisan detachments, and in local air defense teams, there were health service soldiers who were ready at any time to come to the aid of the wounded.
The working day of doctors and nurses in medical battalions and front-line hospitals often lasted several days. During sleepless nights, medical workers stood relentlessly near the operating tables, and some of them pulled the dead and wounded out of the battlefield on their backs. Among the doctors there were many of their “sailors” who, saving the wounded, covered them with their bodies from bullets and shell fragments.
The Soviet Red Cross then made a great contribution to the rescue and treatment of the wounded.
During the Great Patriotic War, several hundred thousand nurses, sanitary guards, orderlies were trained, more than 23 million people were trained under the “Ready for the Sanitary Defense of the USSR” program.
This terrible, bloody war required a large amount of donor blood.
During the war, there were more than 5.5 million donors in the country. A large number of wounded and sick soldiers were returned to duty.
Several thousand medical workers were awarded orders and medals for their painstaking, hard work.
And the International Committee of the Red Cross awarded the Florence Nightingale medal* to 38 nurses - students of the Union of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Society of the USSR.
The events of the Great Patriotic War go further and further into the depths of history, but the memory of the great feat of the Soviet people and their Armed Forces will forever be preserved among the people.
I will give just a few examples of female doctors who, without sparing, as they say, their bellies, raised the spirit of warriors, raised the wounded from their hospital beds and sent them back into battle to defend their country, their homeland, their people, their home from the enemy.
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* The medal was established in 1912 as the highest award for nurses and orderlies who distinguished themselves in war or peacetime with their courage and exceptional devotion to the wounded, sick, whose health was in danger of life.
The Englishwoman Florence Nightingale, in Britain in the 19th century, was able to organize and lead nursing courses during the Crimean War (1854-1856). Detachment of Sisters of Charity. They provided first aid to the wounded. Afterwards, she bequeathed all her fortune to be used for the establishment of awards for mercy, which would be shown on the battlefield and in peacetime by nurses and orderlies.
The medal was approved by the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1912. It is awarded on May 12, Florence Nightingale's birthday, every two years. Over the years of its existence, this award has been awarded and received by more than 1,170 women from around the world.
In the USSR, 38 Soviet women were awarded this award.
In the small town of Kamyshin, Volgograd region, there is a museum that is not found in any large city with a population of one million; it is not found in such large cities as Moscow and St. Petersburg. This is the only and first in the country museum of nurses, sisters of mercy, awarded the Florence Nightingale medal by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Among the large army of doctors, I would like to mention the name of Hero of the Soviet Union Zinaida Aleksandrovna SAMSONOVA, who went to the front when she was only seventeen years old. Zinaida, or, as her fellow soldiers sweetly called her, Zinochka, was born in the village of Bobkovo, Yegoryevsky district, Moscow region.
Just before the war, she entered the Yegoryevsk Medical School to study. When the enemy entered her native land and the country was in danger, Zina decided that she must definitely go to the front. And she rushed there.
She has been in the active army since 1942 and immediately finds herself on the front line. Zina was a sanitary instructor for a rifle battalion. The soldiers loved her for her smile, for her selfless assistance to the wounded. With her fighters, Zina went through the most terrible battles, this is the Battle of Stalingrad. She fought on the Voronezh Front and on other fronts.
In the fall of 1943, she participated in the landing operation to capture a bridgehead on the right bank of the Dnieper near the village of Sushki, Kanevsky district, now Cherkasy region. Here she, together with her fellow soldiers, managed to capture this bridgehead.
Zina carried more than thirty wounded from the battlefield and transported them to the other side of the Dnieper.
The earth was burning, melting,
Everything around the field was burning,
It was pure hell,
But only “Forward”, not back,
The brave sons shouted,
Heroes of that former war.
And Zinochka was carrying the fighters,
Her face hid the pain,
She dragged herself, “lucked”,
Spreading as if two wings.
The shells exploded, as luck would have it,
“Please save us, dear God”
Her lips whispered,
She kept praying to Him.
There were legends about this fragile nineteen-year-old girl. Zinochka was distinguished by her courage and bravery.
When the commander died near the village of Kholm in 1944, Zina, without hesitation, took command of the battle and raised the soldiers to attack. In this battle, the last time her fellow soldiers heard her amazing, slightly hoarse voice: “Eagles, follow me!”
Zinochka Samsonova died in this battle on January 27, 1944 for the village of Kholm in Belarus. She was buried in a mass grave in Ozarichi, Kalinkovsky district, Gomel region.
For her perseverance, courage and bravery, Zinaida Aleksandrovna Samsonova was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
The school where Zina Samsonova once studied was named after her.
Zinaida Mikhailovna TUSNOLOBOVA - MARCHENKO, was born in the city of Polotsk, in Belarus, on November 23, 1920, in a peasant family. Zina also spent her childhood and studies in Belarus, but at the end of the seven-year school, the whole family soon moved to Siberia, to the city of Leninsk-Kuznetsk, Kemerovo region.
Soon, her father dies in Siberia. The breadwinner in the family was gone, and Zina went to work at a factory as a laboratory chemist.
In 1941, three months before the start of the war, she married Joseph Petrovich Marchenko. The war began, and my husband was called to the front. Zina immediately enrolled in nursing courses and, after completing them, went to the front as a volunteer.
Zina ended up serving in the 849th Infantry Regiment of the Siberian Division. She received her first baptism of fire on July 11, 1942 near Voronezh. The battle lasted three days. She, along with male fighters, went on the attack and there, on the spot, provided medical assistance, trying to immediately remove the wounded from the battlefield. From that three-day battle she suffered 40 wounded. For this brave, selfless feat, Zina was awarded the Order of the Red Star. As Zinaida Mikhailovna later said:
“I knew that I still had to justify this award.”
She tried to do even better.
For saving 123 wounded soldiers and officers, she was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. But tragedy awaited her still ahead. The last battle with the enemy turned out to be fatal for her.
