Soviet women who stood up to defend their Motherland made an invaluable contribution to the victory over the Nazi invaders. This photo collection is dedicated to them.
1. A Soviet nurse assists a wounded Red Army soldier under enemy fire.
2. Soviet nurses are leading a wounded Red Army soldier who was transported to the rear on an S-3 aircraft (a modification of the U-2 aircraft for transporting the wounded).
3. Pe-2 bomber pilots from the 587th Air Regiment discuss the upcoming flight in 1943.
4. The crew of the Pe-2 bomber from the 125th Guards Bomber Aviation Regiment tells the aircraft mechanics about the past flight.
5. A girl and a boy from the Leningrad People’s Militia on the banks of the Neva. 1941
6. Orderly Klavdiya Olomskaya provides assistance to the crew of a damaged T-34 tank. Belgorod region. 9-10.07.1943
7. Residents of Leningrad are digging an anti-tank ditch. July 1941
8. Women transport stones on the Moskovskoe highway in besieged Leningrad. November 1941
9. Female doctors bandage the wounded in the carriage of the Soviet military hospital train No. 72 during the Zhitomir-Chelyabinsk flight. June 1944
10. Applying plaster bandages to a wounded person in the carriage of the military-Soviet ambulance train No. 72 during the flight Zhitomir - Chelyabinsk. June 1944
11. Subcutaneous infusion to a wounded person in the carriage of the Soviet military hospital train No. 234 at Nezhin station. February 1944
12. Dressing a wounded person in the carriage of the Soviet military hospital train No. 318 during the Nezhin-Kirov flight. January 1944
13. Female doctors of the Soviet military ambulance train No. 204 give an intravenous infusion to a wounded man during the Sapogovo-Guriev flight. December 1943
14. Female doctors bandage a wounded man in the carriage of the Soviet military hospital train No. 111 during the Zhitomir-Chelyabinsk flight. December 1943
15. The wounded are waiting for a dressing in the carriage of the Soviet military hospital train No. 72 during the Smorodino-Yerevan flight. December 1943
16. Group portrait of military personnel of the 329th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment in the city of Komarno, Czechoslovakia. 1945
17. Group portrait of servicemen of the 585th medical battalion of the 75th Guards Rifle Division. 1944
18. Yugoslav partisans on the street of the town of Požega (Požega, territory of modern Croatia). 09/17/1944
19. Group photo of female fighters of the 1st battalion of the 17th shock brigade of the 28th shock division of the NOLA on the street of the liberated town of Djurdjevac (the territory of modern Croatia). January 1944
20. A medical instructor bandages the head of a wounded Red Army soldier on a village street.
21. Lepa Radić before execution. Hanged by the Germans in the city of Bosanska Krupa, 17-year-old Yugoslav partisan Lepa Radić (12/19/1925—February 1943).
22. Girls air defense fighters are on combat duty on the roof of house No. 4 on Khalturina Street (currently Millionnaya Street) in Leningrad. 05/01/1942
23. Girls - fighters of the 1st Krainsky Proletarian Shock Brigade of the NOAU. Arandjelovac, Yugoslavia. September 1944
24. A female soldier among a group of wounded captured Red Army soldiers on the outskirts of the village. 1941
25. A lieutenant of the 26th Infantry Division of the US Army communicates with Soviet female medical officers. Czechoslovakia. 1945
26. Attack pilot of the 805th assault aviation regiment, Lieutenant Anna Aleksandrovna Egorova (09/23/1918 - 10/29/2009).
27. Captured Soviet female soldiers near a German Krupp Protze tractor somewhere in Ukraine. 08/19/1941
28. Two captured Soviet girls at the assembly point. 1941
29. Two elderly residents of Kharkov at the entrance to the basement of a destroyed house. February-March 1943
30. A captured Soviet soldier sits at a desk on the street of an occupied village. 1941
31. A Soviet soldier shakes hands with an American soldier during a meeting in Germany. 1945
32. Air barrage balloon on Stalin Avenue in Murmansk. 1943
33. Women from the Murmansk militia unit during military training. July 1943
34. Soviet refugees on the outskirts of a village in the vicinity of Kharkov. February-March 1943
35. Signalman-observer of the anti-aircraft battery Maria Travkina. Rybachy Peninsula, Murmansk region. 1943
36. One of the best snipers of the Leningrad Front N.P. Petrova with her students. June 1943
37. Formation of personnel of the 125th Guards Bomber Regiment on the occasion of the presentation of the Guards banner. Leonidovo airfield, Smolensk region. October 1943
38. Guard captain, deputy squadron commander of the 125th Guards Bomber Aviation Regiment of the 4th Guards Bomber Aviation Division Maria Dolina at the Pe-2 aircraft. 1944
39. Captured Soviet women soldiers in Nevel. Pskov region. 07/26/1941
40. German soldiers lead arrested Soviet female partisans out of the forest.
41. A girl soldier from the Soviet troops that liberated Czechoslovakia in the cab of a truck. Prague. May 1945
42. Medical instructor of the 369th separate marine battalion of the Danube Military Flotilla, chief petty officer Ekaterina Illarionovna Mikhailova (Demina) (b. 1925). In the Red Army since June 1941 (added two years to her 15 years).
