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Women of Peace and Those Sided the Wrong of World War II

Khalid Elhassan November 20, 2020 32 min

World War II - Italian resistance movement — Women of the resistance in Italy. Wall Street Journal

2. Aleksandra Boyko and Her Husband Bought a Tank to Fight to Nazi Invaders

Soon after the Nazi onslaught against the USSR, Aleksandra and Ivan Boyko tried to join the Red Army. However, draft officials refused because both had essential jobs. Ivan was a superb heavy truck driver, while Aleksandra performed essential clerical work for her department. It was decided that they were more valuable to the war effort by continuing in those jobs, than serving in the military. So the couple figured out another way to get into the fight.

During the war, Soviet citizens could directly pay for specific new tanks and planes, and donate them to the military. In 1943, the couple donated 50,000 rubles from their savings to pay for a new IS-2 heavy tank, and wrote a letter to Stalin, asking for the right to drive it into battle. Stalin agreed, and the Boykos were trained as tankers in Chelyabinsk Tank School. Ivan became a tank driver, while Aleksandra became a tank commander – the only woman to command a heavy tank during WWII. Their technically “private” tank was officially named “Kolyma”, after the Kolyma River near the couple’s home in Siberia.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.