Yevgeniya Rudneva

Template:Short description Template:Infobox military person Yevgeniya Maksimovna Rudneva (Template:Langx; 24 May 1921Template:Efn – 9 April 1944) was the head navigator of the 46th Guards Night Bomber Regiment posthumously awarded Hero of the Soviet Union. Prior to World War II she was an astronomer, the head of the Solar Department of the Moscow branch of the Template:Ill.<ref name="astro">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Civilian life

Rudneva was born in Berdiansk to the family of a Ukrainian telegrapher; she was an only child. After finishing her seventh year of secondary school in Moscow, where she spent most of her childhood, she went on to study three years as a student in the faculty of mechanics and mathematics of Moscow State University prior to October 1941, when she volunteered for military service.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn She became a member of the Communist Party in 1943.Template:Sfn

World War II

After joining the Red Army in 1941 Rudneva graduated from navigators courses at the Engels Military Aviation School, where she made her first flight on 5 January 1942. In May that year she and all of the other members of what was then the 588th Night Bomber Regiment were deployed to the Southern Front in May 1942.Template:Sfn During her career she flew with many pilots, including future Heroes of the Soviet Union Yevdokiya NikulinaTemplate:Sfn and Irina Sebrova.Template:Sfn

She flew 645 night combat missions on the old and slow Polikarpov Po-2 biplane, destroying river crossings, troop trains, troops and military equipment of the enemy. During the war she flew on bombing missions on the Transcaucasian, North Caucasian, and 4th Ukrainian fronts as well as in battles for the Taman and Kerch peninsulas.Template:Sfn

On the night of 9 April 1944 she was shot down while navigating for Praskovya "Panna" Prokofyeva, one of the new pilots in the regiment.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Personal views

In her letter to professor Sergey Blazhko, head of the Astrometry Department of Moscow State University, dated 19 October 1942, she wrote that the first bomb she had promised the Nazis would be in retaliation for the bombing of the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics that winter. She wrote that she was defending the honor of the university.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Awards and honors

File:Художественные маркированные конверты 1983 года. Руднева Евгения Максимовна.jpg

1983 Soviet envelope featuring Rudneva, from a series of envelopes featuring Heroes of the Soviet Union

• Hero of the Soviet Union (26 October 1944)<ref name=":goldstar">Template:Pamyat naroda</ref>
• Order of Lenin (26 October 1944)<ref name=":goldstar"/>
• Order of the Red Banner (27 April 1943)<ref>Template:Pamyat naroda</ref>
• Order of the Patriotic War 1st Class (25 October 1943)<ref>Template:Pamyat naroda</ref>
• Order of the Red Star (9 September 1942)<ref>Template:Pamyat naroda</ref>

Monuments to her were built in Moscow, Kerch and the Saltykovka settlement (in Moscow Oblast). The Asteroid 1907 Rudneva, a school in Kerch, streets in Berdiansk, Kerch, Moscow and Saltykovka were named after her.

See also

• List of female Heroes of the Soviet Union

Bibliography

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External links

• Monument to Rudneva in Kerch
• Biography on Moscow State University website
• Biography on the website warheroes.ru