43. Radio operator of the air defense unit K.K. Barysheva (Baranova). Vilnius, Lithuania. 1945
44. A private who was treated for injury in an Arkhangelsk hospital.
45. Soviet female anti-aircraft gunners. Vilnius, Lithuania. 1945
46. Soviet girls rangefinders from the air defense forces. Vilnius, Lithuania. 1945
47. Sniper of the 184th Infantry Division, holder of the Order of Glory II and III degrees, senior sergeant Roza Georgievna Shanina. 1944
48. Commander of the 23rd Guards Rifle Division, Major General P.M. Shafarenko in the Reichstag with colleagues. May 1945
49. Operating nurses of the 250th medical battalion of the 88th rifle division. 1941
50. Driver of the 171st separate anti-aircraft artillery battalion, private S.I. Telegina (Kireeva). 1945
51. Sniper of the 3rd Belorussian Front, holder of the Order of Glory, III degree, senior sergeant Roza Georgievna Shanina in the village of Merzlyaki. Vitebsk region, Belarus. 1944
52. The crew of the minesweeper boat T-611 of the Volga military flotilla. From left to right: Red Navy men Agniya Shabalina (motor operator), Vera Chapova (machine gunner), Petty Officer 2nd Article Tatyana Kupriyanova (ship commander), Red Navy men Vera Ukhlova (sailor) and Anna Tarasova miner). June-August 1943
53. Sniper of the 3rd Belorussian Front, holder of the Order of Glory II and III degrees, senior sergeant Roza Georgievna Shanina in the village of Stolyarishki, Lithuania. 1944
54. Soviet sniper corporal Rosa Shanina at the Krynki state farm. Vitebsk region, Belarusian SSR. June 1944
55. Former nurse and translator of the Polarnik partisan detachment, sergeant of the medical service Anna Vasilievna Vasilyeva (Mokraya). 1945
56. Sniper of the 3rd Belorussian Front, holder of the Order of Glory II and III degrees, senior sergeant Roza Georgievna Shanina, at the celebration of the New Year 1945 in the editorial office of the newspaper “Let's Destroy the Enemy!”
57. Soviet sniper, future Hero of the Soviet Union, senior sergeant Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko (07/01/1916-10/27/1974). 1942
58. Soldiers of the Polarnik partisan detachment at a rest stop during a campaign behind enemy lines. From left to right: nurse, intelligence officer Maria Mikhailovna Shilkova, nurse, communications courier Klavdiya Stepanovna Krasnolobova (Listova), fighter, political instructor Klavdiya Danilovna Vtyurina (Golitskaya). 1943
59. Soldiers of the Polarnik partisan detachment: nurse, demolition worker Zoya Ilyinichna Derevnina (Klimova), nurse Maria Stepanovna Volova, nurse Alexandra Ivanovna Ropotova (Nevzorova).
60. Soldiers of the 2nd platoon of the Polarnik partisan detachment before going on a mission. Guerrilla base Shumi-gorodok. Karelo-Finnish SSR. 1943
61. Soldiers of the Polarnik partisan detachment before going on a mission. Guerrilla base Shumi-gorodok. Karelo-Finnish SSR. 1943
62. Female pilots of the 586th Air Defense Fighter Regiment discuss a past combat mission near a Yak-1 aircraft. Airfield "Anisovka", Saratov region. September 1942
63. Pilot of the 46th Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment, junior lieutenant R.V. Yushina. 1945
64. Soviet cameraman Maria Ivanovna Sukhova (1905-1944) in a partisan detachment.
65. Pilot of the 175th Guards Attack Aviation Regiment, Lieutenant Maria Tolstova, in the cockpit of an Il-2 attack aircraft. 1945
66. Women dig anti-tank ditches near Moscow in the fall of 1941.
67. Soviet traffic policewoman against the backdrop of a burning building on a Berlin street. May 1945
68. Deputy commander of the 125th (female) Guards Borisov Bomber Regiment named after Hero of the Soviet Union Marina Raskova, Major Elena Dmitrievna Timofeeva.
69. Fighter pilot of the 586th Air Defense Fighter Regiment, Lieutenant Raisa Nefedovna Surnachevskaya. 1943
70. Sniper of the 3rd Belorussian Front, senior sergeant Roza Shanina. 1944
71. Soldiers of the Polarnik partisan detachment on their first military campaign. July 1943
72. Marines of the Pacific Fleet on the way to Port Arthur. In the foreground is a participant in the defense of Sevastopol, Pacific Fleet paratrooper Anna Yurchenko. August 1945
73. Soviet partisan girl. 1942
74. Officers of the 246th Rifle Division, including women, on the street of a Soviet village. 1942
75. A private girl from the Soviet troops who liberated Czechoslovakia smiles from the cab of a truck. 1945
76. Three captured Soviet women soldiers.
77. Pilot of the 73rd Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment, junior lieutenant Lydia Litvyak (1921-1943) after a combat flight on the wing of her Yak-1B fighter.
