Mariya Shkarletova

Mariya Shkarletova (Марія Шкарлетова) (3 February 1925 – 2 November 2003) was a field medic in the 170th Guards Rifle Regiment during World War II. During the war she participated in offensive operations in Ukraine, Moldova, and Poland for which she was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union on 24 March 1945.

Early life
Shkarletova was born on 3 February 1925 in Kislovka to a Ukrainian peasant family. After graduating from secondary school she worked in the railroad industry and later on a collective farm until the start of the Second World War. As a member of the Communist Youth league, she worked in the construction of defensive fortifications after the outbreak of the war when she was a teenager. Because German troops surrounded the city before Shkarletova and the rest of her family were evacuated, she was not able to join the Red Army until Soviet troops retook control of the city in July 1943.

Military career
After the Red Army retook Kupiansk Raion in 1943 Shkarletova joined the army and was sent to brief medical courses in Millerovo. After graduating those courses in October she was deployed in the 170th Guards Rifle Regiment of the 57th Guards Rifle Division. Despite being a medic she participated in direct combat, and on several occasions led her unit in fighting on the Eastern Front. The regiment fought in multiple battles for control of strategic riverbanks on the Dnieper, Ingulets, Dniester, Southern Bug, and Vistula; in the Vistula operation near Warsaw she participated an advance to establish a bridgehead on the right bank under heavy enemy fire. As the only medic of the landing group, she had to run under heavy artillery fire and shelling attacks to provide first aid and carry the wounded to the safety of the forest. She evacuated over 100 wounded under the cover of darkness across the Vistula River for which she was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union in March 1945.

Later life
Shkarletova became a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1946 and graduated from the Kupiansk Medical School in 1949. She actively participated in the reconstruction of the war-torn region employed as a nurse in the Kupiansk District Hospital. Her husband was also a veteran of the Second World War and they raised two daughters. She was later elected as a deputy of the city council and was a member of the Kharkov Red Cross regional committee. In 1965 she was awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal for her dedication to rescuing the wounded in the war. She passed away on 2 November 2003 in Kupiansk, Ukraine at the age of 78.

Awards

 * Hero of the Soviet Union
 * Order of Lenin
 * Order of the Patriotic War 1st Class
 * Order of the Red Star
 * Florence Nightingale Medal
 * Order of Bohdan Khmelnytsky
 * Defender of the Motherland Medal
 * various campaign and jubilee medals