I am in love again.

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bru888
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I am in love again.

Post by bru888 »

Aleksandra Boiko, Soviet tank commander and recipient of the Order of the Patriotic War, first class! She apparently joined the OOB crew in version 8.5.6, in time for Red Storm. I am in love again. (Sorry, Kaciaryna. Move over.)

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This is rather extraordinary, if Wikipedia has it correctly:

Along with her husband, Ivan Boiko, she raised 50,000 Soviet rubles from their savings to pay for the construction of a tank for the Soviet Army. As part of the effort, they appealed to be sent to the Eastern Front. A year later, she was appointed as a tank commander while holding the rank of Junior Lieutenant, and her husband was her engineer within the tank . . . They first entered battle during the Riga Offensive in 1944, and it was reported that they had destroyed five tanks and two guns in two weeks.

They were both later wounded in battle but apparently survived the war. (She definitely did; her husband's fate is not addressed, but "they were released (from hospital) in time to celebrate Victory Day in Czechoslovakia" so a happy ending may be assumed.)

What a topic for a major movie production! Aleksandra would definitely be featured in my production. As it is, I am researching whether she ever had any doings with the Free French. :wink:
- Bru
koopanique
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Re: I am in love again.

Post by koopanique »

bru888 wrote: Mon Aug 17, 2020 8:02 pm What a topic for a major movie production!
Indeed! It would make for a great war drama with tank action.
Her portrait is nice but her nose seems a bit... flat, with only nostrils remaining!
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Re: I am in love again.

Post by GabeKnight »

koopanique wrote: Tue Aug 18, 2020 10:30 am Her portrait is nice but her nose seems a bit... flat, with only nostrils remaining!
My thoughts exactly... very unflattering lighting... a pity!
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Re: I am in love again.

Post by Erik2 »

I doubt a WW2 tank commander thought much about this kind of lighting as long as the sun were not disturbing the outlook from the hatch :wink:
But she is lovely.
bru888
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Re: I am in love again.

Post by bru888 »

I chuckle over how the artist, who obviously used this photo as a model, straightened her goggles which, in the photo, are a bit askew on her head. :)
- Bru
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Re: I am in love again.

Post by TripleCP »

Her husband Ivan Boiko also survived the war. They divorced in the 1950s but continued to meet at veterans' gatherings. He passed away in 1995, a year before she did.

A higher-ranking female Soviet tanker was Captain Aleksandra Samusenko. She served in a Soviet tank battalion which US Army Sgt. Joseph Beryle encountered and briefly assisted after he escaped from a POW camp (one of the very few instances of an American serving directly alongside the Red Army). It is not entirely clear if she was the battalion's deputy commander but she apparently had briefly been the acting commander of one in the past after its commander was killed in an ambush. Samusenko was killed in action in the war's final weeks during the East Pomeranian Operation after her detachment was ambushed (sources conflict whether she was mortally wounded by German fire, captured and executed by the German defenders, or crushed by a Soviet tank in the dark as it hastily withdrew).

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Last edited by TripleCP on Wed Aug 19, 2020 5:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: I am in love again.

Post by GabeKnight »

Erik2 wrote: Tue Aug 18, 2020 12:38 pm I doubt a WW2 tank commander thought much about this kind of lighting as long as the sun were not disturbing the outlook from the hatch :wink:
But she is lovely.
I didn't mean the black&white pic, that looks just fine, but the OoB commander. There it looks like she has no nose! Only one bright spot... :lol:
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Re: I am in love again.

Post by bru888 »

TripleCP wrote: Wed Aug 19, 2020 4:17 am Her husband Ivan Boiko also survived the war. They divorced in the 1950s but continued to meet at veterans' gatherings. He passed away in 1995, a year before she did.

A higher-ranking female Soviet tanker was Captain Aleksandra Samusenko. She served in a Soviet tank battalion which US Army Sgt. Joseph Beryle encountered and briefly assisted after he escaped from a POW camp (one of the very few instances of an American serving directly alongside the Red Army). It is not entirely clear if she was the battalion's deputy commander but she had apparently had briefly been the acting commander of one in the past after its commander was killed in an ambush. Samusenko was killed in action in the war's final weeks during the East Pomeranian Operation after her detachment was ambushed (sources conflict whether she was mortally wounded by German fire, captured and executed by the German defenders, or crushed by a Soviet tank in the dark as it hastily withdrew).
We joke about/admire the beauty of these women but their courage is what we should appreciate the most. Also, what a united people can accomplish when faced with an existential crisis.
- Bru
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Re: I am in love again.

