Akimova Alexandra Fedorovna - Soviet military pilot during the Great Patriotic War. Navigator of the 588th Light Bomber Flight Regiment. She left military service with the rank of captain.
Biography
Alexandra Fedorovna was born in May 1922 on the fifth in the small village of Petrushino, Ryazan region. Even at school, she wanted to become a teacher and after receiving secondary education, she went to Moscow. In 1940, she entered the Pedagogical Institute, and also enrolled in nursing education. When World War II got close to the borders of the Soviet Union, Akimova firmly decided to join the army and repulse the Nazi invaders.
The Great Patriotic War
At first, Alexandra was not taken into the ranks of the Red Army; instead, she, along with other volunteers, was sent to dig trenches and build defensive structures on the outskirts of Moscow. In September, she returned to the institute and continued her studies, but the thought of joining the ranks of the defenders of the Motherland did not leave her.
In October 1941, the People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR issued a decree on the creation of female aviation regiments. Akimova decided to take this opportunity and went to the city of Engels, where she was enrolled in the ranks of the Red Army. There she also received flight training. After completing her studies, she received the military profession of an aviation technician.
Night Witches
The 588th Bomber Regiment did not take an active part in the battles until 1942. The first sortie took place on June 12 of the same year in the area of the Sal river, Rostov region. In 1943, for its invaluable contribution to the defeat of Nazi fortifications and the destruction of strategically important enemy facilities, the 588th regiment was renamed the 46th Guards Night Bomber. The Germans, who witnessed the attacks of the bombers, called them "night witches".
Akimova all this time served at the base of the regiment in Engels. Only in the spring of 1943 she was transferred to the position of navigator and she began to take an active part in the bombing of enemy fortifications. She took part in breaking through the Gotenkopf defense lines on the Tamansky Peninsula. Alexandra Fedorovna took part in all offensive military operations, up to the capture of Berlin.
In April 1945, just before the end of the war, she was presented by General Vershinin and Marshal Rokossovsky for the Hero of the Soviet Union award, but she never received it. During the registration in Moscow, the documents were lost.
Post-war life and death
After the end of the war, Akimova was demobilized. Upon returning to Moscow, she recovered at the institute and completed her studies, got married and gave birth to daughters. In 1952, she got a job at the Moscow Aviation Institute, where she took up a career, worked until her retirement, which she entered in 1992.
In December 1994 she was awarded the Hero of the Russian Federation medal. In December 2012, on the twenty-ninth, Alexandra Feodorovna died at home at the age of 90. She was buried in Moscow at the Troekurovsky cemetery.