78. Scout Valentina Oleshko (left) with a friend before being deployed behind German lines in the Gatchina area. 1942
79. Column of captured Red Army soldiers in the vicinity of Kremenchug, Ukraine. September 1941.
80. Gunsmiths load cassettes of an Il-2 attack aircraft with PTAB anti-tank bombs.
81. Female medical instructors of the 6th Guards Army. 03/08/1944
82. Red Army soldiers of the Leningrad Front on the march. 1944
83. Signal operator Lidiya Nikolaevna Blokova. Central front. 08/08/1943
84. Military doctor 3rd rank (captain of the medical service) Elena Ivanovna Grebeneva (1909-1974), resident doctor of the surgical dressing platoon of the 316th medical battalion of the 276th rifle division. 02/14/1942
85. Maria Dementyevna Kucheryavaya, born in 1918, lieutenant of the medical service. Sevlievo, Bulgaria. September 1944
The countries participating in World War II made every effort to win. Many women voluntarily enlisted in the armed forces or performed traditional male jobs at home, in factories, and at the front. They did not have the opportunity to visit beauty salons or leaf through a catalog of wedding dresses. Women worked in factories and government organizations, and were active members of resistance groups and auxiliary units.
Relatively few women fought directly on the front line, but many became victims of bombing and suffered during the fighting, writes hvylya.org. By the end of the war, more than 2 million women worked in the military industry, hundreds of thousands voluntarily went to the front as nurses or enlisted in the army. In the USSR alone, about 800 thousand women served in military units on an equal basis with men.
We present to the readers of Istoricheskaya Pravda photographs that tell about what the women who took an active part in the fighting of the Second World War had to endure and endure.
The symbol of the defense of Sevastopol was the Soviet sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko. According to confirmed data, by the end of the war, 309 Germans died at her hands. Pavlichenko is considered the most successful female sniper in history.
Film director Leni Riefenstahl looks through the lens of a large movie camera as she prepares to film the Reich Party Congress in Germany in 1934. These shots will be included in the film “Triumph of the Will”, shot in 1935, recognized as one of the best propaganda films in history.
Members of the Women's Army Corps (WAC) at Camp Sheck before leaving the Port of New York on February 2, 1945. This is the first contingent of black women in the WAC to be deployed to a combat area. Kneeling in the front row, from left to right: Private Rose Stone, Private Virginia Blake and Private 1st Class Marie B. Gillisspie. Second row: Private Genevieve Marshall, Technician 5th Class Fannie L. Talbert and Corporal Kelly K. Smith. Third row: Private Gladys Schuster Carter, Technician 4th Class Evelina K. Martin and Private 1st Class Theodora Palmer.
Workers inspect a partially inflated barrage balloon in New Bedford, Massachusetts, May 11, 1943. Each part of the balloon must be stamped by the worker who performed that particular piece of work, then by the unit inspector, and finally by the chief inspector, who gives final confirmation.
Army nurses at Fort Jay Hospital are trained to use gas masks as a form of protection as skyscrapers loom through clouds of gas, Governors Island, New York, November 27, 1941.
Art students make quick sketches of war propaganda posters in Port Washington, New York, on July 8, 1942. The original drawings hang on the wall in the background.
A group of Jewish resistance fighters arrested by SS soldiers in April/May 1943. The photo was taken during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
During the conscription campaign, a large number of girls joined the Luftwaffe. They replace men deployed to the front lines to fight Allied forces. Pictured: girls training with men from the Luftwaffe, Germany, December 7. 1944.
Specially selected female pilots from the Women's Auxiliary Air Surveillance Service (WAAF) are trained in police duties. The main requirements are intelligence, intelligence, observation. Along with men, girls undergo intensive training at the RAF police school. Every man should know "his place" - a demonstration of self-defense techniques by a WAAF employee, January 15, 1942.
During the war, the first group of female guerrillas was formed in the Philippines. In the photo, women trained in the local auxiliary troops are trained in rifle shooting in Manila, November 8, 1941.
Italian partisans are virtually unknown outside their homeland, although they have been fighting fascism since 1927. They fought for freedom in the most dangerous conditions. Their enemies were the Germans and the fascist Italians, and their battlefield was the snow- and ice-covered mountain peaks on the border between France and Italy. Photo: A schoolteacher from the Aosta Valley fights alongside her husband in the "White Patrol" just above the strategic fortification of Little Saint Bernard in Italy, January 4, 1945.
