Yelena Stempkovskaya

Yelena Konstantinovna Stempkovskaya (Russian: Елена Константиновна Стемпковская; c. 1921 – 26 June 1942) was a radio operator in the 216th Rifle Regiment of the 76th Rifle Division, 21st Army, on the Southwestern front during World War II. For her service in the military she was posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union on 15 May 1946.[1]

Yelena Konstantinovna Stempkovskaya
Native name
Елена Константиновна Стемпковская
Bornc. 1921
Mazurshchina, Salihorsk District, Minsk Region, Byelorussian SSR
Died26 June 1942
Shebekinsky District, Kursk Oblast, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Allegiance Soviet Union
Service/branchInfantry
Years of service1941–1942
RankJunior Sergeant
Unit216th Rifle Regiment
Battles/warsEastern Front of World War II †
AwardsHero of the Soviet Union

Civilian life

Stempkovskaya was born to a Russian family in the Minsk Region of the Byelorussian SSR in the year 1921, but her exact date of birth is unknown. The family later moved to Uzbekistan to develop the cotton industry; she graduated from the Tashkent Pedagogical Institute and remained in Uzbekistan until the start of the Second World War.[2]

Military career

Stempkovskaya joined the Red Army in June 1941 after the start of the Second World War, having previously been in the Komsomol. She was trained in radio communications and assigned to the 216th Infantry Regiment as a radio operator. After a spotter was killed in the fighting in Kursk, she took over but was closer to the line of fire when the Nazis surrounded and closed in on the trench.[3][4]

There are two versions of the events leading up to her death; one states that she attempted to fend of the Nazis by throwing two grenades but was eventually captured due to being heavily outnumbered and tortured for information, her captors having stabbed her with bayonets and cut off her hands before they left her to bleed to death after she refused to reveal military secrets. The other version of her death, according to more recent sources, is that after the Nazis approached the trench holding several remaining Soviet soldiers, Stempkovskaya entered the battlefield with a machine gun in her last stand and was killed by gunfire, even though radio operators were at high risk of being captured by the Axis to reveal the information they received and transmitted and weren't supposed to be at the front of the fighting. All remaining members of the battalion that did not flee when the Germans began closing in were killed in the battle.[2][4][5]

Awards
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See also

References
  1. Sakaida, Henry (2012-04-20). Heroines of the Soviet Union 1941–45. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9781780966922.
  2. Сокирко, Виктор. "Гитлеровцы отрубили ей руки, но она продолжала молчать – подвиг радистки Стемпковской". tvzvezda.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 2018-01-22.
  3. Saveliev, L. "Heroines. Issue. 2. (Essays on Women - Heroes of the Soviet Union). M., Politizdat, 1969". www.a-z.ru. Retrieved 2018-01-22.
  4. "Игорь Самочеляев: Радистка Лена". Retrieved 2018-01-22.
  5. "Стемпковская Елена Константиновна". www.warheroes.ru. Retrieved 2018-02-23.
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