Some unknown force was drawing Roza Shanina to the front line, she wrote in her diary in January 1945. She hoped to return home after the war, attend school, and get married, but, “If it turns necessary to die for the common happiness, then I’m braced to.” Two days later, her battalion had lost 72 of 78 people. And at 20 years old, she knew her death was imminent.

Joining the Fight

The last several years of Shanina’s life were characterized by that unknown force that pulled her to the front line. She first asked for permission to serve in the military at age 17, after her 19-year-old brother Mikhail died during the Siege of Leningrad, but she was turned away. She didn’t sit idly by, though: She learned and practiced at a shooting range until it was her turn, and she was finally allowed to join two years later—and after two more brothers had died.

Shanina wearing a male-issue khaki wool field shirt and blue woollen skirt. (Wikimedia Commons)

In February 1942, the Soviet Union opened the military draft to women, specifically deploying female snipers because of their believed greater resilience than men under stress and greater resistance to the cold, as well as their patience, cunning, and flexible limbs. When Shanina finally enrolled in the Central Female Sniper Academy in 1943 after several applications, she quickly became one of the best, even turning down an instructor position at the end in order to be able to deploy.

Pushing to the Frontlines

But once at war, the women were still kept far from the fighting, and when Roza couldn’t convince her superiors to let her fight, she disobeyed orders and snuck to the frontlines, quickly proving her worth and earning formal permission. As the war became more desperate, more and more women moved to the frontlines as well.

When “about half a hundred frenzied fascists with wild cries” attacked a trench that containing her and 11 other female snipers, they retaliated: “Some fell from our well-aimed bullets, some we finished with our bayonets, grenades, shovels, and some we took prisoners, having restrained their arms,” she recounted in her diary. Once she was shot in the shoulder by an enemy sniper but returned to the fight as soon as she could after surgery.

The Russ Girl Terror of East Prussia

An article from US News in September 1944 describes her as the “Russ girl terror of East Prussia” and the “unseen terror of East Prussia” and relays the account of one morning in which she killed five people, describing her work beginning “each misty dawn when she crawls through a muddy communications trench to a special camouflaged pit from which she can overlook German territory.” By the time she died, she had 54 total confirmed kills—possibly 59, according to some sources.

Sniper Roza Shanina, 1944, poses with a 1891/30 Mosin–Nagant with a 3.5x PU scope. (Wikimedia Commons)

See more photos and information compiled by digitalmofo here.

Fighting to the Death

But the actual nature of her death was disputed by redditors. Her Wikipedia entry depicts her heroic death as such:

“On 27 January Shanina was severely injured while shielding a wounded artillery officer. She was found by two soldiers disemboweled, with her chest torn open by a shell fragment. Despite attempts to save her, Shanina died the following day […]. Nurse Yekaterina Radkina remembered Shanina telling her that she regretted having done so little.”

But several redditors thought that sounded like pure propaganda, such as imaghostmotherfucker and mousedeath:

But as Lu_the_mad explained:

Women at War in WWII

It’s important to note that while Roza’s story is exemplary—her youth, skill, and determination make her worth recognition—she was not the only woman who served in the military during WWII.

More than 800,000 women served in Russia’s military during WWII, including 2,484 female snipers who accounted for at least 11,280 kills. And despite the iconic Rosie the Riveter who stayed at home and filled the empty spots in the workforce left by men, around 350,000 American women also served in the military both at home and abroad.

Check out the above amazing video from rozashanina.com highlighting her tenacity and the journey she went on.