Demonstration of the capabilities of the Women's Defense Corps in Gloucester, Massachusetts, November 14, 1941. Using jets of water from crossed fire hoses, the girls formed the letter “V”, which means “Victory”.
A nurse bandages the hand of a Chinese soldier during the battle at the Salween River front in Yunnan province, June 22, 1943. Another wounded man was brought by a friend for medical assistance.
Workers wipe down the noses of organic A-20J bombers at the Douglas Aircraft plant in Long Beach, California, October 1942.
Illustration of safety violations when working on a machine by women with long hair (pictured is Hollywood actress Veronica Lake), America, November 9, 1943.
At the alarm, anti-aircraft gunners from the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) run towards anti-aircraft installations, a suburb of London, May 20, 1941.
German anti-aircraft troops use field communications.
Young Soviet women tractor drivers from Kyrgyzstan successfully replaced their husbands, brothers and fathers who had gone to the front. In the photo: a tractor driver harvests sugar beets, August 26, 1942.
Paul Titus, 77, an aerial observer for Bucks County, Pennsylvania, holds a shotgun and surveys her property, December 20, 1941. Titus volunteered the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. According to her, she is ready to take up arms at any time.
Polish women in steel helmets and military uniforms march through the streets of Warsaw, ready to defend the capital after German troops invaded Poland, September 16, 1939.
Nurses clear away rubble in one of the wards of the dilapidated St. Peter's Hospital on the East Side, London, April 19, 1941. During a massive enemy air raid on the British capital, four hospitals were damaged by bombs, among other buildings.
Life magazine photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White, in flight gear, stands near an Allied Flying Fortress aircraft during her assignment in February 1943.
German soldiers lead Polish women to the execution site in the forest, 1941.
Despite the cold, girls from Northwestern University practice rifle marksmanship on the Evanston, Illinois campus on January 11, 1942. From left to right: Jeanne Paul, 18, of Oak Park, Illinois, Virginia Paisley, 18, and Maria Walsh, 19, of Lakewood, Ohio, Sarah Robinson, 20, of Jonesboro, Arkansas, Elizabeth Cooper, 17, of Chicago and 17-year-old Harriet Ginsberg.
Paramedics undergo gas mask training - one of many types of training for new recruits - on the grounds of a hospital while awaiting deployment to permanent deployment in Wales, May 26, 1944.
Film actress Ida Lupino, a lieutenant in the Women's Ambulance and Defense Corps, sits at a telephone switchboard in Brentwood, California, January 3, 1942. In an emergency, she can contact all ambulance posts in the city. The switchboard is located in her house, from where she can see all of Los Angeles. 
The first contingent of American nurses sent to an allied forward base in New Guinea marches toward the camp with their supplies, November 12, 1942. First four girls from right to left: Edith Whittaker of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Ruth Boucher of Wooster, Ohio, Helen Lawson of Athens, Tennessee, and Juanita Hamilton of Hendersonville, North Carolina.
Almost all members of the US House of Representatives listen to Madame Chiang Kai-shek, the wife of the Chinese generalissimo, who asks that every effort be made to stop the Japanese advance. Photo taken in Washington, D.C., February 18, 1943.
Paramedics disembarked from landing craft walk along the beach in Normandy, July 4, 1944. They head to a field hospital to treat wounded Allied soldiers.
A French man and woman fire a German-made gun during a battle between French militia and military units against German invaders in Paris in August 1944, shortly before the liberation of the French capital. 
A man and woman, members of the French Interior Troops, disarm a wounded German during a street skirmish shortly before the Allied army entered Paris in 1944. 
Trial of Elizabeth "Lilo" Gloeden. She is accused of participating in the July 1944 attempt on the life of Adolf Hitler. Elizabeth, along with her husband and mother, was found guilty of hiding a member of the plot on July 20. All three were beheaded on November 30, 1944. Their execution was widely publicized and served as a warning to those who were planning to conspire against the German ruling party.
Romanian civilians, men and women, dig anti-tank ditches in the border area, preparing to repel the Soviet advance.
Jean Pitkaity, a nurse with a New Zealand medical unit in Libya, wore special goggles to protect her eyes from sand, June 18, 1942. 
62nd Stalingrad Army (8th Guards Army of General Chuikov) on the streets of Odessa. A large group of Soviet soldiers, including two women in front, march down the street, April 1944.
A resistance girl takes part in an operation to locate German snipers still hiding in Paris, France, August 29, 1944. Two days earlier, this girl shot two German soldiers.
French patriots cut the hair of the Grande Guillot collaborator from Normandy, July 10, 1944. The man on the right watches the woman's suffering, not without pleasure. 
Women and children liberated by the British huddle in a barracks at Bergen-Belsen, Germany, April 1945. They were among more than 40,000 concentration camp prisoners suffering from dysentery, starvation and typhus.
