Matryona Semyonovna Nazdracheva,

née The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...

Necheporchukova (; 3 April 1924 – 22 March 2017) was a

combat medic A combat medic is responsible for providing emergency medicine, emergency medical treatment at a point of wounding in a combat or training environment, as well as primary care and health protection and evacuation from a point of injury or illnes ...

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

who rescued 250 wounded soldiers and officers during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. On 15 May 1946 she was awarded the

Order of Glory The Order of Glory () was a military decoration of the Soviet Union established by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet on November 8, 1943. It was awarded to soldiers and non-commissioned officers of the Red Army as well as to aviation ...

1st Class and became one of only four women to receive all three classes of that order.

Early life

Necheporchukova was born in the village of Volchiy Yar to a Ukrainian peasant family. After her parents died in 1933 she lived in a local boarding school, and in 1939 she completed her seventh grade of school, marking the end of her secondary education, but after graduating from the Balakleyevskaya Obstetrical Nursing School she became a nurse. She had wanted to join the ranks of the Red Army sooner, but the Nazis occupied the Kharkhov area (where she lived) soon after the start of the war, and before that the Red Army initially rejected her because she was too young when the war started.

Military career

Necheporchukova managed to join the Communist Party and enlist in the Red Army as a medic in 1943 shortly after German forces were expelled from her hometown. She was deployed with her regiment to the frontlines in the spring and on her first day of battle she provided first aid to fifteen wounded soldiers. After the Soviet offensive in Kiev she crossed the

Dnieper The Dnieper or Dnepr ( ), also called Dnipro ( ), is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. Approximately long, with ...

in October with a medical company under heavy enemy fire. After the river crossing she carried the wounded from battle to rafts despite heavy presence of enemy mortar fire, artillery, shelling, and bombing attacks. For nearly a week she continued doing so with little sleep and was soon awarded the Medal "For Courage". When Soviet forces crossed the Vistula river in Poland on 1 August 1944, Necheporchukova was the first person from her medical company to enter the river and head toward the bridgehead on the west shore, where heavy fighting was already taking place. After the crossing she provided first aid to roughly sixty soldiers, twenty-six of whom she carried off the battlefield to safety in an area where artillery fire could not reach. For doing so she was awarded the Order of Glory 3rd Class later that month. During the Vistula-Oder offensive in January 1945, she stayed in

Radom Radom is a city in east-central Poland, located approximately south of the capital, Warsaw. It is situated on the Mleczna River in the Masovian Voivodeship. Radom is the fifteenth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest in its province w ...

behind the rest of the unit with several other medics to look after roughly thirty wounded soldiers while waiting for ambulances to pick them up. On 18 January a group of

Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the German Army (1935–1945), ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmac ...

soldiers that ran past Soviet lines raided the shelter where the injured were staying, but she and the other medics managed to repel the attack. One day later the ambulances arrived and she left to return her regiment. In a separate incident she provided first aid to fifty-one wounded soldiers on the bank of the Oder, twenty-seven of whom were seriously injured. For her actions in Radom and Oder she was awarded the Order of Glory 2nd class. During the

Battle of Berlin The Battle of Berlin, designated as the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation by the Soviet Union, and also known as the Fall of Berlin, was one of the last major offensives of the European theatre of World War II. After the Vistula–Od ...

as well as the crossings of the Spree and Oder Rivers she carried 78 wounded soldiers off the battlefield under heavy enemy fire, refusing to go to the hospital after sustaining a shrapnel wound to her leg. In Berlin she killed several German soldiers after they began approaching towards the wounded soldiers she was treating. For her actions under heavy fire in those offensives she was awarded her third Order of Glory, making her a full bearer of the award.

Postwar life

After the end of the war she married a fellow veteran,

radio operator A radio operator (also, formerly, a wireless operator in British and Commonwealth English) is a person who is responsible for the operations of a radio system and the technicalities in broadcasting. The profession of radio operator has become l ...

Viktor Stepanovich Nazdrachev. From 1945 to 1950 she and her husband lived in

East Germany East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

before moving to Dmitrievskoe village in

Stavropol Stavropol (, ), known as Voroshilovsk from 1935 until 1943, is a city and the administrative centre of Stavropol Krai, in southern Russia. As of the 2021 Census, its population was 547,820, making it one of Russia's fastest growing cities. E ...

where they lived from 1950 to 1965, after which they moved to Krasnogvardeyskoye where they lived until 1977. In 1973 she was awarded the

Florence Nightingale Medal The Florence Nightingale Medal is an international award presented to those distinguished in nursing and named after British nurse Florence Nightingale. The medal was established in 1912 by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), f ...

by the Red Cross for her dedication in the salvation of the wounded during the war. In 1977 she returned to the city of Stavropol, where she lived for the remainder of her life. In 2016 on the date of her 91st birthday she received a phone call from Russian president

Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has served as President of Russia since 2012, having previously served from 2000 to 2008. Putin also served as Prime Minister of Ru ...

thanking her for her courage in the war. She died on 22 March 2017 and was buried in the Ignatievsky cemetery.

Awards and honors

(3rd class - 11 August 1944, 2nd class - 13 April 1945, 1st class - 15 May 1946) *

Order of the Patriotic War The Order of the Patriotic War () is a Soviet Union, Soviet military Order (decoration), decoration that was awarded to all soldiers in the Soviet armed forces, security troops, and to Partisan (military), partisans for heroic deeds in the Easte ...

1st class (11 March 1985) * Medal "For Courage" (24 October 1943) *

(12 May 1973) * Honorary citizen of Stavropol * Campaign and jubilee medals

References

Bibliography