In 1943, the regiment fought near Gorshechnoye station, Kursk region. Zina rushed from one wounded man to another, but then she was informed that the commander was wounded. She immediately rushed to him. At this time, the Germans were attacking across the field. She ran, bending down at first, but feeling that a hot wave burned her leg and liquid was filling her boot, she realized that she was wounded, then she fell and crawled. Shells exploded around her, but she continued to crawl.
The shell exploded again not far from her, she saw that the commander had died, but next to him was a tablet where, as she knew, there were secret papers.
Zina crawled with difficulty to the commander’s body, took the tablet, managed to hide it in her bosom, but then there was another explosion and she lost consciousness.
It was winter, the bitter frost froze her to the ground. When Zina woke up, she saw that the Germans were walking across the field and finishing off the wounded. The distance to her was no longer significant; Zina decided to pretend to be dead. Approaching her, seeing that it was a woman, the German began hitting her on the head, on the stomach, on the face with the butt, she again lost consciousness. She woke up at night. I couldn't move my arm or leg. Suddenly she heard Russian speech. They walked across the field, orderlies-porters took away the dead.
Zina moaned. Then, louder and louder, thereby she
tried to attract attention. Finally the orderlies heard her. She woke up in the hospital, where she was lying next to the men. She was ashamed; her naked body was not always covered by a sheet. The head doctor turned to the village residents so that someone could take her to their house. One widow agreed to take Zina to her retirement. She began to feed Zina as much as she could, and cow's milk did its job. Zina is on the mend.
But one night she felt ill, her temperature rose very high, the hostess who was caring for Zina got scared and immediately, on a cart, quickly took Zina back to the hospital.
The doctor examined her and saw that she had developed gangrene in her arms and legs. Zina was sent to a rear hospital in Siberia.
Upon arrival at the hospital on the twentieth day, in order to save her life, her right arm was amputated above the elbow, and the next day her right leg was amputated above the knee. Ten days have passed and her left hand is now amputated, and after a month and a half, half of the foot of her left leg was amputated.
The doctor was amazed at the patience and fortitude of this fragile woman. He did everything to somehow ease Zina’s fate.
Zina silently endured all the operations, practically without anesthesia. She only asked the doctor: “I can handle everything, just leave me life...”
The surgeon designed a special cuff for her to put on Zina’s right arm, whose arm was cut off above the elbow. Zina, thanks to this device, learned to write.
The surgeon convinced her to have another operation. On the remainder of his left arm, he made a complex cut. As a result of this operation, something like two thumbs was formed. Zina trained hard every day and soon learned to hold a fork, a spoon, a toothbrush with her left hand.
Spring came, the sun was peeking through the windows, the bandaged wounded went out into the street, those who could not walk simply crawled out. Zina lay alone in the room and looked at the branches of the trees from the open window.
A soldier passing by, looking out the window, seeing Zina lying down, shouted: “Well, what a beauty, let’s go for a walk?”
Zina has always been an optimist, and here she was not at a loss; she immediately retorted to him: “I don’t have a hairstyle.”
The young fighter did not retreat and immediately appeared in her room.
And suddenly he stood rooted to the spot. He saw that lying on the bed was not a woman, but a stump, without legs and without arms. The fighter began to sob and knelt in front of Zina. “Sorry little sister, forgive me...”
Soon, having learned to write with her two fingers, she writes a letter to her husband: “My dear, dear Joseph! Forgive me for this letter, but I can no longer remain silent. I must tell you the truth...” Zina described her condition to her husband, and at the end she added:
“I’m sorry, I don’t want to be a burden to you. Forget me and goodbye. Your Zina."
For the first time ever, Zina cried into her pillow almost all night. She mentally said goodbye to her husband, said goodbye to her love. But time passed, and Zina received a letter from her husband, where he wrote: “My dear, dear wife, Zinochka! I received the letter and was very happy. You and I will always live together and it’s good, if of course, God willing, I stay alive... I’m waiting for your answer. Your sincerely loving Joseph. Get well soon. Be healthy both physically and mentally. And don't think anything bad. Kiss".
At that moment, Zina was happy, she had nothing more valuable than this letter now, now she grabbed life like a straw with renewed vigor.
She took the pencil in her teeth and tried to write with her teeth. In the end, she even learned to insert a thread into the eye of a needle.
From the hospital, Zina, through the newspaper, wrote letters to the front:
"Russian people! Soldiers! Comrades, I walked in the same line with you and smashed the enemy, but now I can no longer fight, I ask you: avenge me! I have been in the hospital for over a year now, I have neither arms nor legs. I'm only 23 years old. The Germans took everything from me: love, dream, normal life. Do not spare the enemy who came uninvited to our house. Exterminate the Nazis like mad dogs. Avenge not only for me, but also for the abused mothers, sisters, your children, for the hundreds of thousands driven into slavery...”
On the 1st Baltic Front, on the Il-2 attack aircraft and on the tank, the inscription appeared: “For Zina Tusnolobova.”
The war ended, Zinaida returned to the city of Leninsk-Kuznetsky, where she lived before leaving for the front.
She was looking forward to meeting her husband with impatience and anxiety.
My husband also had one leg amputated. A young, handsome order bearer, Senior Lieutenant Marchenko, hugged Zina and whispered: “It’s okay, dear, everything will be fine.”
Soon Zina gives birth to two sons, one after another, but the happiness did not last long. Children die when they get the flu. Zina could bear everything that concerned her health, but she could not bear the death of her children. She began to feel depressed. But even here, having broken herself, she persuades her husband to leave for her hometown, where she was born, to the city of Polotsk, in Belarus. Here she gives birth again to a son, and then a daughter. When the son grew up, he once asked his mother: “Mommy, where are your arms and legs?”
Zina was not at a loss and answered her son: “In the war, dear, in the war. When you grow up, son, I’ll tell you, then you will be able to understand, but now you are still small.”
