ONILOVA, NINA ANDREYEVNA (10 April 1921–8 March 1942), Ukrainian machine gunner who fought the Germans during the Nazis’ invasion of the Soviet Union.
Onilova was born in a proletarian family in the village of Novo-Nikolayevka on the Crimean Peninsula in the Odesa region of Ukraine. Her parents died when she was just eleven, and she spent her subsequent years in an orphanage. After completing the seventh grade, Onilova began working as a seamstress in a knitting factory while attending night classes.
Onilova’s life course changed when she saw the film Chapayev (1934), a fictionalized biopic of Vasily Ivanovich Chapayev (1887–1919), a Red Army Commander in the Russian Civil War. Chapayev’s love interest, a fearless machine gunner named Anka, inspired Onilova. She began attending machine gun training at a paramilitary club attached to the factory where she worked, determined to become the next Anka.
In 1941, after Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union without notice, Onilova volunteered to join the Red Army. She was accepted as a field medic in the 54th Rifle Regiment in Odessa. Despite Onilova’s training, and the fame of the fictional Anka, women were not generally permitted to join machine gun crews. But while tending to a wounded soldier, Onilova noticed that a machine gun had jammed; to the astonishment of the crew, she unjammed the weapon and began shooting down the enemy. As a result of her bold action, Onilova was immediately granted the position of gunner for the crew.
Later that year Onilova was severely injured by a mortar blast and forced to spend two months in recovery. While doctors believed she would be permanently disabled, Onilova was determined to get back in the field and argued persistently until she was issued papers granting her release. She returned to the army during the siege of Sevastopol, in which Germany and Romania attempted to gain control of the Crimean port city. On November 21, 1941, near the village of Mekenzia, Onilova was approached by a German tank. She advanced sixty feet and threw two Molotov cocktails, setting the tank afire. For this legendary action she was instantly promoted to sergeant and received the Order of the Red Banner from Soviet Army general Ivan Yefimovich Petrov.
On February 28, 1942, Sergeant Onilova destroyed two enemy machinegun nests during a nighttime action near Mekenzia. As her comrades retreated, Onilova stayed behind to ensure their safety. A surprise mortar blast to the chest wounded her mortally. She was taken to an underground field hospital, where she wrote an unfinished letter to the actress Varvara Miasnikova, who had played Anka in Chapayev. General Petrov visited her in her last moments and thanked her for her service. Onilova died on March 8, 1942, and was buried at the Communards Cemetery near Sevastopol. Her friend and comrade Zoya Mevedeva swore at her graveside to avenge her death.
Onilova’s heroic reputation grew in the wake of her death and inspired other female doctors to take up arms. In 1965 Onilova was posthumously recognized as a Hero of the Soviet Union, the nation’s highest decoration for heroism. In 1997 Mevedeva published On the Road to Stalingrad: Memoirs of a Woman Machine Gunner, dedicating it to Onilova.