Roza Shanina
Roza Yegorovna Shanina | |
|---|---|
| File:Roza Shanina.jpg Shanina in 1944, holding a 1891/30 Mosin–Nagant with the 3.5x PU scope. | |
| Nickname(s) | Horny[1] |
| Allegiance |  Soviet Union |
| Service/ | Red Army |
| Years of service | 1943 – 1945 |
| Rank | Senior Sergeant |
| Unit | 184th Rifle Division (3rd Belorussian Front) |
| Commands held | 1st Sniper Squad (184th Rifle Division) |
| Battles/wars | World War II (Eastern Front) |
| Awards |  Orders of Glory 3rd and 2nd Class Medal for Valor |
Roza Yegorovna Shanina (Russian: Ро́за Его́ровна Ша́нина; 3 April 1924 – 28 January 1945) was a Soviet sniper during World War II, credited with 54 confirmed kills,[1] including 12 snipers during the Battle of Vilnius.[2] Praised for the shooting accuracy, Shanina was capable of making precise semi-automatic shots on moving enemy manpower.[3] Being highly courageous, she voluntarily served on the front line, supporting the troops in the role of marksman.
The Allied newspapers Ottawa Citizen, Leader-Post and U.S. News described Shanina as "the unseen terror of East Prussia".[4][5][6] She became the first Soviet female sniper to be awarded the Order of Glory[7] and the first servicewoman of the 3rd Belorussian Front to receive it.[8]
Early life
Roza Shanina was born in the Russian village of Yedma to kolkhoz milkmaid Anna Shanina and logger Yegor Mikhailovich Shanin, who had become disabled through a wound in World War I.[3] Roza was above average in height, with light brown hair and blue eyes, and spoke in a drawling Northern Russian dialect.[9] As there was no school conveyance at the time, Roza with her fellow girl in grades five, six and seven used to walk 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) to the village of Bereznik to attend school.[3] At the age of fourteen, Shanina, against her parents' wishes, walked 200 kilometres (120 mi) across the taiga to the rail station and traveled to Arkhangelsk to study in the college there.[9] Arkhangelsk became Shanina's hometown and later in her combat diary she recalled the town's stadium Dinamo, the theater and the cinemas, Ars and Pobeda.[9] As recalled by Shanina's friend Anna Samsonova, Roza sometimes returned from her fellow countrymen of Ustya Raion to her college hostel at 2-3 a.m., but as the doors by that time were locked, several bedsheets were tied together to help Roza climb into her room.[10]
In 1940 the Soviet institutes of secondary education introduced tuition fees, and the scholarship fund was cut.[11] Shanina received little from home, and on September 11, 1941, she took a job in kindergarten №2 (lately known as Beryozka) in Arkhangelsk.[11][3] Shanina finished her college education in the 1941-42 academic year, obtaining her certificate.[12]
Tour of duty
At the outbreak of war, Shanina's two elder brothers volunteered for the military. In December 1941 a death notification for one of her brothers, nineteen year-old Mikhail, had arrived, and Roza went to the military commissariat to ask for permission to serve herself.[3] At that time the Soviet Union had been deploying numerous female snipers, largely because they were small-statured and flexible-limbed, and possessed both patience and cunning. They were also reckoned to be more resilient under combat stress than the men, and more resistant to cold.[13] In February 1942 Soviet women between the ages of 16 and 45 were made eligible for the military draft,[14] but Shanina was initially refused. On June 22, 1943, Shanina was accepted for Vsevobuch while still living in the hostel. After applying several times, she was allowed by the military commissariat to enroll in the Central Female Sniper Academy,[9] which in the fall of 1943 was moved to Podolsk. In the academy she met Aleksandra "Sasha" Yekimova and Kaleriya "Kalya" Petrova, who became her closest friends; they were referred to by Shanina as the "vagrant three". Of the three, only Petrova survived the war.[9] Shanina scored highly in training, and graduated from the academy with honors.[3]