SS women, equal in cruelty to their male colleagues, at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, Bergen, Germany, April 21, 1945. 
A Soviet woman, busy cleaning a field where shells had just recently fallen, shows a fig to German prisoners of war being led by Soviet guards, Ukrainian SSR, February 14, 1944.
Susie Bain poses for a photograph with her 1943 portrait in Austin, Texas on June 19, 2009. During World War II, Bain served in the Women's Air Force Pilot Service. On March 10, 2010, more than 200 living members of the Women's Air Force Pilot Service were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.
The female part of our multinational people, together with men, children and old people, bore on their shoulders all the hardships of the Great War. Women wrote many glorious pages in the chronicle of the war.
Women were on the front line: doctors, pilots, snipers, in air defense units, signalmen, intelligence officers, drivers, topographers, reporters, even tank crews, artillerymen and served in the infantry. Women actively participated in the underground, in the partisan movement.
Women took on many “purely male” professions in the rear, since men went to war, and someone had to stand behind a machine, drive a tractor, become a railway lineman, master the profession of a metallurgist, etc.
Figures and facts
Military service in the USSR is an honorable duty not only for men, but also for women. This is their right written in Art. 13th Law on General Military Duty, adopted by the IV session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on September 1, 1939. It states that the People's Commissariats of Defense and Navy are given the right to recruit women into the army and navy who have medical, veterinary and special - technical training, as well as attracting them to training camps. In wartime, women who have the specified training may be drafted into the army and navy to perform auxiliary and special service. The feeling of pride and gratitude of Soviet women to the party and government regarding the decision of the session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was expressed by Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR E.M. Kozhushina from the Vinnitsa region: “All of us, young patriots,” she said, “are ready to speak out in defense of our beautiful Motherland. We women are proud that we are given the right to protect it on an equal basis with men. And if our party, our government calls, then we will all come to the defense of our wonderful country and give a crushing rebuff to the enemy.”
Already the first news of Germany’s treacherous attack on the USSR aroused boundless anger and burning hatred of their enemies among women. At meetings and rallies held throughout the country, they declared their readiness to defend their Motherland. Women and girls went to party and Komsomol organizations, to military commissariats and there they persistently sought to be sent to the front. Among the volunteers who applied to be sent to the active army, up to 50% of the applications were from women.
During the first week of the war, applications to be sent to the front were received from 20 thousand Muscovites, and after three months, 8,360 women and girls of Moscow were enrolled in the ranks of the defenders of the Motherland. Among the Leningrad Komsomol members who submitted applications in the first days of the war with a request to be sent to the active army, 27 thousand applications were from girls. More than 5 thousand girls from the Moskovsky district of Leningrad were sent to the front. 2 thousand of them became fighters of the Leningrad Front and selflessly fought on the outskirts of their hometown.
Rosa Shanina. Destroyed 54 enemies.
Created on June 30, 1941, the State Defense Committee (GKO) adopted a number of resolutions on the mobilization of women to serve in the air defense forces, communications, internal security, on military roads... Several Komsomol mobilizations were carried out, in particular the mobilization of Komsomol members in the Military Navy, Air Force and Signal Corps.
In July 1941, over 4 thousand women of the Krasnodar Territory asked to be sent to the active army. In the first days of the war, 4 thousand women of the Ivanovo region volunteered. About 4 thousand girls from the Chita region, over 10 thousand from the Karaganda region became Red Army soldiers using Komsomol vouchers.
From 600 thousand to 1 million women fought at the front at different times, 80 thousand of them were Soviet officers.
The Central Women's Sniper Training School provided the front with 1,061 snipers and 407 sniper instructors. Graduates of the school destroyed over 11,280 enemy soldiers and officers during the war.
At the end of 1942, the Ryazan Infantry School was given an order to train about 1,500 officers from female volunteers. By January 1943, over 2 thousand women arrived at the school.
For the first time in history, during the Patriotic War, female combat formations appeared in the Armed Forces of our country. 3 aviation regiments were formed from female volunteers: 46th Guards Night Bomber, 125th Guards Bomber, 586th Air Defense Fighter Regiment; Separate women's volunteer rifle brigade, Separate women's reserve rifle regiment, Central women's sniper school, Separate women's company of sailors.
Snipers Faina Yakimova, Roza Shanina, Lidiya Volodina.
While near Moscow, the 1st Separate Women's Reserve Regiment also trained motorists and snipers, machine gunners and junior commanders of combat units. There were 2899 women on staff.
20 thousand women served in the Special Moscow Air Defense Army.
Some women were also commanders. One can name Hero of the Soviet Union Valentina Grizodubova, who throughout the war commanded the 101st Long-Range Aviation Regiment, where men served. She herself made about two hundred combat missions, delivering explosives, food to the partisans and removing the wounded.
