THE TANK COMMANDER Aleksandra Samusenko

Aleksandra Samusenko commanded a unit of Soviet tanks through some of the most brutal battles in human history. The Soviet Union never told her story. But an American paratrooper who’d escaped a Nazi POW camp never forgot her. In the final months of World War II, he joined her unit, and together they made the final push to Berlin. Guest Hayley Noble shares the story of THE TANK COMMANDER Aleksandra Samusenko.

Haley Noble’s website on Soviet Women in Combat is here, with social media links here. The Russian State History page on Samusenko (with lots of photos and documents) is here.

Hayley Noble is a public historian and the Executive Director of the Latah County Historical Society in Moscow, Idaho. She received her MA in public military history from Boise State University in 2019. Her research focused on Soviet women in combat on the Eastern Front during World War II and used that historical example to argue in support of integrating American women into combat jobs. Hayley continues to research and share Soviet women during WWII to raise awareness for their often forgotten service. Some of her other history work experience involves Idaho’s Old Idaho Penitentiary, ground penetrating radar at the ancient Roman site, Libarna, and management of the 1886 McConnell Mansion Historic House Museum.

Music featured in this episode provided by

Exra Lipp, Amulets, Jimena Contreras, Wayne Jones, Esther Abrami, and Quincas Moreira.
Soviet WWII Music used in this episode can be found here.

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