On April 2, 1944 Shanina joined the 184th Rifle Division, where a separate female sniper platoon had been formed. Three days later, when south-east of Vitebsk, Shanina fired her first combat shot. By Shanina's own words, which were recorded by an anonymous author, her legs gave way upon that first kill and she slid down into the trench, saying, "I've killed a man".[15] The other girls ran up concernedly, saying, "That was a fascist you finished off!"[15] Seven months later Shanina wrote in her diary that she was now killing the enemies cold-bloodedly, and saw the current meaning of her life in that.[9] Shanina noted that if she had to do everything over again, she would still strive to enter the sniper academy, and would go to the front again.[16]
In May, 1944 Shanina became credited with 17 confirmed enemy kills[9], and in the second half of May was praised as a precise and brave soldier.[11] Around that time she became a squad commander in the female sniper platoon. During her tour of duty, Shanina crawled each day at dawn through a muddy communications trench to a specially camouflaged pit from which she could overlook German-controlled territory.[4] Shanina also successfully used counter-sniper tactics against German cuckoo.[17]
In 1944 Shanina was awarded the Order of Glory 3rd class for actions in the battle for the village Kozyi Gory (Smolensk Oblast), which took place in the same year. According to the report of the commander of the 1138th Rifle Division, Maj. Degtyarev, during that time, from April 6 to April 11, Shanina killed eighteen enemy soldiers while subjected to artillery and machine gun fire.[17] Two months later, on June 22, the Soviets started a large-scale Operation Bagration in the Vitebsk region. The female snipers were to be retracted, but continued to voluntarily support the advancing infantry.[7] Shanina also pressed to be sent to the front line[18] despite Soviet policy of sparing snipers. Shanina was sanctioned for willfully and unwarrantedly going to the front line, but she did not face a court martial.[17] She wanted to be attached to the battalion or a reconnaissance company, and finally turned to the commander of the 5th Army, Nikolai Krylov. He ultimately allowed Shanina to continue to serve at the front.[9] On June 9, 1944 the Soviet newspaper Unichtozhim Vraga featured Shanina's portrait on the first page. Later that year, from July 8 to July 13, Shanina and her sisters-in-arms participated in the fightings for Vilnius,[11] which has been under German occupation from June 24, 1941.
Shanina loved writing and used to send letters to her home village and to the other girls in Arkhangelsk.[15] In August, 1944 Shanina started to write her war diary, and around that time captured three Germans.[9] Although writing diaries was strictly prohibited in the Soviet military of that period,[19] there were some exceptions (like Front Diary of Izrael Kukuyev and The Chronicle of War of Muzagit Hayrutdinov).[20][21] To preserve military secrecy in her diary Shanina termed the killed and wounded "blacks" and "reds", respectively.
By August 31, 1944 Shanina's battle count reached 42 kills.[9] In that month the advancing Soviet troops had reached the borders of East Prussia and in September crossed the Šešupė River. In September, 1944 the Ottawa Citizen and Leader-Post reported that, according to an official dispatch from the Šešupė River front, Shanina killed five Germans in a single day as she crouched in a sniper hideout.[4][5] By that month her battle count had reached 46 kills[4][5][6] and on September 17 Unichtozhim Vraga credited Shanina with 51 hits.[7] In the fall of 1944, Shanina was given a short furlough and visited Arkhangelsk. On October 17, Shanina returned to the front again for one day and later received a honorable certificate from the Central Committee of Komsomol.[9] In the same year Shanina was awarded the Order of Glory, 2nd Class for her sniper actions during the fighting for Litva and Belarus.
On December 12, Shanina was shot in the right shoulder by an enemy sniper. She noted in her diary that she had not felt the pain — "the shoulder was just scalded with something hot".[9] Although the injury, described by Shanina as "two small holes", seemed minor to her, an operation was needed and she was incapacitated for several days.[9] She reported in her diary that one day before, she had had a prophetic dream in which she was wounded exactly in the same place.[9] Later that month, on December 27, Shanina was among the first woman snipers to be awarded the Medal for Valor[18] for the repulse of a counter-offensive.