The head of the ammunition department of the artillery department of the Polish Army was engineer-colonel Antonina Pristavko. She ended the war near Berlin. Among her awards are the orders: "Renaissance of Poland" IV class, "Cross of Grunwald" III class, "Golden Cross of Merit" and others.
In the first war year of 1941, 19 million women were employed in agricultural work, mainly on collective farms. This means that almost all the burdens of providing food for the army and the country fell on their shoulders, on their working hands.
5 million women were employed in industry, and many of them were entrusted with command posts - directors, shop managers, foremen.
Culture, education, and health care have become a matter of concern mainly for women.
Ninety-five women in our country have the high title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Our cosmonauts are among them.
The largest representation of participants in the Great Patriotic War among other specialties were female doctors.
Of the total number of doctors, of whom there were about 700 thousand in the active army, 42% were women, and among surgeons - 43.4%.
More than 2 million people served as middle and junior medical workers at the fronts. Women (paramedics, nurses, medical instructors) made up the majority - over 80 percent.
During the war years, a coherent system of medical and sanitary services for the fighting army was created. There was a so-called doctrine of military field medicine. At all stages of the evacuation of the wounded - from the company (battalion) to hospitals in the rear - female doctors selflessly carried out the noble mission of mercy.
Glorious patriots served in all branches of the military - in aviation and the marine corps, on warships of the Black Sea Fleet, the Northern Fleet, the Caspian and Dnieper flotillas, in floating naval hospitals and ambulance trains. Together with horsemen, they went on deep raids behind enemy lines and were in partisan detachments. With the infantry we reached Berlin. And everywhere doctors provided specialized assistance to those injured in battle.
It is estimated that female medical instructors of rifle companies, medical battalions, and artillery batteries helped seventy percent of wounded soldiers return to duty.
For special courage and heroism, 15 female doctors were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
A sculptural monument in Kaluga reminds of the feat of women military doctors. In the park on Kirov Street, a front-line nurse in a raincoat, with a sanitary bag over her shoulder, stands at full height on a high pedestal. During the war, the city of Kaluga was the center of numerous hospitals that treated and returned tens of thousands of soldiers and commanders to duty. That is why they built a monument in a holy place, which always has flowers.
History has never known such massive participation of women in the armed struggle for the Motherland as Soviet women showed during the Great Patriotic War. Having achieved enrollment in the ranks of the soldiers of the Red Army, women and girls mastered almost all military specialties and, together with their husbands, fathers and brothers, carried out military service in all branches of the Soviet Armed Forces.
Unidentified Soviet private girls from an anti-tank artillery unit.
In the countries participating in the Second World War, women, along with men, served in the active armies in various positions, and in the rear they replaced men in production. By the end of the war, more than 2 million women worked in the war industry. Hundreds of thousands of women voluntarily went to the front as nurses, pilots, snipers, and signalmen. In the Soviet Union, 800,000 women, along with men, served in army units during the war.
Defense of Sevastopol. Soviet sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko, who killed 309 Germans.
Director Leni Riefenstahl looks into the camera lens. 1934, Nuremberg, Germany. The footage would be included in the 1935 film Triumph of the Will, later recognized as one of the best propaganda films in history. 
Japanese women at a cartridge factory in Japan, September 30, 1941. 
Members of the Women's Army Corps (WAC) pose for photographs at the camp before leaving New York for the European theater on February 2, 1945. 
A woman checks the operation of barrage balloons in New Bedford, Massachusetts, May 11, 1943. 
Medical personnel in New York City hospitals and hospitals practice chemical alarms, November 27, 1941. 
Three Soviet girls in a partisan detachment during World War II 
A woman behind an air defense searchlight on the outskirts of London, January 19, 1943. 
German pilot Captain Anna Reitsch shakes hands with German Chancellor Adolf Hitler after being awarded the Iron Cross Second Class at the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, in April 1941. 
Students are busy copying propaganda posters in Port Washington, New York, July 8, 1942. 
A group of young Jewish women resistance fighters arrested by SS soldiers in April/May 1943 during the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto. 
More and more girls join the Luftwaffe during the German conscription campaign. They replace the men and take up arms. In the photo are female Luftwaffe recruits. Germany, December 7, 1944 
Women are being trained for police service. January 15, 1942 
The first "Women's Guerrilla" Corps had just been formed in the Philippines from among Filipino girls. Auxiliary service training on November 8, 1941 at a shooting range in Manila. 
"Maquis" fought the Nazis starting in 1927 in difficult highland conditions. This schoolteacher from the Aosta Valley fights alongside her husband in the "White Patrol" above the St. Bernard Pass, Italy, January 4, 1945. 
Female firefighters display the Victory Sign during a demonstration exercise in Gloucester, Massachusetts, November 14, 1941. 
Providing first aid to Chinese soldiers during fighting on the Salween River front in Yunnan Province, China, June 22, 1943. 
Women make plexiglass canopies for airplanes at Douglas Aircraft in Long Beach, California, in October 1942. 