Post by kondi754 »

@Bru and others
Women in the Red Army were extremely brave, but this is only one aspect, because additionally the service in the Soviet army was very hard for them also for other reasons.
The Red Army was hierarchical and patriarchal much more than any other army in the world. Women serving in the army as privates and non-commissioned officers (nurses, radiotelegraphists or auxiliary staff in the headquarters of various units) regularly experienced acts of sexual aggression from men, especially superiors. They were war concubines to them.
Women who aspired to serve in technical troops (armored weapons and especially air forces) had a permanent obstacle on the way to the front units, because senior officers - older men were very reluctant to look at women in their elite company.
An example is Lidia Litwiak, the only official female fighter ace who fought over Stalingrad and then on Miusfront. Her commander, the famous Lev Shestakov (a veteran of the war in Spain and the Hero of the USSR), did everything to throw her and her 3 friends out (the only 4 women who flew fighter planes in the front units at that time) from his regiment/wing.
When she died in August 1943, the remains of her plane were not found, so the NKVD forced her squadmates to testify that she didn't die, but deserted and went over to the Germans!
In the 90s, her damaged plane and grave were found. Only then she was rehabilitated and awarded.
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Re: I am in love again.

Post by Mascarenhas »

I think we should regard these events with the eyes of the past. Very often we use to evaluate historical facts disregarding cultural and other aspects that continually change. In the women's case, this was also probably true in every other military structure at that time. Regardless that, though, I think they deserve not only our admiration and reverence, but our gratitude.
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Re: I am in love again.

Post by kondi754 »

Mascarenhas wrote: Wed Aug 19, 2020 6:16 pm I think we should regard these events with the eyes of the past. Very often we use to evaluate historical facts disregarding cultural and other aspects that continually change. In the women's case, this was also probably true in every other military structure at that time. Regardless that, though, I think they deserve not only our admiration and reverence, but our gratitude.
Yes, you're right so I wanted to highlight this aspect too, but in Soviet Union women were seated on tractors and photos taken for newspapers. Communists prided themselves on the equality of women, which was an obvious lie, because it was all for propaganda purposes only
I don't want to argue about rapes in the army, where there were more of them, whether in the Red Army or in the US Army, or in the British army... :twisted:
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Re: I am in love again.

Post by Mascarenhas »

What is really obvious is that your political conceptions are distorting the discussion. I was talking about fighting women which got killed, wounded or captured due to their direct involvement in combat. It doesn't seem to me mere propaganda. They earned their medals and recognition, and no one needs to be communist to recognize this.
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Re: I am in love again.

Post by bru888 »

Easy, guys. This was intended as a light-hearted thread. Don't make me have it taken down. If anything, I'd like it to stand as a tribute to these Aleksandras and all the other woman who served in WWII.
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Re: I am in love again.

Post by terminator »

Portraits of women of the Red Army

When the USSR is invaded by Nazi Germany and that immediately arises the question of its survival, the mobilization of women, it does not make problems as in democracy. The revolutionary principle and policy of equality of women’s rights and rights having been affirmed by the Bolshevik revolution. This mobilization of women in the USSR at war was so massive, in the war effort as in the fight, so that, unlike democratic countries, it has not the object of intense propaganda and it is paradoxical. Women represented nearly 9% of the workforce in the Red Army, 40% of the personnel Infantry medical was female. In fact nearly a million women would have fought in the Red Army.
During this conflict, many women distinguished themselves in fighting units - infantry or airwomen.

In aviation:
Faced with catastrophic losses suffered by the VVS (Air Force Soviet Union) during the summer of 1941 following Operation Barbarossa, Stalin asked one of his best aviators, Marina Raskova, to Establish three female pilot regiments. Soviet women in fact occupy almost all the same positions men’s combat. They are even quite unique case in this war, three exclusively female aviation regiments, of the Engineer to the pilot of bomber or fighter aircraft. Far from the figuration, these women fight gloriously on all fronts and many of them are decorated with the supreme order of heroes of the Soviet Union.

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Women Snipers:
During the Second World War, there were several thousand Female snipers in the Soviet Army.

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The place of Russian women in industry during the war:
The Soviet woman, according to the very principles of Marxism-Leninism, is considered a full citizen. She won the right to vote in 1918. Abortion is free and free, divorce, an administrative formality may also be a reality with 10% of marriages thus broken before the war. Education up to the university level, in no case excludes girls. This feminism, for many leaders, even went too far and the "family code" instituted in 1936, exalting a "socialist maternity", abolished free abortion and complicated the modalities of divorce. Certainly this promotion of women is relative, so in spite of equality theoretical and by definition communist, their salaries are there too lower than those of men, and the jobs held are quite often subordinate.

