Tatyana Sumarokova

Tatyana Sumarokova was a navigator and Guard Lieutenant in the 46th Taman Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment during the Second World War. After stories of her heroism in the war were published in Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union she was awarded the title Hero of the Russian Federation in 1995.

Early life
Sumarokova was born on 16 September 1922 to a Russian family. Her father, Nikolai Surmarkov, was a serviceman in the military. After graduating secondary school in 1939 she entered the 2nd Moscow State Medical Institute where she studied until the start of the war in 1941. She became a member of the Communist Party in 1943.

Military career
After the start of the Second World War Sumarokova repeatedly petitioned to be sent to the front but was initially denied and was sent to construct defensive fortifications around Moscow. On 31 October 1941 Sumarokova and one of her classmates, Khiuaz Dospanova, met with Marina Raskova, Hero of the Soviet Union and the founder of three women's aviation regiments. Raskova had them enlist in the military and assigned them to an accelerated navigation course at the Engels Military Aviation School. After graduating the course they were deployed to the front on 23 May 1942 as part of the 588th Night Bomber Regiment and they arrived on the North Caucasian Front on 27 May. She received her first Order of the Red Banner in September that same year after making several combat sorties in heavy autumn fog. By October 1942 she had completed 146 sorties. She flew as a navigator for squadron commander Mariya Smirnova on over half of her flights after entering the unit as a link navigator.

Throughout the war Sumarokova took part in offensives over Kuban, Crimea, the Caucuses, Taman, Krasnodar, Belarus, and the Baltics. In 1943 she flew on numerous resupply missions to send ammunition, paratroopers, and provisions to forces in Eltigen, Crimea through heavy autumn storms and heavy enemy fire. In 1943 the 588th Night Bomber Regiment was honored with the Guards designation and renamed the 46th Guards Night Bomber Regiment. By October 1943 she had completed 390 sorties. On a mission in Kerch piloted by Vera Tikhomirova the Po-2 was hit by flak and caught fire. The plane began to lose altitude and Tikhomirova was prepared to carry out ditching at sea but managed to safely land the plane at their destination. After being transferred to the German front in summer 1944 she took part in the Kurland blockade. Sumarokova repeatedly navigated through heavy fog and twice carried out emergency landings. Her last sortie was on 5 May 1945 and she made a total of 809 sorties in the war.

Lieutenant Colonel Yevdokia Bershanskaya, commander of the regiment, nominated Sumarokova for the title Hero of the Soviet Union. However, the documents nominating her for the award were lost and she received an Order of the Patriotic War in the first class in December 1945. In 1995 after her feats were publicized she was awarded the title Hero of the Russian Federation by decree of the president of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin.

Later life
Sumarokova was dismissed from the military after the end of the war and studied editorializing and publishing at the Moscow State University of Printing Arts. She and a fellow veteran from her unit, Raisa Aronova were admitted to the Union of Journalists of the USSR. For 15 years she worked as an editor for the Physical Culture and Sport publishing house before writing for the newspaper Soviet Patriot and later the Znanie publishing house. In 1988 she published a book about the lives of Hero of the Soviet Union from her regiment Yekaterina Ryabova and her husband twice Hero of the Soviet Union Grigory Sivkov, both of whom were veterans of the Second World War.

Sumarokova often engaged in public speaking after the war, especially to youth groups. She was also a board member of the Portugal―USSR relations committee. After the war, Sumarokova got married and gave birth to a son Aleksandr. She was awarded the title Hero of Russia in 1995; after she passed away on 28 May 1997 in Moscow she was buried in the Kuntsevo Cemetery.