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Mariya Lagunova

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Maria Ivanovna Lagunova
Born4 July 1921
Okonechnikova, Nikitinskaya volost, Kamensky district, Yekaterinburg province, Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
Died26 December 1995
Brovary, Kiev region, Ukraine
NationalityUkrainian
Other namesFrau Meresjev
CitizenshipUkraine
OccupationSergeant soviet guards ussr great patriotic war
Awards

Medal of Courage 1941

Maria Ivanovna Lagunova (4 July 1921 – 26 December 1995) – was a Soviet tank driver.[1] She was a veteran of the Great Patriotic War. During the war, she served with the 56th Guards Tank Brigade as a mechanic-driver of a T-34 tank, and eventually achieved the rank of guard sergeant.[2]

Biography

Maria Ivanovna Lagunova was born on 4 July 1921, in the village of Okonechnikova (part of the Ushakovsky Village Council), Nikitinskaya Volost, in the Kamensky District of Yekaterinburg, province (now the Kataisk District of the Kurgan Region).[3]

Lagunova's mother passed away when she was only four. Due to this misfortune, she became responsible for herself at an early age. She graduated from junior high school after five years.[4]

She was then taken to her sister in Sverdlovsk, where she worked as a nanny. From the age of 16, she began working at the Uralobuv factory. She initially worked as an electrician, but wanted to become a truck driver. When she had spare time, and the factory truck stood idle and unattended, she studied it and was happy if she was allowed to sit behind the wheel.[5]

During the Great Patriotic War

At the front

With the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, Nikolai's older brother went to the front, and Maria decided to follow his example. After repeated appeals to the Stalin RVC of Sverdlovsk, she received a summons and was one of the 20-year-old girls sent to the Chelyabinsk school for military tractor drivers.[6]

In the winter of 1942, she was sent to the airfield service battalion on the Volkhov Front, a few kilometers from the front lines. During 1942 on her tractor she felled trees, stubbed stumps, leveled the ground, and plowed snow. During the bombing of the airfield, Corporal Lagunova suffered a concussion and was and sent to the reserve regiment,[7] where she was identified as a projectionist.

Driver mechanic

In February 1943, a military representative from the Urals came to the regiment to select tankmen for training. Maria also decided to enroll, but was refused. Then she wrote a letter to Moscow, M.I. Kalinin, and in a few days the military representative was ordered to take MI Lagunov as a cadet. Thus, among 700 male cadets, future tankmen who arrived in March 1943 in the city of Nizhny Tagil, there was one girl.[8]

The course program was designed for four months, but the best cadets of the 19th Training Tank Regiment of the 2nd Training Tank Brigade were asked to take exams early in June. Maria was among the best mechanics-drivers and passed exams ahead of schedule. By flatly refusing to stay in the regiment as an instructor,[9] the mechanic driver M.I. Lagunova is directed to the front in the 424th separate Tank Battalion of the 56th Guards Tank Brigade.[10]

Sergeant M.I. Lagunova received a baptismal baptism of the Guards at the Kurskaya Duga. After the counterattack of the Soviet troops near Kursk, tankers fought farther to the west, through Sumy, Chernihiv, and Kyiv regions of Ukraine.[11]

Maria Ivanovna showed herself an experienced and brave driver, enjoyed the military authority of the tankers. On her account was already a lot of trapped fire dots, rifles and soldiers of the enemy. The brigade talked about her: "This is our tank ace".[12]

From 1943 she was a candidate for membership in the All-Union Communist Party.[10]

The last 13th battle

On 28 September 1943 near Kiev, in the city of Brovary, the brigade was carrying heavy battles. The village of Knyazhiychi passed from hand to hand twice. Captain Mityakin, deputy commander of the political battalion, personally led the tankers to another tank attack on German positions while in T-34 (commander of the tank – Lieutenant Chumakov), where M.I. Lagunova served as a mechanic driver. For her, it was already the 13th on account battle.[1]

Initially, the attack developed successfully: bursting on the German lines, the crew destroyed the German gun, crushed the dungeon and shot the machine gun from the trenches of soldiers and officers of the enemy. But soon the tank was put down. The shell damaged the caterpillars and fell into the seat of a mechanic driver.[13]

At the hospital

M.I. Lagunova was evacuated from a tank, unconsciously delivered to a field hospital. On waking up, she found that she had no legs and her right hand was also gone.[11][14]

