Anna Nikandrova

Anna Nikandrova (Анна Никандрова) was a political officer and senior lieutenant in the 426th Rifle Regiment of the 88th Infantry Division, 31st Army on the 3rd Belorussian Front during World War II. She was posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union on 24 March 1945.

Civilian life
Nikandrova was born on 31 October 1921 to a Russia peasant family in Barashkino. After graduating secondary school and training to become a librarian, she worked as a librarian until joining the Krasnogorodsky District Committee Komsomol. She became a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1942.

Military career
As a member of the Komsomol, she joined the Red Army in 1941 after the start of the Second World War. Originally she worked as a sanitation officer, evacuating wounded soldiers from the battlefield to field hospitals and providing assistance at military hospitals. After graduating from the junior lieutenant course she was assigned to the 426th Rifle Regiment.

During the war she was promoted to the rank of senior lieutenant after demonstrating her abilities in battle, for which she was awarded the Medal for Courage on 30 May 1943.

In the battle near the railway station in Dubrovensky, Belarus on 23 June 1944, she led her battalion through heavy enemy fire into an anti-tank ditch to the battlefield and was killed in action taking out an axis machine-gun bunker the same day. Her body was buried in a mass grave of deceased Soviet soldiers and partisans, and a monument was eventually constructed at the site.

By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on 24 March 1945 she was posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union for her actions in battle.

Awards

 * Hero of the Soviet Union
 * Order of Lenin
 * Order of the Red the Patriotic War, 2nd Class
 * Medal "For Courage"