(1943-1948)
Soviet award for "the bravest of the brave." The Order of Glory (III, II, and I Class), intended for Soviet privates, noncommissioned officers, and junior lieutenants of aviation, was created on November 8, 1943. The recipients of the Order of Glory, I Class, numbering about 2,500, received the 3 levels of the order on 3 separate occasions; 4 of them were women.
Sergeant Matriona (Motia) Semenovna Necheporchukova-Nozdracheva (b. 1924) was a medical noncommissioned officer in the 100th Guards Infantry Regiment of the 35 th Guards Division, which reached Berlin on May 3, 1945. She distinguished herself dispensing first aid under heavy enemy fire, repelling raids, and defending the wounded entrusted to her. She was awarded her third Order of Glory on May 24, 1945, for bravery demonstrated during the breakthrough of enemy defenses on the west bank of the Oder River and the fierce fighting in Berlin.
Nina Pavlovna Petrova (1893—1945), a senior noncommissioned officer, graduated from snipers’ school and participated in the Soviet-Finnish war. During World War II, Petrova, the oldest sniper in the army, had the highest kill record on the entire Leningrad front; she had 100 personal kills and trained 513 new snipers (Cottam 1998, 402). Petrova advanced with the 1st Battalion, 284th Infantry Regiment, 86th Tartu Division, from her native Leningrad through the Baltic lands, East Prussia, and Poland to Schw-erin, Germany, where she was killed on May 1, 1945. She was posthumously awarded the Order of Glory, I Class, on June 29, 1945.
Sergeant Danute Jurgievna Staniliene-Markauskene (b. 1922) served as commander of a machine-gun crew in Company No. 3, 167th Infantry Regiment, 16th Lithuanian Division. She imitated the technique of Anka, a machine gunner in the Russian Civil War, which demanded exceptional self-control. Staniliene-Markauskene would wait for the enemy to approach closely and only then open fire. She was granted the Order of Glory, I Class, on March 24, 1945, the first Soviet woman soldier so honored, for her role in the fighting for the Klaipeda-Tilsit Highway.
Nadezhda (Nadia) Aleksandrovna Zhurkina-Kiek (b. 1920), a senior noncommissioned officer, was a radio operator-gunner in the Soviet air force. She served in the 99th Independent Reconnaissance Aviation Regiment and was the only woman air gunner in the entire 15th Air Army. Zhurkina-Kiek flew eighty-seven missions, during which she displayed an exceptional ability to spot enemy aircraft and to chase them away or shoot them down. She was awarded the Order of Glory, I Class, on February 23, 1948, for outstanding performance in 1944 over Latvia, at which time she flew ten missions behind enemy lines and shot down a decorated German ace (Cottam 1998, 409).
