Lyudmila Pavlyuchenko is a sniper whose biography contains a huge number of facts proving her invaluable contribution to the victory over the Nazis in the Great Patriotic War. On her account the destruction of 309 German soldiers and officers. Moreover, among the liquidated opponents there were 36 enemy snipers.
Childhood and youth
Date of birth - July 12, 1916. Place of birth is the Ukrainian city of Bila Tserkva. She studied at school number 3 located near the house. And when Lyudmila was 14 years old, the family moved to live in the capital of Ukraine, Kiev.
From childhood, the girl was distinguished by a fighting character and courage. She did not like games for girls, communicating mainly with boys. Lyudmila Pavlyuchenko’s father (Belova’s girlhood), who always dreamed of a son, was glad that his daughter was not inferior in strength and endurance to her peers - boys.
At the end of the ninth grade, Lyudmila went to work at the Arsenal plant, where she worked as a grinder. She managed to successfully combine work and study in 10th grade.
Lyudmila got married early. At the time of marriage, she was only 16 years old. Soon, the young couple had a son, Rostislav (died in 2007). But family life did not work out: after living together for several years, the couple divorced. But Lyudmila did not refuse the surname of her husband. The husband of Lyudmila Pavlyuchenko died at the beginning of the war.
First training
Working at the Arsenal plant, L. M. Pavlyuchenko began to frequently visit the shooting range. She has repeatedly heard boastful conversations of neighboring guys who talked about their exploits at the training ground. At the same time, they argued that only boys can shoot well, and girls can’t do it. The story of Lyudmila Pavlyuchenko as an arrow began precisely with the fact that she wanted to prove to these boastful guys that girls can shoot as well, if not better ...
In 1937, L. Pavlyuchenko went to study at Kiev University. Entering the Faculty of History, she dreamed of becoming a teacher or scientist.
When the war broke out
At the time of the invasion of the Germans and Romanians in the USSR, Lyudmila, the future hero of the USSR, lived in Odessa, where she arrived for graduation. She decided to join the army, but the girls were not taken there. To get into the army, she had to prove her courage and willingness to fight enemies. Once the officers arranged a strength test for Lyudmila. They gave her a gun and showed them to two Romanians who collaborated with the Nazis. She was seized with anger at these people, bitterness for those whom they had taken their lives. Then she shot them both. After this impromptu task, she was finally accepted into the army.
The rank of Private Pavlyuchenko Lyudmila Mikhailovna was ranked as the 25th Infantry Division. Vasily Chapaev. She wanted to be at the front as quickly as possible. Realizing that there she would have to shoot to kill, Lyudmila still did not know how she would behave when faced with the enemy face to face. But there was no time to think and reflect. On the first day, she had to raise a weapon. Fear paralyzed her, the Mossin rifle (7.62 mm caliber) trembled in her hands with a 4x magnification. But when she saw a young soldier falling dead next to her, struck by a German bullet, she regained self-confidence and shot. Now nothing could stop her.
First assignments
Lyudmila firmly decided to take sniper courses. Having successfully finished them, the second lieutenant Pavlyuchenko opened her combat account. Then near Odessa she had to replace the platoon commander who had fallen in battle. She, sparing no strength, destroyed the hated fascists until she received a shell shock from a shell bursting near. Her morale was not broken even by hellish pain. She continued to fight on the battlefield ...
In October 1941, the Primorsky Army was transferred to the Crimea, where Lyudmila, along with her colleagues, began to defend Sevastopol. Every day, as soon as the sun began to rise, Lyudmila Pavlyuchenko, a sniper, whose biography is filled with events proving her loyalty to the Motherland, went “hunting.” For hours and hours, and in the heat, and in the cold, she was in ambush, waiting for the appearance of the "target". There were times when you had to duel with venerable cruel German snipers. But thanks to endurance, endurance, lightning-fast reaction, she again and again emerged victorious even from the most difficult situations.
Unequal battle
Often, Luda went on combat missions with Leonid Kutsenko. They began serving in the division almost simultaneously. Some of their colleagues said that the front wife of Leonid Kutsenko was precisely Lyudmila Pavlyuchenko. She did not have a personal life before the war. It is possible that these two heroic people were really close.
Once, having received an order from the command to destroy the enemy command post discovered by the scouts, they quietly made their way to the specified area, lay in a dugout and waited for a convenient moment. Finally, unsuspecting German officers appeared in the field of view of snipers. They did not have time to approach the dugout, when they were hit by two precise shots. But the noise from the fall was heard by other soldiers and officers of the Nazi army. There were a lot of them, but Lyudmila and Leonid, changing positions, destroyed them all one by one. Having laid down many enemy officers and signalmen, Soviet snipers forced the enemy to leave their command post.
The death of Leonid Kutsenko
German intelligence systematically informed the command of the activities of Soviet snipers. They were fiercely hunted, numerous traps were arranged.
Once a pair of brave Russian snipers, at that moment in ambush, was discovered. By Pavlyuchenko and Kutsenko, hurricane mortar fire was opened. A mine exploded near, and Leonid's arm was torn off. Lyudmila made a seriously wounded friend and made her way to her. But, no matter how hard the field doctors tried, Leonid Kutsenko died from serious wounds.
The bitterness of losing a loved one further strengthened Lyudmila in the desire to exterminate her sworn enemies. She not only took on the most difficult combat missions, but also taught young fighters to shoot, trying to give the maximum of her invaluable sniper experience.
