Yelena Kolesova was a soviet partisan leader and saboteur during the Second World War. Kolesova served in the famous Commando Unit No. 9903, which contributed to the German defeat in the Battle of Moscow.
Background
Yelena Kolesova was born on August 1, 1920, to a Russian peasant family in the village of Kolesovo in the Yaroslavl Governorate. After her father's death in 1922, she was raised by her mother. Yelena had two brothers: Konstantin and Aleksander and a sister, Galina. She moved in with her aunt and uncle at the age of eight in Moscow.
Education
In Moscow, Yelena went to study at school № 52 of the Frunze district. In 1936 she finished seven classes and entered Moscow City Pedagogical University, which she successfully completed in 1939.
Career
Upon learning of the start of the war, Yelena entered the Sandruzin courses, but they did not take her into the army. But once the secretary of the district committee called Yelena to her and asked if she knew the Ukrainian language, they needed people for a partisan detachment in Ukraine. Yelena, eager to go to the front, said she knew Ukrainian, although she herself was Russian and did not know the Ukrainian language. It was necessary to bring an autobiography in Ukrainian, then Yelena found someone who knows the Ukrainian language and together they wrote her a biography, she learned it overnight. That is how Yelena got to the front.
The first combat mission began for Yelena on October 28, 1941. Yelena and three other girls went reconnaissance behind enemy lines but were captured by the Nazis. After a two-day stay in captivity, the girls managed to convince the Nazis that they were not partisans, but ordinary girls who went home. The girls were released and they returned to the partisans with the collected information about the enemy. Soon there was a second task: a group of 9 people under the command of Kolesova conducted reconnaissance and mined roads for 18 days. In January 1942, in the territory of the Kaluga Region, the detachment in which Kolesova was in, entered into battle with the enemy landing. The group completed the task and detained the enemy. Yelena brought a wounded friend from the battlefield.
On the night of May 1, 1942, a sabotage-guerrilla group under the command of Kolesova was parachuted in the Borisov district of the Minsk region. Many girls did not have experience in skydiving - three crashed on landing, one broke her spine. On May 5, two girls were detained and hit the Gestapo. In early May, the group began military operations. Partisans blew up bridges, derailed military trains with Nazis and military equipment, attacked police stations, destroyed traitors to the motherland. On September 11, 1942, an operation began to destroy the fascist garrison of the strongly fortified village of Vydritsy. Elena was mortally wounded in this battle.
Views
Quotations:
"Hello, my dear friends! I kiss you many, many times and send you warm partisan greetings from my fighting friends. Dear Uncle Borya, Aunt Natasha, I am writing from the road. We are leaving in a large detachment for a long period. Here we work for glory! Let them just get caught, scum, on our way, no one will leave. This time we are going to a difficult task, but are full of confidence that we will complete the task perfectly. It cannot be otherwise with us. Don’t worry about me. I will be alive and well. I kiss you hard many times. Alyosha."
"How hard it is to die, knowing that so little has been done. Take care of my girls and bury me in the Migovshchina, where ours lie. Goodbye..."