Once upon arrival in Polotsk, she went with her mother to a reception at the City Party Committee, asking for help with her housing, but after listening to her, the boss began to shame her: “Aren’t you ashamed, my dear? You are asking for housing, look how many people are on the waiting list...? But what if you are a Hero, do I know how many of them there are? You came from the front with legs and arms, while others returned from the front without legs, I can’t give them anything yet, but you stand in front of me with both arms and legs. You can wait a little longer...”
Zina, silently, left the office and sat down on a chair next to her mother, who had accompanied her here.
Going out into the corridor, following her, the official saw how the old mother was adjusting Zina’s stockings on her legs, lifting her skirt and exposing her two prostheses. He also saw that his visitor had no arms. He was amazed at the endurance and self-control of this woman.
For the dedication and mercy shown on the battlefield, on December 6, 1957, Zinaida Mikhailovna Tusnolobova-Marchenko was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the Golden Star medal and the Order of Lenin.
And in 1965, the International Committee of the Red Cross awarded her the Florence Nightingale Medal.
In 1980, Zina, already with her adult daughter, came, by invitation, to the city of Volgograd to celebrate Victory Day. It was terribly hot. The names of all those who died in Stalingrad were read out. Zina stood for two hours in the heat with all her fellow soldiers at this solemn parade. She was offered to leave, but Zina refused and endured the entire ceremony. Returning home, she died.
A museum of the heroine has been opened in the city of Polotsk. In the museum-apartment of N.A. Ostrovsky in a house on Tverskaya Street in Moscow there is a stand dedicated to the perseverance and courage of Zina Tusnolobova.
“I would call Zina a Phoenix bird,
How bright and light she is!
What a rush in a wounded soul,
An example to all of us living on Earth..."
Maria Sergeevna BOROVICHENKO, born on October 21, 1925, in the village of Myshelovka, near Kiev, now one of the districts of the city of Kyiv.
Maria's father was a worker and often returned home late, so Maria lived with her aunt. She lost her mother in early childhood.
After finishing seven years of school, Masha entered nursing courses.
When the German entered the territory of Ukraine, Masha was not yet sixteen years old. Seeing the horrors of the war, she could not stay at home and watch as the enemy trampled her Ukraine with bloody boots. On August 10, 1941, a fragile, dark-haired teenage girl approached General Rodimtsev, who was at the command post and, standing opposite him, could not utter a word when he asked her the question: “When, how and why did you cross the front line?” Masha, silently, took a Komsomol card from the pocket of her dirty cotton dress and then spoke. She told how she got here, told him all the information about the location of the enemy’s army batteries, all the machine gun points, how many warehouses with weapons the Germans had.
In August 1941, sixteen-year-old Komsomol member Maria Borovichenko, at her urgent request, was enrolled as a nurse in the first rifle battalion of the 5th Airborne Brigade. And two days later, after the battle in one of the districts of Kiev, where the soldiers were resting at the agricultural institute, shocked by what they saw, they asked an unfamiliar girl who carried eight soldiers out of the battlefield, and was also able to shoot two Krauts, saving battalion commander Simkin: “ And why are you so desperate, as if enchanted from bullets?”
Masha answered: “From the Mousetrap...”
No one guessed, and she did not explain that Mousetrap was her home village. But everyone laughed and began to call her that - Mashenka from the mousetrap.
In September 1941, the Seim River, which flowed near the city of Konotop, was boiling with explosions and fire. The end of this battle was decided by one heavy machine gun, the position of which was chosen by a fragile, small teenage girl, Mashenka Borovichenko, who was already able to save more than twenty fighters. Under enemy bullets, she helped her soldiers establish the firing point of this heavy machine gun.
A year passed in battles and battles, in 1942, it was also summer, near the village of Gutrovo, Masha, in a singed overcoat, raised the spirit of her soldiers with her example. When the fascist knocked her pistol out of her hands, she immediately picked up the captured machine gun and destroyed four fascists.
Then kilometers of combat roads were covered, and not only passed, but also crawled with the most important load - it was a load - human life.
The summer of 1943 arrived. The corps of General Rodimtsev, under whose leadership Maria served, fought fierce battles near Oboyan, the Germans tried to break through to Kursk.
Here the battle is going on - it’s fierce,
When can we expect a short rest?
Now we'll go on the attack again,
I hope we get the city back.
We'll have to fight in battle,
Let the fascist run,
Then, I hope we can rest,
While we are going on the attack.
This is what Masha wrote in her notebook when she had at least some respite. In the battle near Kursk, protecting Lieutenant Kornienko with her breast, she saved his life, but this bullet, hitting her right in the heart, ended Maria’s life.
This happened on July 14 near the village of Orlovka, Ivnyansky district, Belgorod region.
On May 6, 1965, Maria Sergeevna Borovichenko was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
There is a school in Kyiv named after Maria Sergeevna Borovichenko.
Valeria Osipovna GNAROVSKAYA, born in the village of Modolitsy, Kingisepsky district, Leningrad region, October 18, 1923.
Valeria's father worked at the post office, as a boss. Valeria's mother did housework. When Valeria was five years old, her parents moved to the Leningrad region, Podporozhye district. After finishing the seven-year school, her parents arranged for her to study at a secondary school; in the regional town of Podporozhye, near where they lived, there were no ten-year schools.
Just before the war, she successfully graduated from high school. Everyone was having fun at home that day, her parents were happy about the successful completion of her studies. There were flowers everywhere. Valeria was in high spirits all day. There were many plans in my head, further enrolling in a university.
But all this was not destined to come true, the war began.
The father immediately went to the front, instead of him, Valeria’s mother went to work, like her mother, Valeria also went to work there, at the post office.
In the fall of 1941, their area became a front line, and the evacuation of the population to Siberia began. The entire Gnarovsky family, and this is Valeria’s mother, grandmother, younger sister and Valeria herself, arrived by train in the Omsk region, in the village of Berdyuzhye.
Having settled in, he and his mother immediately went to work. They worked in a communications office.
There were no letters from her father, and Valeria, on the sly of her mother, repeatedly turned to the district military registration and enlistment office with a request to send her to the front, but each time she was refused.
And finally, in the spring of 1942, she, like other Komsomol girls like her, was sent to the Ishim station, where the Siberian Division was being formed.