Nevertheless, when the war comes, the Soviet woman is politically, socially and psychologically better suited than other countries at war to mobilize economically and militarily.
But it is the Soviet women who go in proportion to the men contribute to the war effort, in the industry 15% in 1939 they increase to 52% in 1942, in agriculture on the same dates from 52% to 71%. Thus a propaganda poster of a kolkozian perched on a huge agricultural tractors, only translate a reality. In plants as in the fields , it’s very hard and all the more trying that the famine was terrible ( Ukraine , granary has wheat in hand of Germans since autumn 41) making the USSR the country that suffered the more privations in the world at war.


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Not only doctors, they were ...But they deserve all the credit, no less than men, for their heroism, stoicism and the sacrifice.
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Re: I am in love again.

Post by kondi754 »

Mascarenhas wrote: Thu Aug 20, 2020 1:36 am What is really obvious is that your political conceptions are distorting the discussion. I was talking about fighting women which got killed, wounded or captured due to their direct involvement in combat. It doesn't seem to me mere propaganda. They earned their medals and recognition, and no one needs to be communist to recognize this.
But that's not MY political conception it's reality.
Every honest and intelligent person knows that Soviet Union was an empire of evil and brutal propaganda
I know there are many idiots fascinated by communism in the west, but if they had survived at least a month in a communist country, they would immediately change their infantile political concepts.


EDIT.Believe me, I appreciate Soviet women 100 times more than you, because I know very well what country they had to live in
Last edited by kondi754 on Thu Aug 20, 2020 9:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: I am in love again.

Post by kondi754 »

terminator wrote: Thu Aug 20, 2020 7:08 am Portraits of women of the Red Army

When the USSR is invaded by Nazi Germany and that immediately arises the question of its survival, the mobilization of women, it does not make problems as in democracy. The revolutionary principle and policy of equality of women’s rights and rights having been affirmed by the Bolshevik revolution. This mobilization of women in the USSR at war was so massive, in the war effort as in the fight, so that, unlike democratic countries, it has not the object of intense propaganda and it is paradoxical. Women represented nearly 9% of the workforce in the Red Army, 40% of the personnel Infantry medical was female. In fact nearly a million women would have fought in the Red Army.
During this conflict, many women distinguished themselves in fighting units - infantry or airwomen.

In aviation:
Faced with catastrophic losses suffered by the VVS (Air Force Soviet Union) during the summer of 1941 following Operation Barbarossa, Stalin asked one of his best aviators, Marina Raskova, to Establish three female pilot regiments. Soviet women in fact occupy almost all the same positions men’s combat. They are even quite unique case in this war, three exclusively female aviation regiments, of the Engineer to the pilot of bomber or fighter aircraft. Far from the figuration, these women fight gloriously on all fronts and many of them are decorated with the supreme order of heroes of the Soviet Union.


Capture(3).JPG



Women Snipers:
During the Second World War, there were several thousand Female snipers in the Soviet Army.


Capture(1).JPG


The place of Russian women in industry during the war:
The Soviet woman, according to the very principles of Marxism-Leninism, is considered a full citizen. She won the right to vote in 1918. Abortion is free and free, divorce, an administrative formality may also be a reality with 10% of marriages thus broken before the war. Education up to the university level, in no case excludes girls. This feminism, for many leaders, even went too far and the "family code" instituted in 1936, exalting a "socialist maternity", abolished free abortion and complicated the modalities of divorce. Certainly this promotion of women is relative, so in spite of equality theoretical and by definition communist, their salaries are there too lower than those of men, and the jobs held are quite often subordinate.

Nevertheless, when the war comes, the Soviet woman is politically, socially and psychologically better suited than other countries at war to mobilize economically and militarily.
But it is the Soviet women who go in proportion to the men contribute to the war effort, in the industry 15% in 1939 they increase to 52% in 1942, in agriculture on the same dates from 52% to 71%. Thus a propaganda poster of a kolkozian perched on a huge agricultural tractors, only translate a reality. In plants as in the fields , it’s very hard and all the more trying that the famine was terrible ( Ukraine , granary has wheat in hand of Germans since autumn 41) making the USSR the country that suffered the more privations in the world at war.



