Zinaida Mareseva was born in the village of Cherkasskoye off Saratov in 1923. Upon graduation from seven-year school, she went to Volsk and took on a job at the Bolshevik cement factory. In July, 1941, she enrolled in a condensed paramedic officers’ program and went off to war upon graduation. According to relentless reports, a combat medic lived 40 seconds on average in the first year of war and then got shot. The Army regulation said: you have not only to carry the wounded off the battlefield, but also take along their individual weapons.
Mareseva was in the defense of Stalingrad, carried the wounded off the front line and gave high-skilled first aid to the them in Stalingrad and at the Steppe Front. She was decorated with medals For the Defense of Stalingrad and For Battle Merit. For saving lives of 38 Red Army soldiers in the Battle of Kursk, she was honored with the Order of Red Star.
On August 1, as the Kursk Salient was practically over, units of the 214th Guards regiment in the ranks of which combat medic Mareseva was serving, forced a crossing over the Severny Donets River and secured a foothold between Toplinka and Solomino. The retiring German troops were concentrated there and were laying down firepower against the Soviet troops. The river crossing site was constantly kept under fire. Disregarding danger, Zinaida was carrying the wounded off the battle field without any rest, applying a dressing and creeping away back to the frontline.
At night, as the fire was not so massive, she was taking saved soldiers over a shaky bridge previously laid by field engineers. As the hostile artillery destroyed the bridge, she continued the hot extraction by boat. On August 6, Zinaida was brought down by a frag of a mortar shell that went off nearby. The fearless girl died in the field hospital. She was laid to rest in the village of Pyatnitskoye off Belgorod.
On that mission, combat medic Zinaida Mareseva and her medical aidman Buzykanov extricated 64 wounded, 52 of them along with their individual weapons, as was due according to instructions. She was awarded the title of the Hero of the Soviet Union for that feat. Just 15 combat medics of 1.3 million female medics who fought along with male soldiers in the front line, were honored with the highest award over the years of war. Today, a rebuilt street close to the Volga and to the Great Patriotic War Memorial in Volgograd, is named after Zinaida Mareseva.
Mareseva was in the defense of Stalingrad, carried the wounded off the front line and gave high-skilled first aid to the them in Stalingrad and at the Steppe Front. She was decorated with medals For the Defense of Stalingrad and For Battle Merit. For saving lives of 38 Red Army soldiers in the Battle of Kursk, she was honored with the Order of Red Star.
On August 1, as the Kursk Salient was practically over, units of the 214th Guards regiment in the ranks of which combat medic Mareseva was serving, forced a crossing over the Severny Donets River and secured a foothold between Toplinka and Solomino. The retiring German troops were concentrated there and were laying down firepower against the Soviet troops. The river crossing site was constantly kept under fire. Disregarding danger, Zinaida was carrying the wounded off the battle field without any rest, applying a dressing and creeping away back to the frontline.
At night, as the fire was not so massive, she was taking saved soldiers over a shaky bridge previously laid by field engineers. As the hostile artillery destroyed the bridge, she continued the hot extraction by boat. On August 6, Zinaida was brought down by a frag of a mortar shell that went off nearby. The fearless girl died in the field hospital. She was laid to rest in the village of Pyatnitskoye off Belgorod.
On that mission, combat medic Zinaida Mareseva and her medical aidman Buzykanov extricated 64 wounded, 52 of them along with their individual weapons, as was due according to instructions. She was awarded the title of the Hero of the Soviet Union for that feat. Just 15 combat medics of 1.3 million female medics who fought along with male soldiers in the front line, were honored with the highest award over the years of war. Today, a rebuilt street close to the Volga and to the Great Patriotic War Memorial in Volgograd, is named after Zinaida Mareseva.