To reassure her mother, Valeria wrote warm, affectionate letters. In one letter she wrote: “Mommy, don’t be bored and don’t worry..., I’ll return soon with a victory or I’ll die in a fair fight...”.
In the division, in the same year, she graduated from the Red Cross nursing course and voluntarily went to the front.
The division where Valeria ended up at the front arrived at the Stalingrad Front in July 1942. And she immediately entered the battle. Bomb explosions and artillery shells, which rushed and thundered endlessly, mixed into a single, continuous roar; in this terrible hell, no one could stick their head out of the trench. It seemed as if the black sky was crushing the earth, the earth was shaking from the explosions. It was impossible to hear the man lying next to him in the trench.
Valeria was the first to jump out of the trench and shout:
“Comrades! It’s not scary to die for your Motherland! Went!"
And then everyone rushed to run from the trenches towards the enemy.
Valeria immediately, in the first battle, surprised everyone with her bravery and bravery, her fearlessness.
The division fought for seventeen days and nights, losing its comrades, and eventually was surrounded.
Valeria endures everything, the hardships of her environment, calmly and courageously, but then she falls ill with typhus. Having broken through the encirclement, the soldiers carried out Valeria, barely alive.
In the division, Valeria was affectionately called “dear Swallow.”
Sending their swallow to the hospital, the soldiers wished her a quick return to her division.
After lying in the hospital, where she receives her first award - the medal "For Courage", she returns to the front.
During the battles, Valeria was in the most dangerous areas, where she was able to save more than three hundred soldiers and officers.
On September 23, 1943, in the area of the Ivanenkovo state farm, in the Zaporozhye region, enemy Tiger tanks broke through to our troops.
Saving the seriously wounded soldiers, Valeria threw herself with a bunch of grenades under a fascist tank and blew it up.
The earth is groaning, and there is no more strength,
The tanks, like animals, accelerated their run.
"God! How can I overcome the pain?
Make sure that the “evil spirits” go away.
Give me strength, you, Motherland,
To drive the enemy away from the country,
So that the earth doesn't groan around you,
The tanks are coming and have already closed the circle.
Dear mother, goodbye and forgive me,
Tanks are in my way
I have to take them away from the fighters,
There are many wounded, I have to go...
The pain is all gone, and the fear follows it,
I just wish I could throw a grenade sooner,
If only I could get there, I could save the guys,
Mom, goodbye, darling, forgive me...”
On June 3, 1944, Valeria Osipovna Gnarovskaya was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union - posthumously.
In the Zaporozhye region, a village is named after her.
“Over the plywood star of lightning,
Spring spread out like flowers.
In the name of a beautiful Russian bird,
The quiet village is named...”
In one of the halls of the Military Medical Museum in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, a painting by the artist I.M. is exhibited. Penteshina, it depicts the heroic deed of my heroine.
Matryona Semyonovna NECHIPORCHUKOVA, was born on April 3, 1924 in the village of Volchiy Yar, Balakleevsky district, Kharkov region, in Ukraine. In a simple peasant family.
In 1941 she graduated from the Balakleevskaya obstetric and nursing school and worked as a nurse in the district hospital.
Working in a hospital and living in her village, Matryona Semyonovna found herself in German-occupied territory. She immediately applies to the military registration and enlistment office to send her to the active army, but is refused.
That time they didn’t take her because of her age, but then she was only seventeen years old. With the onset of 1943, her dream came true - she was enrolled as a medical instructor in the medical platoon of the 100th Guards Regiment of the 35th Rifle Division.
The brave girl helped more than 250 wounded soldiers and officers. She repeatedly donated blood for her wounded soldiers. The first medical baptism took place near Grzybow, in the Polish Republic, where she provided medical assistance to twenty-six wounded people. And a little later, there in Poland, in the city of Magnushev, she took an officer out from under fire and managed to send him to the rear.
For her courage and dedication to saving the wounded, Matryona Semyonovna was awarded the Order of Glory of three degrees.
As a medical instructor of the 35th Guards Division, 8th Guards Army, 1st Belorussian Front, Guard Sergeant Matryona Semenovna Nechiporchukova in 1945, remaining with a group of wounded, of which there were more than twenty-seven people, and with several medical workers, repelled the German attack who were leaving the encirclement. After the battle, she delivered all the wounded without a single one killed to their destination.
Dnieper steep slopes, how tall you are!
You are cool, dear, protect “yours”,
Let me get through to the river and drink some water,
Cover it from the enemy so that he cannot kill you.
You, dark night, hide from the shooting,
Until everyone sends rafts down the river,
After all, there are many wounded, all our soldiers,
Please, save us the dark night of the soldiers...
Save, save us, dear river,
And there’s enough blood for everyone - I’ve drunk more than enough,
Here again is a young fighter under the wave.
He would still live, meet love,
Yes, he should rock little children,
Fate is destined to die,
And here you will find your death in the waves of the Dnieper.
Dnieper steep slopes, how tall you are...
Dear, you are cool, please protect me,
Let me gather my strength to go into battle again
Yes, we can drive out the enemy at any cost.
The waves of the Holy Dnieper are noisy and splashing,
How many fighters were buried then?!
In March 1945, in battles in southern Poland, near the city of Kyustrin, Matryona Semyonovna provided medical assistance to more than fifty wounded, including twenty-seven seriously wounded. As part of the same rifle regiment, the 35th Guards Rifle Division, on the Ukrainian Front, Matryona Semyonovna, during the enemy breakthrough on the left bank of the Oder River and in the battles that took place in the Berlin direction, carried seventy-eight wounded soldiers and officers out of the fire.
With her infantry, she crossed the Spree River near the city of Fürstegwald and, being wounded herself, continued to provide medical assistance.
The German who fired at her wounded colleagues was killed by her. When she and her fighters reached Berlin, she remembered for the rest of her life one inscription on the wall: “Here it is, a damned fascist country.”
The Germans fought until their last breath, hiding in basements and ruins, but they did not part with their weapons and fired back whenever possible.
