 Of the medical personnel in the Red Army, 40% of paramedics, 43% of surgeons, 46% of doctors, 57% of medical assistants, and 100% of nurses were women.Nearly 200,000 were decorated and 89 of them eventually received the Soviet Union's highest award, the Hero of the Soviet Union, among which some served as pilots, snipers, machine gunners, tank crew members and partisans, as well as in auxiliary roles.At first, when Germany attacked the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, thousands of women who volunteered were turned away.