Irina Nikolaevna Levchenko Biography

The second world war is not a female face. She was awarded three orders of the Red Star and 10 medals. She was also awarded with a personalized weapon, which she received from the hands of the Minister of Defense of the Bulgarian People's Republic. Who would have thought in the year that the summer schoolgirl will become the owner of so many awards and will be able to rush to the lieutenant colonel, but not somewhere, but in the tank forces!

Irina Nikolaevna Levchenko was born on March 15 in the village of Kadievka today the city of Stakhanov, the Lugansk region in the family of a civil servant. Her father Nikolai Ivanovich Levchenko in different years was the head of Donugulu, headed the Donetsk, Lenin Railways, was the deputy of the People's Commissar of Translation of the USSR, was repressed in the year. The girl graduated from 9 classes of secondary school in the city of Artemovsk.

While still a schoolgirl, Irina learned to shoot well from a rifle and knew how to provide first aid to the wounded. Before the war she lived in Moscow. The girl fell into the Red Army already in July. He is a member of the Great Patriotic War since June. In the very first days of the war, the girl turned to the district department of the Red Cross, where she was appointed commander of the Sandvo branch and a public baths determined the observation post.

But such a job Irina seemed too mundane, as she was about to get to the front to save the wounded soldiers. In July, the first parts and formations of the People’s militia began to form in the capital. At the same time, the rear units of the current armies required a huge number of signalmen, nurse and other specialists. In the summer of the year, Irina Levchenko, among the Sandvynnitsa, arrived at the headquarters of the army, which at that moment was located in the city of Kirov, Smolensk region.

The girl began her service by the Red Army man in the operational-transmitted platoon, then was a sanitary designer of the company of the Rifle Regiment, which is part of the Rifle Division.

At the age of 17, the girl fell into a real bake, she carried on her fragile shoulders all the hardships of summer and autumn of the year. She was a participant in the Smolensk defensive battle, took part in the battle for Moscow. In November, Irina Levchenko ended up in the hospital after the resulting shell -and -ahled and inflammation. Until that moment, the girl managed to evacuate from the battlefield and provide first aid to the wounded fighters and commanders of the Red Army.

After the recovery in January of the year, Irina Levchenko became a sanitary designer of the battalion of the tank brigade, which fought on the Crimean front. Being in the Crimea, only in the battles for the settlements of the Karpech and Tulumchak, the Kerch Peninsula carried another 28 wounded fighters with weapons from the battlefield. In addition, she managed to capture one prisoner and a Romanian machine gun.

By May, the summer sanitary designer carried out from the battlefield and provided first aid to the wounded. Covering the removal of the wounded, she herself shot from the gun of the light tank T in one of the battles of the tank in which the girl was located, was shot down, she was taken out of an unconscious state, the girl was immediately sent to the hospital. Then she was awarded the first order of the Red Star with the wording "For Courage and Courage." The girl’s wound was heavy and very serious, she was evacuated to the hospital.

Only a miracle of Irina managed to avoid amputation of his right hand. However, in the end, the wound may have saved her life, as she managed to avoid the disaster that befell the entire Crimean front. After the treatment was completed, the medical control commission made its ruthless decision: “To remove from military accounting.” Did the doctors think that only a few months later, Irina Levchenko would not only remain in the army, but also become a tankman!

.. Irina Levchenko firmly decided to connect her fate with tank troops and achieved her conservation in the footage. After numerous requests, the girl managed to personally achieve a meeting with the Lieutenant General of the Tank Troops by Yakov Fedorenko, who commanded armored and mechanized troops of the Red Army. He was simply struck by the confidence of a young girl.

Yakov Fedorenko knew that during the war the school course was reduced by 3 times against the normal schedule, and therefore the training program was very tense. But something very much excited him in the persistent request of a young old girl. After this meeting, the girl was nevertheless enrolled in the Stalingrad Tank School, which was then evacuated to the Kurgan. In the year, Irina Levchenko graduated from the accelerated course of the Stalingrad Tank School and again went to the front.

Since the year, she gradually became the commander of the tank, a tank platoon, and then the communication officer of the Guards Tank Brigade from the 7th Mechanized Corps, which acted on the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian fronts, commanded a group of light tanks T Irina Levchenko took part in the assault on Smolensk, the very city from which the front life of the Great Patriotic War began and from which she began from which she began Evacuated the wounded in the year.

In the battles for Smolensk, the girl was again injured, but again did not leave military service.In August, battles by the Prut River Irina Levchenko recorded about 50 destroyed and prisoners of German soldiers and officers. For organizing a breakthrough through enemy combat order and organizing communication with units of the 2nd Ukrainian Front, she was presented to the second order of the Red Star.

