RT presents War Witness – a special project dedicated to the 65th anniversary of the Victory in the Second World War.
World War II veterans recount their stories about the war, how it began and what happened in the very first days of the fighting.
Field medical officer Ekaterina Demina started serving at the front when she was not even fifteen years old. She was rejected in the local conscription office but met soldiers who agreed to take her to the front as she had medical skills.
“They asked me what I could do,” Ekaterina Demina recalls. “I told them I could dress wounds, stop bleeding and apply bandages. ‘Are you a medical assistant?’ they asked. I didn’t answer. I thought that telling them I am a medic would be a lie, but if I were silent it could pass for sort of an agreement that I am a medic. They fetched a bag which was huge and full of cotton and bandages. One of them asked me ‘What is the watch for in the bag?’ I said ‘When stopping a bleeding from a wound, a tourniquet can be applied for no longer than an hour.’ He said: we are taking you!”