American film actress Veronica Lake conducts a film briefing on safety precautions when working with drilling equipment. America, November 9, 1943 
Anti-aircraft gunners, members of the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), run towards the guns in a London suburb on May 20, 1941, following an air raid signal. 
Two German telephone operators during World War II.
Kyrgyzstan. The girls replaced their friends, brothers and fathers who had gone to the front in the fields. A tractor driver sows sugar beets on August 26, 1942. 
Ms. Paula Tita, a 77-year-old spotter from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, is given an honor guard in front of the U.S. flag. December 20, 1941. 
Polish women march through the streets of Warsaw immediately after the German invasion of Poland on September 16, 1939 
Nurses clear debris from an air raid in one of the damaged wards at St Peter's Hospital, Stepney, East London, 19 April 1941. Four hospitals were damaged by German bombs during air strikes on the British capital. 
Photojournalist Margaret Bourke-Belykh participates in the Flying Fortress high-altitude flight during World War II in February 1943 
German soldiers are led through the forest to be shot at Polish women in 1941 
These Northwestern University students joined the militia. Photo taken on campus in Evanston, Illinois, January 11, 1942 
Chemical defense exercises for hospital medical personnel. Wales, 26 May 1944 
Film actress Ida Lupino is a lieutenant in the Women's Ambulance near a switchboard in Brentwood, California, on January 3, 1942. 
The first batch of American Army nurses is ready to be sent to an Allied base in New Guinea. November 12, 1942. 
Madame Chiang Kai-shek, wife of the Generalissimo of China, advocates an end to Japanese aggression against China on February 18, 1943 
American nurses on the beach in Normandy, France on July 4, 1944, after landing from landing ships. They are on their way to a field hospital where they will care for wounded Allied soldiers. 
French men and women, civilians and members of the French Resistance took on the Germans in Paris in August 1944 
A French woman takes a rifle from a dead German soldier during the street fighting that preceded the entry of Allied forces into Paris in 1944. 
Elisabeth "Lilo" Gloeden is on trial for her role in the assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler in July 1944 
The Romanian army herded civilians, men and women, young and old, to dig anti-tank ditches along the border. June 22, 1944, in readiness to repel attacks by the Soviet army... 
Miss Jean Pitkaity, a nurse at a New Zealand hospital located in Libya, wears glasses to protect her eyes from sand, June 18, 1942 
The 62nd Stalingrad Division on the streets of Odessa in April 1944. A large group of Soviet soldiers, including two women in front, march through the streets 
A girl who is a member of the resistance movement is part of a patrol searching for German snipers still remaining in Paris, France on August 29, 1944. I’ll add on my own behalf: Parisians, they are like that, after all, Parisians))) 
A woman is forcibly having her hair cut by fascist mercenaries. July 10, 1944 
Women and children, of the more than 40,000 concentration camp prisoners liberated by the British, suffering from typhoid, hunger and dysentery, huddled in a barracks in Bergen-Belsen, Germany, in April 1945 
Women SS punishers behaved even more cruelly than men towards prisoners in the Bergen concentration camp, Germany, April 21, 1945 
A Soviet woman harvesting her crops shakes her fist at a column of German prisoners of war. February 14, 1944 
June 19, 2009, Austin, Texas. In this photo, Susie Bain shows a photograph of herself from 1943, when she was one of the women service air force (WAS) pilots during World War II 
I read the following:
"... in the Red Army, female military personnel in the positions of signalmen, nurses, pilots, anti-aircraft gunners, mortar gunners, drivers, sappers, infantrymen, snipers, and so on had a statutory haircut codenamed “two fingers below the ear.” With the classic “braid to belt" you can’t really crawl through the mud, and even in a tank or plane it can get caught on something at the most crucial moment. Front-line photos of Soviet heroines - sniper Aliya Moldagulova, pilot Lydia Litvak and deputy commander of a tank battalion Alexandra Samusenko are evidence of this.
Secondly, among the Germans, similar positions were filled exclusively by men . Even when the war came to German territory, there were no recorded facts of the participation of German girls either in the Volkssturm or in any partisan detachments. The SS-Helferinnenkorps and Wehrmachthelferinnenkorps - auxiliary women's corps of the SS and Wehrmacht - were opened for women. Rifles? What rifles? You may also ask where they have tanks and planes..."
I couldn’t agree with this, so I answered, both about hairstyles and about the use of “exclusively men” by the Germans. The last one is especially interesting to me. And since I have had to answer this question more than once, I decided, for memory’s sake, to publish it on my LiveJournal. So, I'll start with the last one...
“among the Germans, similar positions were filled exclusively by men”
Dear Igor. I give you my answer on this issue, which I already gave once in a dispute with one of my colleagues:
“As for the Germans, this is not entirely true. More precisely, this is a common misconception. There are separate references to the fact that women were, after all, in combat units.
