Vera Kashcheyeva

Vera Sergeyevna Kashcheyeva (Вера Сергеевна Кащеева; 15 September 1922 – 20 May 1975) was a Senior Lieutenant in the 120th Rifle Regiment of the 39th Guards Rifle Division, 8th Guards Army on the 3rd Belorussian Front during World War II. On 22 February 1944 she was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union for fulfilling her reconnaissance mission despite serious wounds. Kashcheyeva was the only female in the 120th Rifle Regiment, one of the five Soviet soldiers that survived the Dnieper assault mission, and in 1973 became one of the first women to be awarded the Red Cross Florence Nightingale Medal.

Civilian life
Kashcheyeva was born on 15 September 1922 to a Russian peasant family in the city of Petrovka in the Russian SFSR, located in present-day Troitsky. After graduating from school she moved to Barnaul and began working at the Melange Complex until she graduated from nursing school in 1941. She became a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1944.

Military career
After the start of the Second World War Kashcheyeva enlisted a local military recruiting station as a nurse and began her service in the army in March 1942. After completing her training she worked as a sanitary instructor in the 120th Rifle Regiment, where she received her "baptism by fire" through intense combat in the Battle of Stalingrad. In conducting defensive operations at the Krasny Oktyabr Steel Plant, the regiment fought off as many as twenty attacks daily and downed multiple enemy aircraft and artillery points, at the price of significant casualties. For her actions is the battles of Stalingrad and Kharkov she was awarded the medals for courage and battle merit.

In a mission that involved landing in Dnipropetrovsk and crossing the Dnieper river to provide a foothold for later troops to come. Despite incurring severe injuries and nearly bleeding to death she continued her work in reconnaissance, delivering information on enemy artillery positions to her commanding officers, which helped later troops to arrive regain control of a strategic bridgehead on the right bank of the river. Only five soldiers from the initial landing group survived the fighting, including her. For her actions on that mission, she was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union on 22 February 1944, wherein she was praised not only for completing her mission through hardships but also inspiring other soldiers to continue on fighting.

Later life
In 1944 she was demobilized from the front lines for health reasons and returned to the city of Barnaul where she graduated from medical school as a midwife in 1948 and worked as a nurse there until she got married. After getting married she and her husband moved to the Far Eastern part of Russia in Khabarovsk, where they lived until 1973. Until 1953 she was in charge of a nursery school in Bira, Jewish Autonomous Oblast. In 1973 the family moved to Apsheronsk where she worked as a paramedic and was awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal by the Red Cross.

On 20 May 1975, Kashcheyeva died in an automobile accident with her grandson and was buried in the Apsheronsk cemetery. Streets in Barnaul, Bira, and Apsheronsk bear her name.

Awards

 * Hero of the Soviet Union (22 February 1944)
 * Order of Lenin (22 February 1944)
 * Order of the Red Star (30 August 1943)
 * Medal "For Courage" (12 August 1943)
 * Medal "For Battle Merit" (22 January 1944)
 * Florence Nightingale Medal (12 May 1973)
 * campaign and jubilee medals