By January 15, 1945 Shanina together with divisional logistics reached the town of Eydtkuhnen (now Chernyshevskoye). On that day she used white military camouflage, although at some point its color was judged to be too conspicuous during bad weather.[9] At that time, Shanina joined the infantry offensive despite enemy fire from rocket mortars. Several days later she experienced friendly fire from Katyusha rocket launcher and wrote in her diary, "Now I understand why the Germans are so afraid of Katyushas. What a fire!"[9] At the border of East Prussia, Shanina eliminated 26 enemies.[17] The last unit she served in was the 144th Rifle Division. According to the Book of Memory of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Shanina served in the 205th Special Motorized Rifle Batallion of that division.[22] Shanina had hoped to go to university after the war, or if that was not possible, to raise orphans.[9] Her last diary entry was made on January 24, 1945, four days before her death. It reports tough German resistance and an inability to shoot due to the heavy enemy fire.[23] The last sentence stated that Roza and three scouts had been the first to break through into the next house.[23]
Shanina's achievements were acknowledged particularly by Ilya Ehrenburg[24] and in the newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda. The latter noted that Shanina was one of the best snipers in her unit and that even the veteran soldiers were inferior to her in shooting accuracy.[25] Yet Shanina paid no special attention to her popularity and once noted that she had been overrated. Ten days before her death she wrote in her combat diary: "I'm sitting and pondering about fame. They call me a famed sniper in the newspaper Unichtozhim Vraga, and Ogonyok has my portrait on the front page. It's strange even to imagine how those I know look at my picture... I know that I'm doing little so far... I have done no more than is my duty as a Soviet citizen, having stood up to defend the motherland".[11] In the diary Shanina noted in particular:
The essence of my happiness is fighting for the happiness of others. It's strange, why is it that in grammar, the word "happiness" can only be singular? That is counter to its meaning, after all. [...] If it turns necessary to die for the common happiness, then I'm ready to.[16]
Death
On January 13, 1945 the Soviets launched the East Prussian Offensive, which triggered severe fightings in East Prussia. Pursuant to old junker tradition, the Germans tried to strengthen every location. In a letter, dated January 17, Shanina noted she might die soon because her battalion had lost 72 out of 78 people.[11] Her last diary entry reported, that German fire had become so intense that the Soviet troops, including herself, were forced to shelter inside the self-propelled guns.[9] Shanina was ultimately heavily wounded and died despite medical efforts[3] near the estate Richau (subsequently the Soviet settlement Telmanovka), 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) south-east of the East Prussian village of Ilmsdorf (Novobobruysk). As recalled by nurse Yekaterina Radkina, Shanina, while talking with her, said she regretted for having done so little.[3] Shanina was initially buried under a sprawling pear tree on the shore of Allya River, now called Lava.[11] She is the only person, killed in these places, whose body was not transferred in 1953 to the mass grave of Soviet soldiers in Znamensk, Kaliningrad Oblast.[23]
Shanina's combat diary, consisting of three thick notebooks, and several letters have been published. Streets in Arkhangelsk and in the settlements of Shangaly and Stroyevskoye were named after her. Recurring competitions among DOSAAF shooters for the Roza Shanina Prize were organized in Arkhangelsk,[17] while Novodvinsk organized the open shooting sports championship in memory of Shanina.[26] The Russian village Malinovka started to hold the annual cross-country skiings for the Roza Shanina Prize.[27] In 1985, Russian author N. Zhuravlyov published the book Posle boya vernulas (Returned After Battle). Its title refers to the Shanina's phrase "I will return after the battle", uttered upon receiving a note from battalion commander's messenger, which urged her to return to the rear immediately.[17]
Character and personal life
The war correspondent Pyotr Molchanov, who had frequently met Shanina on front, described her as a person of unusual will and genuine, bright nature.[15] Shanina marked herself as "boundlessly and recklessly talkative" during her college years[10] and described her own character as that of Lermontov.[9] According to Shanina's sister-in-arms Lidiya Vdovina, Roza used to sing her favorite war song "Oy tumany moi, rastumany" ("O My Mists" in Russian) each time she started cleaning her weapon.[15] Most of all Roza valued courage and absence of egoism in people.[9] She once told a story (subsequently published in 2006 by the newspaper Pravda Severa), when "about half a hundred frenzied fascists with wild cries" attacked the trench accommodating twelve female snipers, including Shanina herself: "Some fell from our well-aimed bullets, some we finished with our bayonets, grenades, shovels, and some we took prisoners, having restrained their arms".[15]
Shanina's personal life was thwarted by war. On October 10, 1944, she wrote in her diary: "I can't accept that Misha Panarin doesn’t live anymore. What a good guy! [He] has been killed... He loved me, I know, and I him. [...] My heart is heavy, I'm twenty, but I have no close [male] friend".[9] Later, in November Shanina noted, that she "is beating into her head that [she] loves" a certain Nikolai, although he "doesn't shine in upbringing and education".[9] Shanina, however, noted in the same record, that she does not think about marriage because "it's not the time now".[9] She later outlined that "had it out" with Nikolai and "wrote him a note in the sense of "but I'm given to the one and will love no other one".[9]
Shanina had five siblings: one sister, Yuliya, and four brothers (Mikhail, Fyodor, Sergey, and Marat). Mikhail died during the Siege of Leningrad in 1941, while Fyodor was killed the same year during the Battle of Crimea. Sergey was also killed, leaving Marat as the only surviving brother.