Matryona also remembered how early in the morning on May 9 Victory Day was announced! But the fighting was still going on, and there were a lot of wounded. Those who were very heavy were sent to the rear without asking, and those who were more easily wounded were allowed by the commander, at their request, to celebrate Victory Day in Berlin. And only on the tenth of May everyone was sent home. There, during the war, she found her future husband, Viktor Stepanovich Nozdrachev, who fought in the same regiment with Matryona.
Until 1950, Matryona Semyonovna lived with her family in Germany, and in 1950 they returned to their homeland and lived in the Stavropol Territory. Here she worked in a clinic.
In 1973, Matryona Semyonovna Nechiporchukova was awarded the Florence Nightingale medal by the International Committee of the Red Cross. This award was presented to her in Geneva by representatives of the Red Cross.
After the end of the war, Matryona Semyonovna was a public person; she tried to convey the whole truth and all the hardships of the war to the younger generation.
Maria Timofeevna KISLYAK, was born on March 6, 1925, in the village of Lednoye, now one of the districts of the city of Kharkov, in a peasant family. After finishing the seven-year school, she entered the Kharkov Medical Assistant and Midwifery School.
Then she worked as a nurse in a hospital.
When the enemy entered the land of Ukraine, she, without hesitation, organized an underground hospital in her village, with her comrades, which she later led.
In this hospital she treated wounded soldiers who were surrounded. As soon as they felt better, friends, and sometimes she herself, transported them behind the front line.
Opening my eyes, there is a face in front of me,
It looked at me funny...
I groaned and whispered quietly:
“Sorry, dear, I surrendered the city to the Germans...”
She touched me softly
And she said warm words to me:
“Sleep, my dear, you’ll still get it back,
You will recover and you will go into battle again.
And the power came from somewhere,
The body was strong, the soul was eager to fight,
The enemy fled from my native country,
I remember the words of the dear nurse:
“Sleep, my dear, you’ll still get it back...”
Answer, dear, when you read the verse.
During the days of the occupation of the city of Kharkov, she actively fought the enemy. She prepared and, together with her friends, distributed leaflets in her village, and also destroyed German officers.
She saved more than forty wounded people.
In 1942, the last wounded man left the Mariyka hospital, as her friends called her. The group of young avengers, which included Maria, operated until mid-1943.
According to the denunciation of one traitor, Maria was captured by the Gestapo, as well as all her associates.
Maria had just turned eighteen years old.
A month later, after painful torture, where she never said a single word, she and her friends were executed in front of the villagers. Before her death, Maria managed to shout: “We are dying for our Motherland! Comrades, kill your enemies, clear the land of vipers. Avenge us!
On May 8, 1965, Maria Timofeevna Kislyak was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union - posthumously.
One of the streets of the city of Kharkov is named after the hero Maria Kislyak.
The enemy was advancing, it seemed he was everywhere,
And there is no peace on the holy land.
And blood flowed, because the battle went on day and night,
And the young girl follows
led the wounded, bloody soldiers,
and hid it near the forest, across the river.
So that the enemy cannot find, kill,
How will she live on earth then?
Marija often did not sleep at night,
We tried to save every fighter.
I tried to drown out the groans of the one
Whomever she brought in, she brought into her house.
Sometimes I wanted to howl out of pity,
I wanted to forget everything as quickly as possible,
But, clenching her teeth, she walked again,
She drove and pulled a fighter on her.
Zinaida Ivanovna MARESEVA, was born in the village of Cherkassky, Volsky district, Saratov region in 1923, in a peasant family. Zina's father worked as a shepherd on a collective farm.
After finishing the seven-year school, Zina entered the paramedic-midwifery school in the city of Volsk. But before it was finished, the war began. Zina's father went to the front from the very first days of the war. She had to leave her studies and go to work at a factory. She tried repeatedly to get to the front, but to no avail. Then the young patriot entered a course for Red Cross nurses, after which, in 1942, she went to the front as a medical instructor for a rifle company. This company was sent to Stalingrad. Here Zina showed herself to be a brave and courageous fighter. Under enemy bullets, she dragged the wounded meter by meter into shelter, or to the river, where everyone was sent on rafts to the other side of the river, where it was safe, and immediately returned back to the battlefield. Often Zina used any stick, a rifle of a wounded person, any boards, branches, to apply a splint, for a fixed bandage, so that an arm or leg would not move.
And there was always a flask of water next to her. After all, water was a life-saving breath for a wounded soldier.
Any soldier at the front was waiting for news from home: from family, loved ones, loved ones. And if possible, in moments of rest, everyone tried to write at least a few lines.
Zina always wrote letters home, reassured her mother, and
loved ones. Her mother received the last letter from Zina in 1942, where her daughter wrote: “Dear mother, sister Shurochka, all close, relatives and friends, I wish you all success, in work and in study. Thank you, dear mother, for the letters that Nikolai writes, I am grateful to him. From the letter I learned that you work without rest. How I understand you! We are now on the defensive, holding it tightly. We move forward and liberate cities and villages. Wait for more letters from me...”
But this letter turned out to be her last.
For saving the wounded on the battlefield, Zinaida Ivanovna was awarded the Order of the Red Star and the medal “For Military Merit,” and in the battles on the Voronezh Front she carried about forty wounded soldiers and commanders from the battlefield.
On August 1, 1943, together with the landing force, she landed on the right bank of the Northern Donets. In just two bloody days, she provided assistance to more than sixty wounded and managed to transport them to the left bank of the Donets River. Here Zina had a particularly difficult time, the enemy was pressing and threatening to attack from the flank.
Under a hail of bullets and shells, Zina did not stop bandaging the fighters for a minute.
She ran from one fighter to another. She had no strength, but she continued to do her job, and also consoled each fighter, trying to caress him like a mother with kind, gentle words. While bandaging one soldier, Zina suddenly heard a muffled scream; it was the wounded commander who had fallen. Zina rushed to him, seeing that the Fritz was aiming at him, she, without hesitation, ran up to the commander and covered him with her body.
