Maria Oktyabrskaya was one of ten children to a poor family. She married an officer in the Red Army in 1925. She joined the Military Wives Council and was trained to fire weapons and drive. When Germany invaded Russia, her husband was killed in fighting near Kiev in 1941. She did not get word until two years later. The news inflamed her for revenge. She sold all her possessions and raised additional money by selling her embroidery in order to donate money to buy the army a tank. She then wrote a letter to Stalin requesting that she be allowed to take the tank into combat to kill “fascist dogs”. Stalin’s advisers saw the propaganda value of it and she was accepted for military training. After 5 months (a much longer period than for the usual cannon fodder of the tank corps), she was designated a tank driver/mechanic (possibly the first female to play this role in history). She was assigned to a T-34 tank that was nicknamed “Fighting Girlfriend”. At age 38 (her crew called her “Mom”), she got her first taste of battle in October, 1943. Her tank was engaged with eliminating machine gun nests and artillery pieces when it was damaged. She helped repair it under heavy fire and was subsequently promoted to sergeant. One month later, the tank’s track was damaged by an anti-tank gun and once again she repaired it during the battle. Her luck ran out in January, 1944. Once again, she got out of the tank to make repairs. She was hit in the head by shell fragments and although given the best of care in hospitals, the condition worsened until she died two months later. She was posthumously awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariya_Oktyabrskaya
https://rtd.rt.com/stories/soviet-tank-driving-widow-avenged-husband-wwii/
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