Fighting for the Soviet Motherland: Recollections from the Eastern Front, by Dmitrii Loza, translated by James F. Gebhardt (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1998), pp. 5–9.
The protivotankovoye ruzhe Simonova [PTRS – an antitank rifle of Simonov design] was self-loading an had a bore diameter of 14.5 millimeters; it weighed 21 kilograms [46 pounds] and had an effective rate of fire of 15 rounds per minute, a magazine capacity of five rounds, a muzzle velocity of 1,012 meters per second [3,320 feet per second], and an armor-penetrating capability of 35 millimeters at a range of 100 meters. Lyuba was thus a peteerovets, pronounced pe-te-er-ovets, the word is formed from the letters in the acronym PTR, which stands for protivotankovoye ruzhe (antitank rifle). [JG]
Original Source: D. F. Loza, Tankist na “inomarke.” Pobedili Germaniiu, razbili Iaponiiu. Moscow: Iauza, Eksmo, 2005.
War came to our land. As the poet Sergey Vikulov said, “They have thrown down the glove to Russia.” Not only men but also women picked up this glove. We men might have thought their hands were too weak for weapons, but there were women soldiers who did not wish to stand on the sidelines at this grave time for the Motherland. This account centers on one of the hundreds of thousands of women who entered military service during World War II.
Lyuba Zemska was born in 1923 in Kharkov, about 400 miles south of Moscow, in my own native Ukraine. We had a terrible famine there in 1933, and the young girl was orphaned. She was still living in an orphanage when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union. Determined to do her part, Lyuba made her way to the local military commission and insisted that they send her to the front. The commission instead sent her off to a medical training facility, where she took an accelerated course to become a medic. She went to the active army, to the medical battalion of 100th Rifle division, which was soon to become 1st Guards Division.
However, the work of a medic did not satisfy Lyuba Zemska. Her passionate desire was to kill the enemy with her own hands. Yet her frequent requests for transfer were ignored. The commission responsible for personnel reassignments would not release Lyuba from her medical specialty because soldiers with her level of medical training and skill were urgently needed on the front lines. She was conscientious, skillful in her profession, and physically strong. Undaunted by the lack of response to her transfer request and still determined to participate more actively in combat, she continued to work toward her goal.
The fires of war had been burning on our land for three months when Lyuba’s long-sought opportunity arrived. A new antitank rifle, designed by Sergei Gavrilovich Simonov and known as the PTRS, had been issued to the Red Army, and frequently the wounded me whom Lyuba treated would make favorable comments about the weapon. She knew that units in her division were now being screened for the best and bravest soldiers; the most level-headed and battle-tested, to become antitank gunners with this new rifle. Their mission was to destroy enemy tanks.
Lyuba Zemska was one of the first to submit a written request to be sent for training as a tank killer. Her immediate supervisor had serious doubts as to whether this young woman had the physical strength for such an arduous and dangerous specialty as that of tank killer. Considering it his personal duty to dissuade her from a hasty decision, he twice deferred Lyuba’s request.
With no intention of being thwarted from her goal, Lyuba appealed to the next higher level in her chain of command. Made wise by life and experience, the colonel recognized the young Komsomolka’s determination to serve in combat and granted her request for reassignment.
The former medic traveled to one of the frontline towns where a tank-killer school was training future PTRS gunners. Seasoned soldiers – who knew from personal combat experience how difficult and dangerous the role of antitank gunner is – frequently attempted to talk Lyuba into returning to her previous line of duty. But she paid no attention to these soldiers’ exhortations. Energetically, with a visible fighting instinct, she continued to develop in her new role.
Toward the end of her training period, Lyuba had become an exceptionally accurate gunner, a fact that aroused an admiring envy in her comrades in the school. The time came for graduation examinations. On the day of record fire, a snowstorm arose, and the thermometer dropped to the –30ºC [–22º F] mark. Despite these difficult weather conditions, Lyuba Zemska completed all the exercises with excellent marks and earned the congratulations of the school commandant.
Lyuba returned to the 1st Guards Division and was subsequently reassigned to the 85th Rifle Regiment, having realized her dream. She now possessed an effective weapon for destroying German medium tanks—that is, tanks whose armor was 30–50 millimeters thick on the front slope and 20–30 millimeters on the turret and sides. “Now everything depends on me personally. When I engage an enemy armored vehicle, not one of my muscles will quiver! I vow it!” Zemska repeated to herself. This tank killer, now thoroughly familiar with enemy tanks and armored troop transporters, knew well their particular areas of vulnerability, and she could deliver swift and deadly fire into these soft spots.