She was delivered by plane to Sumy, from there to Ulyanovsk, and then to Omsk. Here, surgeon Valentina Borisova conducted her a series of operations to partially save her legs for the opportunity to walk on prosthetics.[15]

In the hospital, M.I. Lagunova was awarded the Order of the Red Star.[16]

The delegation from the Nizhny Tagil Training Regiment brought Mary about 60 letters from both friends and from unfamiliar cadets from the new replenishment.[17]

From letters from the front, from the commander of the brigade, Colonel M.K. Scooby and her former combatant Major Honin, she learned that in the fame room the regiment now hangs her portrait, and her military biography is told to all cadets for educational purposes.[18][19]

According to other sources, Lagunova was considered to have died, and fellow soldiers from the 56th Guards Tank Brigade learned that she was alive only after 20 years from the publications of the writer S.S. Smirnov in the press.[20]

In the spring of 1944, M.I. Lagunova was taken to the Central Institute of Traumatology and Prosthodontics of the Ministry of Health of the USSR in Moscow, where she had made dentures.[21]

Further life

Returning to the training regiment, M.I. Lagunova served as a telegraph operator for four years, continuing training in walking on prosthetics. In 1948, she was demobilized.[5]

She lived in Sverdlovsk, worked at the factory "Uralobuv" as a controller of the VTK. Married to Kuzma Yakovlevich Firsova, who she met in the hospital, also a war veteran. In the family they were born two sons.[22]

In the 1960s, under the advice of physicians, due to asthma, she was forced to a climate change, and the family moved to Khmelnytsky, and then to Brovary. She was bringing up children and grandchildren, working on patriotic education of youth, traveling with delegations abroad.[23]

She died 26 December 1995, at the age of 74 years.

Awards

Soviet state awards

An honorable citizen of the cities of Kataysk (Kurgan region, Russia), Brovary (Ukraine) and Grunewald ( (Germany)).

Family

The family had five children. Losing her mother at four, Lagunovа began to work early to feed and dress herself and her family. Nikolay's elder brother – from the first days of the war on the front, died in battle.[3]

The husband – Kuzma Yakovlevich Firsov, who she met in the hospital, was a war disabled person. When the future man proposed to marry her in the hospital, she laughed and cried: "What will we do? We both need a nanny". To which he replied: "And we are with you, Masha, we will combine two very difficult destinies into one heavy one. And make you happy". In the family there were born two sons: Nicholas (born 1949) and Vasily (born 1953). Both sons are named after the dead at the front of the brothers Mary Ivanovna and Kuzma Yakovlevich. There are also grandchildren,[26] they live in the Knyazhi village, Brovarsky district, Kyiv region of Ukraine.

Memory

Her name is called in the streets on the city of Brovary and the village Knyazhiychi in Ukraine,[27] as well as the home of Mary Ivanovna, in the city of Kataysky.

Honorary citizen of the city of Brovary. In 2010, on the eve of the Victory Day in the city of Nizhny Tagil Maria Lagunova installed a memorial plaque.[28][29]

On 6 May 2013, a memorial plaque in her memory was installed on one of the houses on the street named after her (M. Lagunova Street, house number 38).[30]

In 2015, the documentary series "The Magic Regiment" was released on air. The third series "Masha" is devoted to the feat and life of Maria Lagunova.[31]

In the museum – memorial complex "History of the T-34 tank", part of the exhibition "Women and Tanks" is dedicated to M. I. Lagunovoy.[32]

Estimates and thoughts

After more than 20 years of rest, M.I. Lagunova led the tank again, when she was in Germany as part of a delegation from the regiment, and one foreign journalist doubted that the "frau" could be a tank mechanic. Then Lagunova sat at the driver's seat of the tank and, with all the force on the friction pedal of both prosthetics, led the tank. "Bravo, Frau Meresiev!" – shouted, doubting the journalist.[33]