There were explosions here and there,
It’s as if Zeus himself was smashing here.
Lightning flashed from the sky,
It was like a demon possessed everyone.
Everyone was shooting here and there,
There was an unbearable roar.
The girl was dragging the fighter,
Our dear nurse.
And the mines exploded, as luck would have it,
Now she didn't care
Just one thought sharpened the brain,
“Yes, where, where is this bridge?
Where is the medical battalion located?
(He’s under the bridge, in the dugout).
She crawls, there is nowhere to hide,
And the whisper behind my back: “Water, sister,”
She bent down to give water,
I picked a sprig of grass,
To extract a drop of moisture,
But the buckshot started working.
She covered him with herself,
A stray bullet instantly mowed down...
The comrades buried Zinochka, as the soldiers affectionately called her, in the village of Pyatnitskoye, Kursk region.
On February 22, 1944, Zinaida Ivanovna Mareseva was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union - posthumously.
In 1964, the plant where she began her career was named after her, and she was forever included in the list of workers of this enterprise.
Feodora Andreevna PUSHINA, was born on November 13, 1923 in the village of Tukmachi, Yankur-Bodyinsky district, Udmur Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, into a working-class family. By nationality, Fenya, as everyone called her in childhood, was Ukrainian.
Fenya has always been a cheerful, lively and cheerful girl.
Her parents’ neighbors always said, “Oh! Well, your daughter is smart, she manages to do everything, she’ll make her own way.”
Her friends followed her without fear. Wherever Fenya appeared, it was always fun. The boys were jealous, envied her for her courage, cheerfulness, and for the fact that there were always a lot of guys around her. But she was never afraid of boys, even if they wanted to annoy her with something. She helped her mother in everything and she was proud of her daughter and other children. She often praised them, caressed them and supported them in everything.
One day the children went into the forest. Fenya took her sisters and brother with her, and also invited the children of her Aunt Maria to go with her.
We entered the forest, and the forest was noisy and swaying. They walk further, listen to the rustling of leaves, the birds singing, and reach a clearing. And there is such beauty! The forest is noisy, it sings its forest song. The brother climbed up the tree, and Fenya climbed even higher and she began to swing on the branch. Then it seemed to her that she was flying above the ground.
She swings, picks berries and throws them down. “Catch...” - shouts. The wind did not subside, swaying the branches more and more. Suddenly the branch on which Fenya was sitting broke off and she and the basket flew down.
She woke up at home when she heard her mother’s voice:
“Oh, daughter, daughter, you won’t be left without a leg for long. You should have been born a boy...”
But Fenya quickly grew stronger, became cheerful, her cheeks turned red again, and she was again among her friends.
Fenya studied well at school. Even the parents were surprised:
“Do teachers really speak so well of our fidgety behavior?”
After finishing the seven-year school, in 1939, Fenya, without thinking twice about where she should go, entered a paramedic school in the city of Izhevsk. She probably decided even then, when she fell from the bird cherry tree, that she would become a doctor.
In her childhood soul, respect for people in white coats arose.
She wrote to her brother: “It’s hard to study, I probably won’t be able to cope, I’ll give up. I’ll go home to my parents.”
Her brother answered her: “You weren’t such a coward as a child, are you really going to back down now?”
And Fenya did not back down, she still graduated from this school. Then she worked in the village as a paramedic.
When the war began, Fenya tried to get to the front, but they still didn’t take her, and only in April 1942 she was called to the military registration and enlistment office. She quickly packed her suitcase, and with her sister Anya headed to the station. We walked through ravines and meadows, our feet were wet, my sister kept scolding Fenya: “Why didn’t you put on your boots?” And Fenya answered:
“I had no time for boots, I was in a hurry to the military registration and enlistment office! The boots will still get boring.”
At the station they boarded the train and in the evening they were already in the city of Izhevsk. Fenya was drafted into the army as a paramedic in a medical company. On the platform, Anya, hugging Fenya, saying goodbye to her, cried. Fenya herself could not stand it, tears rolled down her cheeks.
The train carried Fenya far, far away, to where fierce battles were taking place. In August 1942, she was sent to the 520th Infantry Regiment of the 167th Ural Rifle Division as a military paramedic.
In 1943, when it was winter, in battles near the village of Puzachi, Kursk region, Fenya brought out more than fifty wounded from enemy fire, including her commander, and immediately provided them with first aid.
In the spring of the same year she was awarded the Order of the Red Star.
There, during the war, among the blood, dirt and noise, Faina, as her colleagues now called her, first developed bright, warm feelings, she fell in love. Love was born. One guy, also a medical instructor. When he arrived at the regiment, Faina’s heart trembled with excitement and happiness. But the road separated them. He was sent to another military unit, and they never met again.
Faina often remembered him and the words he said to her:
“Write, Faina. I will never forget you. The war will end and we will be together."
“Who knows if we’ll see each other,” she answered him.
“Well, why are you so unsure? - he was angry. If we stay alive, I will find you.”
Faina shared about her friend only with her sister Anna, but even then she did not write his name. So this guy remained unknown.
Fenya also served in the 1st Ukrainian Front.
In late autumn, the regiment where Fenya served fought heavy battles in the city of Kyiv. This thereby distracts the enemy's forces. All the wounded were taken to the Kyiv suburb of Svyatoshino.
Early in the morning, November 6, 1943, the enemy bombed the village. The building where the hospital with the wounded was located caught fire. Faina, together with the commander, rushed to save the wounded. She carried more than thirty seriously wounded soldiers out of the fire, and when she returned again for the last soldier, the building began to collapse. The commander carried her out of the wreckage of the burnt house, but Fenya was severely burned and injured. She died in his arms.
How I want to see the dawn again,
See the sun, my bird cherry,
Run barefoot on the grass,
“Which” is covered with morning dew...
Goodbye mommy, goodbye father,
I love you, dear ones. Oh! The lead is heavy
He presses and squeezes my chest,
Sorry, my dears, I’m leaving you...