During the last part of January 1942, 1st Guards Division was fighting with some success northeast of Kursk. By the morning of the 21 January, the division’s units had liberated 12 villages, taking valuable trophies in the process. The decisive movement of the gvardeytsy toward the south threatened the Germans in the area of the town of Shchigry with encirclement. The German response to this threat was to launch a series of fierce counterattacks.
A particularly tense situation was developing that day in the attack zone of the 85th Regiment. Having captured the village of Uderovo, the regiment’s battalions were continuing to move successfully toward Kriukovo and Parmenovka. The Germans brought up fresh reserves to this important axis and launched a counterattack into the regiment’s flanks. Eleven tanks on the right flank and seven on the left were supported by significant infantry forces.
The fierce engagement that developed became the battle that christened Lyuba Zemska as a tank killer. It was also the first serious test of her devotion to duty and her combat ability.
The regimental commander, Lieutenant Colonel Nikolay Kozin, must be given his due. During a brief lull between engagements, he ordered a review of all the regiment’s fire-support units and then promptly redistributed their personnel so that each gun, mortar, and antitank rifle crew or team included some combat-experienced soldiers. Seasoned veterans, reliable examples to soldiers recently arrived at the front, would thus guide the novices in their first battle. For this reason, Sergeant Viktor Maslov was paired with Lyuba Zemska in the PTRS crew.
Any battle is difficult, but one’s first is especially so. Fate brought the untested young woman together with enemy tanks on the firing line for the first time on 21 January. She could easily see the five steel monsters crawling toward her position near an old poplar tree, the distance between her and them decreasing with each minute. The peteerovtsy nervously waited. “Let them come closer!” Maslov exhorted his partner. Powdered snow raised by their tracks swirled in front of the tanks, obscuring the precise outline of the vehicles. The tank main guns and machine guns were silent. Each vehicle contained five enemy crewmen, protected by armor. Twenty-five against two in a foxhole. The gvardeytsy calmly estimated the range, looking for the desired 300 meters at which the armor-piercing incendiary projectile would most likely penetrate the German tank.
Then the ground trembled and the air was torn by the simultaneous firing of enemy tank main guns. They fired round after round at the village as they moved toward it. Finally the tanks closed to the effective range of the antitank rifles.
Sergeant Maslov drew back the bolt of his rifle to load it while Lyuba lay next to him, holding rounds for reloading the PTRS magazine. A shudder suddenly passed through her gunner’s body, and his head fell sharply to his chest. The former medic turned to help him, but her aid was already unnecessary. A bullet had struck him straight in the chest, killing him instantly. Lyuba remained alone in the position at this critical moment in the battle. The armored wave continued to roll toward her, hurling kilograms of death-dealing metal every second.
The advice of her school instructor flashed across her mind: “Do not hesitate! Seconds will decide if you live or die! If you delay, you will be ground up in the tank’s tracks. Shoot at the right moment, and don’t miss!”
Lyuba carefully placed the body of her combat comrade aside on the ground and then prepared herself for battle. The rifle’s stock still held the warmth of the dead sergeant’s hand. She took aim. The tanks were moving closer and closer, the lead machine now clearly visible. She could see the muzzle opening of the main gun and the barrel of the coaxial machine gun. Both weapons were now firing continuously. Bullets were raising fountains of earth and snow around her position. Lyuba was calm and showed no fear.
The enemy tanks were not only 150 meters away, moving a not more than 10 kilometers per hour. In just a few moments they would reach the old poplar tree. It was time to fire! She squeezed the trigger smoothly. She did not hear the shot but felt the recoil in her shoulder. The projectile’s tracer flashed through the air and burrowed into the lead tank. Black smoke enveloped the vehicle, and it stopped. Without hesitation, Lyuba shifted her fire to a second tank. She squeezed the trigger three times and saw red tongues of flame erupt from the tank’s engine compartment. She brought a third vehicle, an armored troop carrier, into her sights and carefully aimed at its vulnerable spot. At the instant she began to squeeze the trigger, several bullets struck her. Medics managed to crawl over to the antitank gunner, but they could not help her.
The battalions and companies of 85th Rifle Regiment fought off the enemy counterattack almost the entire day. They did not surrender to the enemy the position they had captured earlier. When the battle was over, the men lifted the body of the brave tank killer and, placing it on a poncho, carried it to the rear. They found an unfinished letter in her pocket. The addressee was unknown. “Ukraine, my Ukraine!” Lyuba had written, “I am your daughter … I pledge to you in memory of all my dead brothers and sisters that I will take cruel, merciless vengeance on the fascists.”
Lyuba Zemska was posthumously awarded the Order of the Red Banner. Her life was brief but brilliant, like a flash of lightning. In one battle, one fierce engagement with enemy tanks, she brought the hour of final victory closer.