  • Memorable sign in Brovary
    Memorable sign in Brovary

References

  1. ^ a b Tikhy, Yuriy (25 February 2016). "Mechanic-driver of a steel machine". Progress of Primorye. Retrieved 19 May 2018.
  2. ^ Skvortsov, Valery (4 August 2015). "No one is forgotten". Newspaper "New Lots". Retrieved 19 May 2018.
  3. ^ a b "LAGUNOVA Maria Ivanovna". Persons Zauralye. Retrieved 19 May 2018.
  4. ^ ""FRAU Maresiev" -TANKIST MARIYA" (PDF). Position. 15 May 2013. Retrieved 19 May 2018.
  5. ^ a b ""Frau Maresiev" – Marusya Lagunova". Doctor of Sciences Always Online. Retrieved 19 May 2018.
  6. ^ Dybenko. "The real man is a tanker Maria Ivanovna Lagunova". uCrazy. 31 January 2017. Retrieved 19 May 2018.
  7. ^ Yeferev, Sergey (16 February 2015). "Women-tankers of the Great Patriotic War. Maria Lagunova". Military Review. Retrieved 19 May 2018.
  8. ^ Kuzhily, Dmitry (6 May 2017). "Tank at the museum. In memory of the legendary training regiment and its heroes". News Agency "Between the Rows". Retrieved 19 May 2018.
  9. ^ Smirnov, S.S. "Stories about unknown heroes". LIB. Retrieved 19 May 2018.
  10. ^ a b "Order of the unit". The feat of the people. 27 September 1943. Retrieved 19 May 2018.
  11. ^ a b "Masha – the driver of tanks". Regional public organization "Women and Information". Retrieved 19 May 2018.
  12. ^ "Lessons of Courage. Lagunova Maria Ivanovna". Gazeta31. Retrieved 19 May 2018.
  13. ^ Geiko, Yu. "Tankist named Maria". ARMOR. Retrieved 19 May 2018.
  14. ^ Smirnov, Sergey (3 May 2010). "Tankist Maria Lagunova is a woman of steel will". State History. Retrieved 19 May 2018.
  15. ^ "Maria Lagunova is a woman-tanker who became famous in fighting for Brovarsk". ATBROVARY. 17 January 2018. Retrieved 19 May 2018.
  16. ^ Malyshevsky, Nikolai. "Women who have won fascism". Russian folk line. 8 March 2013. Retrieved 19 May 2018.
  17. ^ "Mechanic-driver of tank T-34 Lagunova M.I." Otvoyna. Retrieved 19 May 2018.
  18. ^ Antropova, Natalya. "Katay district: the memory of Maria Lagunova". Council of municipal formations of the Kurgan region. 26 February 2015. Retrieved 19 May 2018.
  19. ^ "Extended meeting of the Chuvash Republican Department of the Russian Union of Veterans". Russian Union of Veterans. 4 April 2016. Retrieved 19 May 2018.
  20. ^ Markov, Valery. "Featuring Maria Lagunova". Historyntagil. 22 September 2009. Retrieved 19 May 2018.
  21. ^ "Tankist named Maria". Politikus. 17 February 2015. Retrieved 19 May 2018.
  22. ^ KROHMALYUK, V. (5 March 2005). "SISTER MARESYEVA". Sovross. Retrieved 19 May 2018.
  23. ^ Chigintsev, Victor. "SISTER MARESYEVA". Kopeisk Worker. 11 September 2010. Retrieved 19 May 2018.
  24. ^ "Lagunova Maria Ivanovna 1921g". The feat of the people in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945. 24 September 1943. Retrieved 20 May 2018.
  25. ^ "Lagunova Maria Ivanovna". The feat of the people in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945. 6 April 1985. Retrieved 20 May 2018.
  26. ^ "The front-line story of the woman-tanker Maria Lagunova". Inter. 9 May 2014. Retrieved 20 May 2018.
  27. ^ "Victory History. Maria Lagunova". Tentorium. 30 April 2015. Retrieved 20 May 2018.
  28. ^ Sergeenko, Taisiya. ""Frau Maresiev" – Marusya Lagunova". AesliB. Retrieved 20 May 2018.
  29. ^ "Memorial – Memorial board by Lagunova MI in the city of Brovary". Memory-tour. Retrieved 20 May 2018.
  30. ^ Sukhanova, Marina. "Abstract OOD on cognitive development 'The Great Patriotic War and its heroes' for children of the preparatory group". MAAM. Retrieved 20 May 2018.
  31. ^ "Masha". Russia – Culture. Retrieved 20 May 2018.
  32. ^ "Exposition". Museum complex "History of T-34 tank". Retrieved 20 May 2018.
  33. ^ "Women-tankers in the Great Patriotic War". Schoolfiles. Retrieved 20 May 2018.
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