Yekaterina Mikhailova-Demina

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Yekaterina Illarionovna Mikhailova-Demina (December 22, 1925 – June 24, 2019) was a Soviet combat medic who served with the Marines in World War II. She carried hundreds of wounded soldiers to safety and was wounded herself three times. In 1990, President Mikhail Gorbachev finally honored her as a Hero of the Soviet Union.

She was born in Leningrad and grew up in an orphanage after her parents died young. She was 15 when the war began in 1941. She tried to join as a frontline medic by claiming to be 17, but was first offered a role at a military hospital. The hospital was soon bombed, and she stayed on to help as a field medic during a time when medical staff were scarce. She later recovered from a serious leg injury and returned to duty on a hospital ship, moving wounded soldiers from Stalingrad toward safety.

Promoted to chief petty officer, she volunteered for frontline service with the Azov Flotilla Marines and joined the 369th Independent Naval Infantry Battalion in 1943. She fought on the Taman Peninsula, the Black Sea, and the Dniester, and later with the Danube Flotilla in Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Austria, finishing the war in Vienna. She earned the Order of the Patriotic War and two Orders of the Red Banner for her bravery. In 1944, she took part in a bold assault at Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi, killed many enemies, helped save wounded sailors, and earned another Red Banner. She was wounded in the hand at the Ilok fortress in Croatia in December 1944 and, despite illness, returned to her unit.

After the war, she continued to work as a doctor. She received the Florence Nightingale Medal from the Red Cross and graduated from the Second Leningrad Medical Institute in 1950. She worked as a doctor for 36 years, retiring in 1985.

Mikhailova-Demina was finally named Hero of the Soviet Union in 1990, also receiving the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star. She was one of the last living female Heroes of the Soviet Union who fought in World War II. She died in 2019 at age 93 and was buried at Troyekurovskoye Cemetery.