Mariya Shcherbachenko

Mariya Shcherbachenko (Марія Захарівна Щербаченко) was a Sergeant in the 835th Rifle Regiment of the 237th Infantry Division in the 40th Army on the Voronezh Front during World War II, referred to by the Soviets as the Great Patriotic War. For her service in the military she was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union on 23 October 1943.

Civilian life
Shcherbachenko was born on 14 February 1922 to a Ukrainian peasant family in the village of Efremovka in the Kharkov Governorate. At the age of ten she lost both of her parents and was raised by her elder brother. After graduating from secondary school she worked as an accountant's assistant on a collective farm in her village.

Military career
Shcherbachenko joined the Red Army in 1943 after the start of the Second World War and after completing medical training in Samarkand she was sent to the warfront in June that year. On 24 September 1943 she was one of the first 13 soldiers to cross the Dnieper River bridgehead, doing so under heavy enemy fire in the village of Grebeni in the Kiev oblast. Throughout ten days of intense battle she rescued 112 injured soldiers from the battlefield, providing first aid and transporting them back across the river to a medical center. In the beginning of the offensive she operated a machine gun in battle. On 23 October 1943 she was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet for her actions in the Dnieper battle.

After the war she was demobilized from active duty, leaving for the reserve army. She then graduated from Tashkent Law School and worked as a lawyer in Kiev. For her dedication to rescuing the wounded in battle she was awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal by the International Red Cross in 1973. On 22 July 2000 the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine declared Shcherbachenko an honorary member of the 407th Central Military Medical unit of the Northern Operational Command. She passed away in Kiev on 23 November 2016 at the age of 94 and was buried in the Kiev Lukyanivske Military Cemetery.

Awards

 * Hero of the Soviet Union
 * Order of Lenin
 * Order of the Patriotic War 1st Class
 * Medal "For Courage"
 * Florence Nightingale Medal
 * Order of Merit 2nd Class
 * Order of Bohdan Khmelnytsky 3rd Class
 * Defender of the Motherland Medal