On January 10, 1944, medical service lieutenant Feodora Andreevna Pushina was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union - posthumously.
Fenya was buried in the capital of Ukraine - the hero city of Kyiv, at the Svyatoshinsky cemetery.
In the city of Izhevsk and in the village where Fenya once lived, in Udmurdia, monuments to the heroine were erected. Izhevsk Medical College is also named after her.
Irina Nikolaevna LEVCHENKO, was born in the city of Kadievka, Lugansk region, on March 15, 1924, (now the city of Stakhanov), in the family of an employee. Irina’s father worked as the head of Donugl, then headed the Donetsk Railways, and then served as deputy people’s commissar of communications. He was repressed.
Irina's grandfather was killed by the tsarist police for his revolutionary views. During his arrest, he was shot dead.
Her grandmother was a hero of two Orders of the Red Star, and was a brigade commissar of the Chongar Cavalry Division of the 1st Cavalry Army.
After graduating from the 9th grade of high school in the city of Artyomovsk, Irina was at the front from the very first days. At that time, thousands of young people burned with only one dream - to go to the front.
Among these young people was Irina Levchenko, a seventeen-year-old girl. In the very first days of the war, she came to the Red Cross and asked for an assignment for herself.
She was recruited as the commander of a squad of military personnel and assigned an observation post. These were public baths. But Irina was not entirely satisfied with these tasks; she still wanted more activity. She never stopped dreaming of going to the front. There were fierce battles there. She wanted to save the wounded.
In 1941, people's militias were created in Moscow; those who, for some reason, were not drafted to the front, into the active army, joined these militias. These militias required medical instructors, “sanders,” and signalmen.
Irina was sent to the medical battalion of the 149th Infantry Division, which arrived in July 1941 in the city of Kirov, Smolensk region.
The Germans were just approaching Smolensk and Roslavl. Heavy, continuous fighting began. Day and night bombs exploded, shells, bullets rushed non-stop. There were many, many wounded. Here Irina received her first baptism of fire. She saw no scratches, as she had previously had to bandage, but ragged, open wounds. She provided first aid directly on the battlefield. I tried to pull out and hide the wounded man in a shelter.
Being surrounded, she evacuated more than 160 wounded by car.
After leaving the encirclement, Irina Nikolaevna connected her service with tank forces.
In 1942, when tanks came out of hiding in battle in the Kerch direction and went on the attack, medical instructor Irina Levchenko ran behind one of the tanks, hiding behind its armor, with a medical bag.
When one of the tanks was hit by the Germans, she rushed to this tank, quickly opening the hatch, and began to pull out the wounded.
Another tank immediately caught fire, its crew managed to evacuate from it independently and take refuge in a hollow. Irina ran up to the tankers and provided assistance to those who needed it.
In the battles for Crimea, Irina Nikolaevna Levchenko pulled about thirty soldiers out of burning tanks, where she herself was wounded and sent to the hospital.
Lying in her hospital bed, the idea came to her to become a tank driver. After being discharged from the hospital, Irina seeks admission to a tank school.
Time at school flies by quickly. And here she is again at the front, and again in battle.
At first, Irina Nikolaevna was a platoon commander, then a communications officer of a tank brigade.
She ended the war near Berlin.
For the exploits she accomplished during the war, she was awarded according to her merits: three Orders of the Red Star, and in 1965 she was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
For saving the wounded on the battlefield, the International Committee of the Red Cross awarded her the Florence Nightingale Medal.
In addition, she was awarded madals:
"20 years of the Bulgarian People's Army" and "Fighter against fascism."
After the end of the war, Irina Nikolaevna Levchenko graduated from the Academy of Armored Forces in Moscow.
Later, Irina Nikolaevna developed a tendency, a passion, and then serious work, to write her memoirs.
She wrote many works, all of which were related to memories of the war.
Having gone through the harsh school of war, the officer, writer Irina Nikolaevna Levchenko, with great love and warmth, spoke in her works about the Soviet man who stood up to defend his Motherland.
One of the blocks of the city of Lugansk is named after her. And at the school in Artyomovsk, where she studied, a memorial plaque was installed.
Memorial sign: “Here lived the Hero of the Soviet Union, lieutenant colonel, writer Irina Nikolaevna Levchenko, installed on one of the facades of a house in Moscow.
Irina Nikolaevna Levchenko lived and died in Moscow on January 18, 1973.
It's hard, oh! the tank has armor,
But Ira went to him only out of love,
And she called him: “Dear, dear,”
Even though their strengths were not equal.
Nadezhda Viktorovna TROYAN, born October 24, 1921 in the Vitebsk region - Belarus. After finishing her tenth year, she entered the 1st Moscow Medical Institute, but soon due to family circumstances she had to transfer to Minsk.
The war found Nadya in Belarus. From the first days of the war, she strived to get to the front. During explosions and shelling, when the enemy bombed the city, she tried to provide first aid to the victims. Soon the city was occupied by the Germans. Young people began to be driven away to Germany. Nadya faced the same fate, but they helped her establish contact with the partisans. After she successfully completed several tasks, she was accepted into the partisan detachment.
In this detachment, she was not only a medic, but also an excellent intelligence officer. In addition to providing medical assistance, she also collected information in the occupied city, prepared and posted leaflets, and encouraged reliable, trusted people to join the partisan detachment. Nadya repeatedly participated in operations to blow up bridges, in attacks on enemy convoys, and she also entered into battle with punitive detachments.
In 1943, she received an assignment from her leadership. The duty of this task was to penetrate the city, establish contact with reliable people, in order to carry out the sentence on Hitler’s governor, Wilhelm von Kube. Nadya completed the task successfully.
This feat of Soviet partisans was told and shown in the feature film “The Clock Stopped at Midnight.”
In the same year, she was called to Moscow and presented with the Golden Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union and the Order of Lenin for the courage and heroism shown in the fight against the occupiers.
Afterwards, Nadya continued her studies at the 1st Moscow Medical Institute, which she graduated in 1947, becoming a surgeon. After graduating from university, Nadezhda Viktorovna Troyan worked at the USSR Ministry of Health.
