Born in 1924, Yevdokia Zavaliy was raised in a small village in the Mykolaiv region of Ukraine, where she worked on a farm. She was brutally exposed to the outbreak of World War 2 when enemy planes bombed her village and in the aftermath, she treated injured soldiers by ripping up bed sheets from her home to make improvised bandages. The event left such an impression on her that she persuaded the commander of a cavalry regiment to take her with them to the front line, claiming to be 18 years old when she was in fact 16.
Zavaliy started serving with the regiment as a nurse, but during this time she learned to shoot rifles, pistols and machine guns. She also became directly involved in conflicts, taking a wound to the abdomen during the retreat at Khortytsia island and saved the life of a wounded officer by dragging him to safety. She was awarded the Order of the Red Star for her bravery, but this was only to be the first decoration she would receive.
One day an officer mistook Zavaliy for a man as she wore soldier’s clothes and her head had been shaved to remove lice. The officer ordered her to join a group of soldiers headed to the front line. Zavaliy decided to go along with the mistake and two hours later she took part in a battle near Goryachy Kluch with the 6th Airborne Brigade. She continued to serve in numerous battles under her new male identity and, following her capturing of a German officer in combat, she was appointed a commander of a reconnaissance squad. When Soviet troops were starving near Mozdok in late 1942, Zavaliy mounted a daring night raid across a river to a German camp, where she stole ammunition and provisions before sailing away on a raft.
The following year Zavaliy was a sergeant serving in the Kuban region when her company was surrounded during a heavy firefight and the company commander was killed. Seeing her fellow soldiers faltering Zavaliy took command, shouting for the men to follow her and leading them in a furious counter-attack that broke the enemy and sent them into retreat. The battle left her seriously injured and during her treatment, the doctors discovered that she was a woman. Zavaliy expected to be dismissed and return to nursing, however, in light of her many achievements she was allowed to stay in the army and in October 1943 she was promoted to commander of a submachine gunner platoon.
While the men of her platoon were initially reluctant to follow the orders of a teenage girl, Zavaliy quickly won their respect. The platoon was repeatedly deployed to the forefront of the most intense fighting, where Zavaliy led her men in daring attacks on German lines, taking part in the defense of the Caucasus, the battle for Crimea and ultimately the Soviet expansion across Eastern Europe.
She became so feared by German soldiers that they nicknamed her ‘Frau Black Death‘. Twice she was believed to have been killed in combat but both times she returned unscathed. In her military career, she was wounded a total of 4 times and received approximately 40 medals of honor.
Zavaliy was eventually discharged from the army in 1947 and traveled to Kyiv where she married and had 2 children. She spent much of her life working as the manager of a grocery store but also toured many cities and army bases where she was celebrated as a military hero. She died in Kyiv in 2010. (The Female Soldier)
Wikipedia adds some important details:
Commanding a platoon, she participated in the Siege of Sevastopol, stormed Mount Sapun (for which she was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War 1st class), participated in the battles for Balaklava, Tsukrova Holivka, and Kerch, crossed the Dniester, participated in the re-occupation of Bessarabia and fought in the battles of Taman, Tuapse, and Novorossiysk.
She participated in landings in Constanța in Romania, Varna and Burgas in Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia.
During the Budapest offensive, Zavaliy and her platoon seized the bunker of the German command through the city sewer with oxygen tanks. Among the prisoners was a general, for whom this captivity was a disgrace because the commander of the paratroopers was a woman. For this episode, she was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
There are distinguished Ukrainian female warriors in the current war against Muscovy’s invasion. Read the story of a former MP Tetiana Chornovol for example. Here is another article about her in the Washington Post.
Women fought in the ranks of the Army of Sviatoslav the Brave of Kyiv at the end of the 10th century. There were Scythian Amazons whose burials with weapons have been discovered in Ukraine as well. The details are in the “Royal Scythia, Greece, Kyiv Rus” book.