Nina Ilyinichna Shiryaeva (Bondar), commander of the T-34 tank, recalls (fought in the 237th Red Banner, Order of Suvorov and Bogdan Khmelnitsky tank brigade, awarded the Order of the Red Banner, World War II, 1st and 2nd degree):
“In Germany, they were leading a column of prisoners next to us. It seems that battalion commander Yegorov is calling: Nina, come here. I approach - our translator is standing, talking to a young German woman, the driver of a Panther. A convinced SS woman. She tells me: “Panthers.” stronger than your tanks. Me: why are our worthless tanks beating your "Panthers"? She: it's an accident. Hitler won't surrender, you'll be defeated anyway. And further in the same spirit, I didn't argue with her."
There are also some photos. If you can refute it, I will be grateful:
Female tank driver on the Pz-IV "Steffi"
"ShwPzAbt 301, "Tiger" with tail number "113" arrived in the Ruhr front area. The crew is on vacation. The female part of the crew covers the badge of the unit using radio-controlled weapons, located on the rear plate of the tank hull"
SS Unterscharführer - assault gun commander
Here's what Guido Knopp wrote in his book "Hitler's Children":
“Since 1944, they began to serve “on an exclusively voluntary basis” in combat units - in air defense batteries. Ingeborg Seldte recalls:
“I voluntarily joined the army to win the war. I just felt like I had to help."
More than 50 thousand women went to military service before the end of the war , and some of them died during the fighting. We do not have data on how many women in air defense units became victims during the night bombing of Germany by long-range Allied aircraft. Evelis Heinzerling, which commanded a battery of anti-aircraft guns and to which more than 100 girls obeyed recalls the fear among her subordinates caused by the fighting:
“After one bomber raid, one platoon had three killed and seventeen wounded. The shocked girls said that they did not want to fight anymore. They simply said that they would not leave the shelter and would not stand up to the guns.”
Elizabeth Zimmerer, who served in an anti-aircraft battery, talks about how the girls' searchlight operators lost their nerves and what the results were:
“During one sit-down air raid, there was a searchlight installation next to us. The girls who served her were frightened by so many bomb explosions and fled to the shelter. They were later shot because of cowardice in front of the enemy.”
However, not only the fear of being killed tormented the young girls, but also the fear that they themselves would have to kill someone. Elizabeth Zimmerer talks about her experiences:
And while you may be able to refute the photo of female tankers, it’s unlikely that you can refute the photo of the air defense schnitz.
By the way, I also have these photos:
Photo portrait of an American female tanker. Author - George Silk. Italy. 1944
To the photo above
“Firstly, in the Red Army, female military personnel in the positions of signalmen, nurses, pilots, anti-aircraft gunners, mortar gunners, drivers, sappers, infantrymen, snipers, and so on had a statutory haircut codenamed “two fingers below the ear.”
Dear Igor, if you wish, you can argue with this statement of yours, although, in general, you are right:
Guards serge. Belousova Yulia. Sniper of the 3rd Shock Army. Over 80 enemy. 2nd Baltic Front
Guard Sergeant E.G. Motina. Sniper of the 21st Guards Division
Rosa Shanina. Sniper
Female snipers of the 3rd Shock Army after the award ceremony
Smirnova Maria Vasilievna 1920-2002. 46th Guards NBAP. 950 sorties
Leonova Anna Illarionovna. Signal operator. Passed Kursk. Arc, defense of the Dnieper. 1945
Anti-aircraft gunner Tatyana Shmorgunova at the crossing of the Oder. 1st Belorussian Front. 1945
Anti-aircraft gunners protect the peaceful work of collective farmers. I draw attention to women's braids!
Red Army soldiers of the Leningrad Front. 1944
Theodora Bondenko at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. The girl has a braid!"
I received a response from Igor Pykhalov:
"Thank you for your well-reasoned comments!
I have forwarded your arguments to the editors of apn-spb. They accepted the objection about our girls' braids. The reality of the German tanker is denied. As for the German girls from the air defense, they objected to this that they served without weapons, serving the searchlights."
And my answer to this:
“Thank you too, Igor, for paying attention to my comment. I’ll take it into account, but I’ll stick with it.
1. If there may be some mistakes in the photo with the German women (after all, only one photo has an authentic signature with the source), then the memories of Nina Ilyinichna Shiryaeva (Bondar) - commander of the T-34 tank, are already something:
http://aeslib.ru/istoriya-i-zhizn/velik ie/v-tankistskoj-forme-pri-pogonah.html/2
2. Regarding the German women from the air defense. Guido Knopp in his book "Hitler's Children" has this:
“However, not only the fear of being killed tormented the young girls, but also the fear that they themselves would have to kill someone. Elizabeth Zimmerer talks about her experiences:
"It was terrible. I remember the moment when I took aim at the enemy. All I had to do was press the trigger. But I didn't do it. I just couldn't."
So they were not only searchlightists "