Tatiana Alexandrovna Leshchenko

Corporal Tatiana Alexandrovna Leshchenko was one of approximately 2,000 Soviet women snipers in World War II. She volunteered at age 18 after her brother was killed at Stalingrad. Trained at the Central Female Sniper Academy, she served with the 3rd Shock Army from late 1943 through to Berlin. Soviet women snipers faced particular danger — if captured, they were often tortured and executed. Tatiana emigrated to Cambridge with her daughter in the 1990s and rarely spoke of her wartime service, but her story was recorded by an oral history project.