During the defensive battles, she raised more than a dozen good shooters. They, following the example of their mentor, defended their homeland
In the mountains
On a rocky territory near Sevastopol, winter came. Acting in the conditions of a mountain war, L. Pavlyucheno was ambushed under cover of night. From three o’clock in the morning she hid in dense fog, now in mountain ledges, then in moist hollows. Sometimes the wait dragged on for many hours, or even days. But it was impossible to rush. It was necessary to go the road of patience, counting every step ahead. If you find yourself, then there will be no salvation.
It happened somehow that on Bezymyannaya alone she was against six machine gunners. Noticing it the day before, when Pavlyuchenko destroyed her soldiers in an unequal battle, the Germans sat on the road. It would seem that Lyudmila was doomed, because there were six fascists, and at any moment they could notice her and destroy her. But even the weather stood up for her. A thick fog descended on the mountains, which allowed our sniper to find a convenient place for an ambush. But there still had to be reached. Moving in a Plastonic fashion, Lyudmila Mikhailovna crawled to her cherished goal. But the Germans did not lose their stubbornness and persistently shot at it. One bullet almost hit the temple, the other went through the top of the cap. After that, instantly assessing the whereabouts of the opponents, Pavlyuchenko fired two accurate shots. She answered both the one who almost hit her in the temple, and the one who almost put a bullet in her forehead. The surviving four Nazis continued hysterical shooting. They chased her, but crawling away, she killed three more one after another. One of the Germans fled. She saw the bodies of the dead, but, fearing that one of them was pretending to be dead, she did not dare to immediately crawl to them. At the same time, Lyudmila realized that the one who ran away could bring other machine gunners about to. And again the fog thickened. She nevertheless decided to crawl to the enemies she had struck. They were all dead. Picking up the weapons of the slain (machine gun and light machine gun), she hid in time in an ambush. A few more German soldiers approached. They again began to randomly fire, and she shot at once from several types of weapons. Thus, the Soviet sniper tried to convince the enemies that more than one person was fighting with them. Gradually moving away, she was able to hide from opponents and survive in this unequal battle.
Lyudmila Pavlyuchenko - Hero of the USSR
Sergeant Pavlyuchenko was soon transferred to a neighboring regiment. Hitler's sniper, who killed many Soviet soldiers and officers, was operating on its territory. Also, two sniper regiments died from his bullet. For more than a day there was a silent battle between the German gunner and the Soviet sniper. But the Hitler fighter, accustomed to sleeping in the dugout, was exhausted faster than Lyudmila. And although her whole body ached from the cold and damp, she turned out to be more agile, literally for a split second ahead of the enemy who was aiming at her.
Having struck him with a deadly bullet, Lyudmila Alexandrovna crawled up and took a sniper book from her fascist’s pocket. From her, she learned that it was the famous Dunkirk, who killed more than 500 English, French and Soviet soldiers.
By that time, numerous wounds and concussions had worsened Lyudmila’s condition so much that she was forcibly sent by submarine to the mainland.
Since October 25, 1943 Lyudmila Pavlyuchenko - Hero of the Soviet Union. Later, in the direction of the Main Political Directorate, she visited with the Soviet delegation in Canada and the United States of America.
Upon her return, Lyudmila Pavlyuchenko, a sniper whose biography has become an example for many brave fighters, serves as an instructor at the Shot school sniper school.
Post-war years
After the war, having graduated from Kiev University, this legendary Soviet woman works as a researcher in the General Staff of the Navy. There she worked until 1953.
Later, her work was related to assisting war veterans. She was also one of the members of the Association of Friendship with the Peoples of Africa, more than once visiting many African countries.
Her life and exploits became the reason that in the film “Unbroken” (“The Battle for Sevastopol”) so much attention was paid to the description of her image and merits to the fatherland. This is not only a film about the battle for Sevastopol, it is a film about Lyudmila Pavlyuchenko - a woman who changed the course of history. It was she who, with her inspired performances, permeated with the pain of combat losses, contributed to the opening of a second front.
Lyudmila Pavlyuchenko: personal life in the cinema and in reality
But it should be noted that some facts from the life of this legendary man in the film are distorted. Lyudmila Pavlyuchenko is a sniper, her biography proves that protecting the Motherland has always been most important to her. In the film, personal life is put in first place, the heroine’s thoughts revolve around love. Although in reality in relations with Leonid Kutsenko they were more associates than lovers. Despite the fact that he really was a front-line husband for her. And a doctor named Boris is not mentioned at all in any bibliographic source.
At the end of the film, we see her with her son. The boy was about 12 years old. Lyudmila Pavlyuchenko, whose son’s family (Rostislav, his wife and daughter) were really her closest people, gave birth to him in 1932. In the frame of the film is 1957. He was 25 years old in reality at that time.
Lyudmila simply could not have a father by the name of Pavlyuchenko, who works in the NKVD. This is the name of her husband, who, after divorcing him, remained so with her. According to her father, she is Belova.
Memory
Until the end of her life, Lyudmila Pavlyuchenko was the symbol of heroism, stamina and courage of a Russian woman. Children from the pioneer organization, with whom she often talked, liked to listen to her stories about the war. They gave her a slingshot, which was stored in the small museum of L. Pavlyuchenko for many years. In addition to this memorable gift, awards and souvenirs handed to Lyudmila on numerous business trips were stored there.
The grave of Pavlyuchenko Lyudmila Mikhailovna, who passed away on October 27, 1974, is located in Moscow.