The heroism and courage of Maria Tsukanova, who laid down 90 Japanese samurai

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Maria Tsukanova is the only woman to receive the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for her courage and heroism in the 1945 Soviet-Japanese war. She was a medical officer of the 355th Marine Corps Battalion in the Pacific Fleet and died during the Seisin operation, being brutally tortured by the Japanese.

A plant instead of a teacher training college

Maria Nikitichna Tsukanova was born on September 14, 1924 in the village of Smolensky, Krutinsky district, Tyukalinsky district, Omsk province (now Abatsky district of Tyumen region). Her father, a village teacher, passed away a few months before the birth of his daughter. The girl was raised by her mother and stepfather Nikolai Krakhmalev.

In 1930, the family moved to the Krasnoyarsk Territory. When the war began, Masha was not yet 17. She managed to finish only an incomplete secondary school in the Ordzhonikidzevsky settlement of the Saralinsky district, she was going to go to Abakan to enter the Khakass pedagogical school. But the war changed her plans. The girl went to the military registration and enlistment office, tried to enroll as a volunteer, but, of course, they did not take her to the front. I had to get a job as a telephone operator at the village communication center.

In December 1941, a hospital from Rostov was evacuated to the village, and Masha went there to work as a nurse. Later, after her friends, she moved to Irkutsk, where she worked at an engineering plant that produced products for the front - first as a student, then as a receptionist and, finally, as a controller of the 4th category. There she joined the Komsomol. At the same time, the girl studied on-the-job at the courses of medical instructors.

Martyrdom.

In May 1942, the USSR State Defense Committee issued a decree on the conscription of 25,000 female volunteers into the navy. On June 13, 1942, Tsukanova was drafted into military service and sent to the Far East. At first, she served as a telephone operator and rangefinder in the 51st artillery battalion of the Shkotovskiy coastal defense sector, and in 1944, after graduating from the school of junior medical specialists, she was appointed a nurse in the 3rd company of the 355th separate battalion of the Pacific Fleet marines.

On August 8, 1945, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan.

On August 14, 1945, the battalion, where Tsukanova served as a corporal, took part in the combat operation to liberate the Korean port of Seisin (now Chongjin). Maria carried 52 paratroopers from the battlefield, but she herself was wounded in the shoulder. Despite this, the girl refused to leave the battlefield. Picking up a machine gun, she fired several rounds at the Japanese. After her company had to retreat on the evening of August 15, Tsukanova stayed with a group of fighters to cover the retreat.

She was wounded again, in the leg. The unconscious girl was captured by the Japanese. They could not believe that the Russian "baba" (as they called her) had killed about 90 Japanese soldiers. Maria was brutally tortured to get her information about the composition of the Soviet landing. When later Soviet sailors occupied the hill where the Japanese headquarters was located, they found Maria's corpse, literally cut into pieces by samurai knives and with gouged eyes.

For the funeral, they had to wrap the remains in a blanket. They buried Tsukanova here, in Seisin, in a mass grave on the Komalsam hill. Today, a marble memorial has been erected on this site with the inscription: "25 Russian heroes who died a heroic death for the liberation of Korea from Japanese invaders are buried here."

To award posthumously …

On September 14, 1945, a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was issued, which was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union to the Red Army soldier Maria Nikitichna Tsukanova "for exemplary fulfillment of command assignments on the front of the struggle against the Japanese imperialists and displayed courage and heroism". She was also awarded the Order of Lenin.

Not all the details of the death of Maria Tsukanova became known from the very beginning. A resident of Vladivostok, Galina Shaikova, who wrote a book about her "I really want to live …", helped restore the history of the life and death of this brave girl.

Subsequently, the village of Nizhnyaya Yanchikhe of the Khasansky District of the Primorsky Territory (Tsukanovo) and the Yanchikhe River (Tsukanovka , streets in Omsk, Irkutsk, Barnaul, Krasnoyarsk, Abakan, as well as a bay in the Sea of Japan, a hill in Korea and other objects were named after Maria Tsukanova). In Primorye, several monuments and memorial plaques were erected in honor of Tsukanova.

In 1988, the Soviet-Korean feature film "The Burnt Sun" was released, the main character of which is Maria Tsukanova. Her role was played by actress Elena Drobysheva.