Levchenko ended the war near Berlin. After the end of the war, the girl was not going to part with the military service. Since the year, she was the adjutant of the main department for the formation and combat training of armored and mechanized troops of the Red Army. In the year, Irina Levchenko successfully graduated from the Military Academy of Armored and Mechanized Troops named after I.

In the year she graduated from the M. Military Academy from the year Irina Levchenko Guard Lieutenant Colonel. At the beginning, X Levchenko begins to engage in literary activity. In the year, the magazine “Banner” was published by her debut work “The Tale of the Military Years”, which was published by a separate edition of a half million circulation in the period from 8 times.

Having completed military service, she continued her work in the field of literature. Mostly in her works, the fate of women in the war was revealed: “the daughter of the commander”, “immortality”, “happy” and “mistress of the tank” but she did not bypass her and heroes of peaceful labor: “in a imminent train”, about Soviet doctors, “without a return ticket”, about Komsomol members, etc.

In the year, Irina Levchenko became the first woman in the Soviet Union, who was awarded the medal Florence Nightingale. She received this high award from the International Red Cross Committee. This medal is awarded to nurse for courage when assisting the wounded and sick in both military and peacetime and exceptional devotion to their work. In addition, Irina Levchenko was awarded the medals “Wrestler against fascism” and “20 years of the Bulgarian People’s Army”.

According to the decree of the USSR Armed Forces of the USSR of May 6, for the exemplary execution of combat missions of the command and the courage and courage of the guard showed by the lieutenant colonel of the tank troops Irina Nikolaevna Levchenko was the assignment of the honorary title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the award of the Order of Lenin and the Golden Star medal.

Bulgarian women put the car with flowers. Years later, award weapon will come to Moscow. He will be sent by the Minister of Defense of Bulgaria, General Dobri Dzhurov, a former commander of the largest partisan detachment "Chavdar". Eyewitnesses, those who fought along with Levchenko in one tank battalion will tell about her combat courage. And again, as if personally, we will see one of the last tank battles of the war, when the union in which Levchenko served, cut off the enemy the path to retreat.

Then the car of Lieutenant Levchenko made a deep raid in the rear of the Nazis. It was necessary to break through the territory held by the enemy, to warn their about the threatening danger, to indicate the goals. In the car, Lieutenant Irina Levchenko and two machine gunners. Pouring corn with fire, where the Nazis settled, the car rushes forward. Bullets whistle, mines are torn. Your daughter crashes expertly at all costs with an enemy, and you can be proud of such a daughter of the Rotmistrov among books on the history and strategy of war, tank affairs technology with the poetic name “Happy”.

Irina Levchenko gave this story about the guards tank battalion. And Pavel Alekseevich, from time to time opening the book, also recalls this amazing woman. Especially the first meeting. Once the adjutant reports: "Senior Lieutenant Levchenko asks to accept on a personal issue." I remember, then I was preparing for an urgent meeting and was busy. However, Levchenko was so persistent that I even became curious.

Give me, I think, after all, I’ll look at this eagle, which is raging in my reception room. The door opened, and clearly, in aircraft, a girl in officer uniform turns to me. Somehow it is even unusual to pronounce this word-Tan Kist-ka. It turned out that they were going to expel it from the Armored Academy precisely because she is a girl! Well, what to do! I listened, listened and marveled at her extraordinary perseverance.

Imagine with what perseverance she had to achieve her goal: after all, in order to get to the academy at twenty, she needed to graduate from a tank officer school at eighteen to nineteen. She has the right to name one of the books of her most dear to her heart, because of course this is the happiness to go a difficult and victorious path: Smolensk, fighting near Moscow, Kerch through the Carpathians, Romania, Hungary and until Germany itself.

Happiness for a strong person. She traveled almost the whole world. In Africa and America, people met a Soldate woman with the Florence Nightingale medal on her chest. Her biography could be laid in several lines. At the age of 17, after graduation, a sanitary designer, at the age of 21, senior lieutenant-tankist, in 28 Major of the tank forces, a writer. Four years after the end of the Frunze Academy, she is a lieutenant colonel, a military historian.But it is difficult to put this biography even in her books: “The Tale of the Military Years”, “Happy” - about the war, “And nothing else” - about Igarka, “without a return ticket” - about virgin lands, “people - assault - victory” - about the Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric power station, “touch the bomb with your hand” - about Vietnam, Vietnam.

Irina Levchenko arrived there at the beginning of the year. In an interview with Comrade Ho Hook Min, she said: “I am a soldier.