17-year-old Ekaterina Mikhailova - the pride of the Marine Corps

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The war does not have a woman's face, but when the enemy attacked the Soviet Union in 1941, even young girls stood up to defend their homeland. One of them, Ekaterina Illarionovna Dyomina (Mikhailova), went to the front as a 15-year-old teenager. She enrolled in the Marine Corps, where she distinguished herself and became a Hero of the Soviet Union.

15-year-old pupil of the orphanage Katya Mikhailova enrolled in the Red Army in June 1941, adding two years to herself. She went to the front, where she was soon seriously wounded in the leg. After recovering, she served on the military-sanitary ship Krasnaya Moskva, on which wounded soldiers were taken out of Stalingrad along the Volga.

In February 1943, Chief Petty Officer Katya Mikhailova achieved her enrollment as a medical instructor in the 369th Separate Marine Corps Battalion, formed from volunteers in Baku. The Marines had to fight on the shores of the Azov and Black Seas, Dniester and Danube and go a long way from the Caucasus and Crimea to Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Austria.

During the landing of the Temryuk landing in September 1943, Ekaterina Illarionovna, being shell-shocked herself, provided medical assistance to 17 soldiers and carried them out of the battlefield. For this feat, she received her first award - the Medal For Courage.

In November 1943, the 369th battalion took part in the landing near Kerch. The Marines faced a night landing during a storm, hand-to-hand combat with the enemy, and a 40-day defense of the desert coast.

There were big problems with food and equipment supplies. At night, female pilots on low-speed U-2 aircraft dropped rusks and canned food to the landing party. There was only one well of water, and that one was in no man's land, between the trench lines. Ekaterina Illarionovna says:

The sailors of the 369th battalion fought bravely near Kerch, and when the situation worsened, they made a 20-kilometer night march across the steppe, captured Mount Mithridat. In the course of heavy battles, medical instructor Ekaterina Mikhailova “showed herself courageously and courageously, under enemy fire she bandaged wounded soldiers and officers of 85 people, carried 13 wounded from the battlefield,” says the award list for the Order of the Patriotic War, which she was awarded.

In August 1944, the sailors of the battalion crossed the Dniester estuary and, under a hurricane of enemy fire, climbed onto the rocky shore literally on the shoulders of each other. Medical instructor Ekaterina Mikhailova was one of the first to reach enemy positions, breaking a wire and minefield. She provided first aid and took out 17 paratroopers from the battlefield, threw grenades at the enemy machine gun and bunker. During that day, the medical instructor Mikhailova destroyed more than 15 Germans and took 12 prisoners. For her accomplished feat, she was nominated for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, but was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

After the liberation of the USSR, the battalion, where the medical instructor Yekaterina Illarionovna served, took part in the landing on the Danube water area. In early December 1944, she and 50 sailors landed on a tiny island flooded by the flood of the river. They fought, standing up to their throats in water. Chief Petty Officer Ekaterina Illarionovna was wounded, but did not stop shooting, killing 5 Nazis. She provided assistance to the wounded comrades, and so that they would not drown, she tied them with bandages to tree branches and reeds. After two hours of the battle, only twelve combat-ready sailors remained, who completed the combat mission. The wounded Katya Mikhailova was evacuated to the hospital, and for the battle she was once again presented to the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. But the brave medical instructor was again given the Order of the Red Banner.

After recovering, she returned to service, and in April 1945 she took part in the storming of Vienna, the capital of Austria. After the war, she got married, worked as a doctor, and in 1990, by a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, she was awarded the deserved title of Hero of the Soviet Union.