Capture(4).JPG

Not only doctors, they were ...But they deserve all the credit, no less than men, for their heroism, stoicism and the sacrifice.

Read Solzhenitsyn not Wikipedia :)

EDIT. Raskova accepted Litvak for military service indeed
These regiments, which they write about in Wikipedia, eventually landed in the deep rear of the front and were stationed as anti-aircraft cover for large factories several thousand kilometers from the front lines
Litvak and her 3 friends were the only ones who served in fighter front units and fought with the enemy.
Last edited by kondi754 on Thu Aug 20, 2020 10:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Sorry Bru:)

Post by kondi754 »

@Bru
Ok, I'm not going to write anything more than about the games available here. Waste of time. :(
But sometimes when I read what stupid things people write here, my blood storms and I can't help myself.
Sorry, Bru.
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Re: I am in love again.

Post by Mascarenhas »

Yep. this discussion has leaned well out of topic. I've not written a word about my own views about the political and social circumstances prevalent in Russia during soviet era, I just tried to separate fact from ideology. But as always, when this kind of polarization arises, it goes to a dead end. I rest on this too.
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Re: I am in love again.

Post by kondi754 »

Mascarenhas wrote: Thu Aug 20, 2020 10:44 am Yep. this discussion has leaned well out of topic. I've not written a word about my own views about the political and social circumstances prevalent in Russia during soviet era, I just tried to separate fact from ideology. But as always, when this kind of polarization arises, it goes to a dead end. I rest on this too.
I apologize for my words if I offended you but it seems to me that I'm writing about facts, not ideology.
I have to admit that I was most nervous when you wrote that these are "MY" political conceptions. :)
But in fact, I enter into historical topics unnecessarily, even if it concern such a criminal system as communism, it was unnecessary.

So I will try not to say more about the Soviets and the Soviet system. This is a place dedicated to games and entertainment, not labor camps and NKVD

EDIT. BTW, I remembered a curiosity
I once read that there was a city in Bolshevik Russia right after the revolution, where the authorities, following the main Marxist principle of the lack of private property, announced that all women in this city or region were owned jointly and belonged to all men. I don't remember how it ended, but I know this solution has been around for a while. :)
Unfortunately, I don't remember the name of this city.
I will try to find and send the link or the name of the book or article where I read it.
Last edited by kondi754 on Thu Aug 20, 2020 12:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: I am in love again.

Post by terminator »

kondi754 wrote: Thu Aug 20, 2020 9:34 am EDIT. Raskova accepted Litvak for military service indeed
These regiments, which they write about in Wikipedia, eventually landed in the deep rear of the front and were stationed as anti-aircraft cover for large factories several thousand kilometers from the front lines
Litvak and her 3 friends were the only ones who served in fighter front units and fought with the enemy.
- The 586th Fighter Aviation Regiment: This unit was the first to take part in combat (April 16, 1942) of the three female regiments and take part in 4,419 combat missions (125 air battles and 38 kills). Lydia Litvyak and Yekaterina Budanova were assigned to the unit before joining the 437th IAP in the fighting over Stalingrad and became the world's only two female fighter aces (with 5 each, although soviet propaganda claims 12 and 11 victories respectively), both flying the Yak-1 fighter.
- The 46th Taman Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment: This was the best known of the regiments and was commanded by Yevdokiya Bershanskaya. It originally began service as the 588th Night Bomber Regiment, but was redesignated in February 1943 as recognition for service which would tally almost 24,000 combat missions by the end of the war. Their aircraft was the Polikarpov Po-2, an outdated biplane. The Germans were the ones however who gave them the name that they are most well known as, The Night Witches.
-The 125th Guards Bomber Aviation Regiment was one of the three Soviet women's aviation regiments founded by Marina Raskova at the start of the Second World War. The unit was founded as the 587th Bomber Aviation Regiment in the 223rd Bomber Air Division, 2nd Bomber Aviation Corps of the 16th Air Army on 8 October 1941, and later honored with the guards designation, being renamed 125th Guards Bomber Aviation Regiment in September 1943 and reorganized into 4th Guards Bomber Aviation Division, 1st Bomber Aviation Corps, 3rd Air Army, in the 1st Baltic Front. Unlike the 46th Taman Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment, which used Polikarpov Po-2 utility aircraft, the unit was assigned modern Petlyakov Pe-2 aircraft, which caused some resentment among male units that had older aircraft. Throughout the course of the war, the unit flew 1,134 missions and dropped over 980 tons of bombs on the Axis.

PS: sorry to quote The Free Encyclopedia again :?
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