Valentina Ivanovna Luchinkina graduated from the technical school and the school of military paramedics of the reserve. In October 1941, as part of the medical battalion of the 95th Rifle Division of the Separate Coastal Army, she participated in battles in the north of Crimea. On November 07, 18-year-old Valentina Ivanovna, a lieutenant of the medical service, joined the defenders of Sevastopol. She served in the 136th Separate Reserve Rifle Regiment of the Separate Coastal Army, from April 1942 - in the 103rd sanitary-epidemiological squad created in Kruglaya Bay. Here, doctors prepared a vitamin brew to treat scurvy, which spread in the troops.
In the last days of the defense of Sevastopol, she attended to the wounded, whose number was growing every hour.
When they were ordered to retreat to the Chersonese lighthouse, Valentina Ivanovna managed to swim across the bay and get to Chersonese Cape under heavy bombing. Tens of thousands of fighters were waiting for evacuation there. She was captured in the area of the 35th Coastal Battery.
Soviet soldiers saved Valentina Ivanovna, by pushing her out of the column of prisoners to the side of the road into a crowd of civilians. She miraculously survived, got out of the city, made it to Odesa. She got a job in a hospital, participated in the fight against the Nazi invaders.
Now she is the head of the Military-Historical Museum in Odesa, the chairman of the Council of Veterans of the Separate Coastal Army.
Awards:
Order of the Patriotic War, medal "For the Defense of Odesa", medal
"For the Defense of Sevastopol", medal "To a Partisan of the Patriotic War" of the 1st class, Order of Bohdan Khmelnytsky