References
- ^ a b Brayley, Martin (2001). World War II Allied Women's Services. Osprey Publishing. p. 37. ISBN 1841760536.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - ^ "Women snipers of the Great Patriotic War" (in Russian). State History. Retrieved 2010-12-27.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Алёшина, А., Попышева, К. (2010) "Снайпер Роза" ["Sniper Roza"]. Краеведческий альманах "Отечество" ["Homeland" local lore almanac], 8, Калининград, pp. 14—17
- ^ a b c d "Red Army Girl Unseen Terror Of East Prussia". Ottawa Citizen. Sep 20, 1944. Retrieved 2010-12-27.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ a b c "Woman sniper's total now 46". Leader-Post. Sep 25, 1944. Retrieved 2010-12-27.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ a b "Russ Girl Terror of East Prussia". U.S. News. September 1944. Retrieved 2010-12-31.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ a b c P. Molchanov (1985). "Female Snipers of the 5th Army (from the compilation Born by War)" (in Russian). Molodaya Gvardiya. Retrieved 2011-01-21.
- ^ Крылов, Н. И. (1970). Навстречу победе (in Russian). Москва: Наука. p. 191.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x "Снайпер Роза Шанина [Sniper Roza Shanina]" (in Russian). Armoury Online. Retrieved 2010-12-27.
- ^ a b "The Memory of Victory: She was a Friend of Legendary Sniper Roza Shanina" (in Russian). Pravda. May 11, 2005. Retrieved 2011-11-01.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ a b c d e f g Yevgeny Ovsyankin (2004). "Снайпер Роза Шанина [Sniper Roza Shanina]". Arkhangelsk Pedagogical College (in Russian). Arkhangelsk. Retrieved 2008-10-21.
- ^ Yevgeny Ovsyankin (2004). "In the years of the Great Patriotic War..." (in Russian). Arkhangelsk Pedagogical College. Retrieved 2010-12-30.
- ^ Pegler, Martin (2006). Out of Nowhere: A History of the Military Sniper. Osprey Publishing. pp. 175–176. ISBN 1846031400.
- ^ History of World War II. Marshall Cavendish. 2004. p. 587. ISBN 076147482X.
- ^ a b c d e f Lidiya Melnitskaya (February 9, 2006). "Forever Twenty Aged" (in Russian). Pravda Severa. Retrieved 2010-12-27.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ a b Vladimir Golovin (2010). "Kirza Boots Instead of Court Shoes" (in Russian). Ural. Retrieved 2010-12-31.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ a b c d e f "Russian Snipers of 1941—1945 years (excerpts from books by V. E. Medvedeva and N. A. Zhuravlyov)" (in Russian). DOSAAF publishing house. Retrieved 2010-12-27.
- ^ a b Пётр Молчанов (1976). "Жажда боя". Снайперы (compilation) (in Russian). Moscow: OAO "Molodaya gvardiya". Retrieved 2008-10-21.
- ^ David Ortenberg. "The Forty Third" (in Russian). Militera. Retrieved 2011-01-03.
- ^ "The Front Diary of I. E. Kukuyev" (in Russian). Strana Kaliningrad. Retrieved 2011-01-03.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ "In Battle Till the Last Breath" (in Russian). Respublika Tatarstan. Retrieved 2011-01-03.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ "Database search results" (in Russian). Interregional Informational and Search Center. Retrieved 2010-12-30.
- ^ a b c Lidiya Melnitskaya (February 16, 2006). "Forever Twenty Aged - "The Want of My Life is Battle"" (in Russian). Pravda Severa. Retrieved 2010-12-30.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ D. D. Pankov. "Central Female Sniper Academy in Podolsk" (in Russian). Podolsk.org. Retrieved 2011-01-19.
- ^ "Sniper Roza Shanina". Krasnaya Zvezda (in Russian). 22 September 1944. p. 2.
- ^ "Novodvinsk will host the city's open shooting sports championship" (in Russian). Arnews. January 16, 2004. Retrieved 2011-01-13.
- ^ "Shangalskoye Municipal Formation" (in Russian). Ustya Raion website (unofficial). Retrieved 2010-12-30.