She was a member of the presidium of the war veterans committee, chairman of the executive committee of the Union of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Society of the USSR. Several thousand nurses and sanitary workers were trained, on the job, in schools, courses, and in sanitary units in the Red Cross and Red Crescent societies. In such schools they received initial training in providing first aid to the wounded.
Already in 1955, more than 19 million people were members of these communities. Nadezhda Viktorovna Candidate of Medical Sciences. She was also an associate professor at the department of the 1st Moscow Medical Institute. She was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, the Order of the Red Star, and the Order of Friendship of Peoples.
A rustling sound is heard in the forest. - "Who goes?
“This is yours!” - No stranger will get through here.
The partisan watches vigilantly in the forest,
He is preparing a squad for the fight.
Explosions everywhere behind enemy lines,
“Partisan? “Did he get here too?”
No, here there is life for the enemy in the rear,
He loses “his own” in battle.
“You shouldn’t have come here to fight,
In vain I came to burn everything, kill,
Here the peoples are not subject to you,
And all your labors are in vain.
If you don't go far, you'll fall,
If you perish here, you will disappear anyway,
It was in vain that I came to Holy Rus',
Beat the enemy partisans - don’t be a coward!”
Silence around, the forest is noisy,
The partisan is guarding him,
The enemy is defeated, he is running back,
“You need to know your place.”
Maria Zakharovna SHCHERBACHENKO was born in 1922, in the village of Efremovka, Kharkov region. When she was ten years old, she lost her parents.
After graduating from the seven-year school in 1936, Maria went to work on a collective farm, first as an ordinary collective farmer, and then she became an accountant on the same collective farm.
When the war began, Maria began to ask to go to the front.
She did this very often, but to no avail.
On June 23, 1943, she voluntarily went to the front. There he joined the ranks of the Soviet Army as a nurse.
To overcome the fear of bomb explosions and endless shooting, of the blood and death of her soldiers, every time she inspired herself with the same words: “I can do anything, I’m not afraid...”.
She believed: “If my comrades with whom I serve endure these difficulties, then I can overcome these difficulties.” And she soon managed to step over fear and go along with the male fighters to the front line with a sanitary bag at the ready.
“The position of a nurse at the front, wrote Maria Zakharovna Shcherbachenko, is sometimes more difficult than a fighter. A fighter fights from a trench, and a nurse or nurse has to run from one trench to another under bullets and shell explosions...”
Maria Zakharovna was right. After all, any nurse, hearing the groans and cries of wounded soldiers for help, tried to come to his aid as quickly as possible.
In the very first week, Maria provided medical assistance and carried several dozen wounded from the battlefield. For this brave feat she was awarded the Medal of Courage.
With a small group of brave machine gunners, Maria took part in the landing to capture a bridgehead on the right bank of the Dnieper. A rainy night hung over the Dnieper. Shots were rarely heard. The splash of a wave could be heard hitting the shore. The cold wind pierced right through the girl’s thin overcoat. She was trembling a little, either from the cold or from fear, although she had already learned to overcome fear.
Fifteen people divided into two boats and sailed away.
Maria was also in the first boat.
We sailed to the middle of the Dnieper, the enemy's lanterns lit up, searchlights pierced the entire surface of the river. And then the shooting began, mines began to explode, at first, somewhere far away, and then very close. But the boats continued to move forward. Unexpectedly for everyone, the boat that was ahead ran aground. The soldiers quickly jumped out of it, straight into the icy water and ran to the shore up to their waists in water, Maria rushed to run after them.
Again, as if at someone’s command, the searchlights flashed again, the cannons struck, and the machine guns began to chatter.
But, now the second boat crashed into the shore, the soldiers jumped out of it like a bullet and rushed to catch up with the fleeing soldiers in front.
Having reached the slope, climbing up it, the fighters took up defensive positions. They fought off the shells flying at them.
By morning, 17 more soldiers from the same company arrived in the same way. There were more than thirty soldiers on the bridgehead, the same number of machine guns, five machine guns, and several armor-piercing rifles. This handful of people repulsed eight furious enemy attacks. Enemy planes circled over the Dnieper, they continuously dropped bombs and fired machine guns. There was no reinforcement.
The ammunition was already running out, and there were many wounded. Maria tried her best. She rushed from one wounded man to another. On a small piece of land, a small handful of fighters fought to the last bullet.
Sitting in the trenches, they fought off the attack of German tanks with the remaining grenades. The long-awaited help has finally arrived. Along the entire right bank of the Dnieper, having interrupted the enemy’s defenses, our troops crossed night and day on boats, rafts, barges and pontoons, whatever it was possible to sail on. They were covered from above by Red Army aviation.
The waves of the Dnieper are noisy and splashing,
Save, save us, river,
Enough blood, drunk with interest,
Again a young fighter under the wave
He would still live and love,
To carry small children in your arms,
But fate is destined to be fatal,
To get a bullet here, as luck would have it.
Soon the crossing began along the built bridge.
Maria tirelessly bandaged the wounded, gave them water and took them to shelter, where she evacuated them across the river to the rear at night.
In 1943, Maria and her comrades who held the bridgehead were awarded the title of Hero by Decree of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR
Soviet Union, with the presentation of the Gold Star medal, and the Order of Lenin was also awarded.
During ten days of fighting on the bridgehead, Maria carried more than a hundred seriously wounded soldiers and officers from the battlefield. And then at night she organized their shipment to the other side of the Dnieper.
After the end of the war, Maria graduated from law school and worked as a lawyer in Kharkov, then she moved to the city of Kyiv.
In her city, she always carried out great public work on the patriotic education of youth.
These gentle hands bandaged me,
“My dear, dear” - that’s what they called me,
She gave me the last drop from the flask,
Then she got all wet, but still saved her.
Little sister, you ran from trench to trench,
The dirt stuck to the overcoat, it was obvious that she was tired,
But, leaning towards the fighter, and sometimes above me.
