Klavdiya Kalugina



Klavdiya Kalugina (born 1926) was a Soviet sniper in the Second World War. She joined the Communist Youth league Komsomol in 1943 where she qualified as a sniper. She entered active service at age 17 in March 1944, fighting on the 3rd Belorussian Front as one of the youngest women snipers. She has 257 confirm kills.

Biography
Kalugina was born in 1926. When war broke out in 1939, she started to work in the munitions factory at Orekhovo-Zuyevo to the east of Moscow. According to her own account, she joined the youth organization Komsomol and completed her secondary education under their auspices. When she was 17, in June 1943, she became the youngest pupil at their sniper school. After receiving assistance from Zinaida Urantseva, the squad commander, she became a qualified sniper. Together with many other women snipers, she was sent to the Belorussian front in March 1944 where she served near Orsha for several months. During the summer she and her unit moved on to Poland and thereafter to the Leningrad front and Koenigsberg which they defended until the end of the war.