Machine-gunner Mashuk Mahmetova, a Kazakh girl volunteer, fought till her last breath, repulsing three successive enemy counterattacks. Nineteen-year-old Alia Maldagulova, another Kazakh girl, was an expert scout and supplied our command with valuable information. Fatally wounded, she mustered the strength to kill an enemy officer with her last bullet. Both girls were made Heroes of the Soviet Union posthumously.
Nina Popova, a Soviet politician
