Story and art by Wayne Vansant
This is a story of courage, survival and family; of self-sacrifice, betrayal, brutality, and suffering; it is a tale of love, told against the backdrop of the bloodiest conflict in human history: the 1941-1945 war between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.
Seen through the eyes of a 16-year-old Ukrainian girl, KATUSHA is not only a coming-of-age story, but a carefully researched account of one of the most turbulent and important periods of the twentieth century.
The story opens with Katusha’s graduation from her tenth and final year of school. The next morning, Sunday June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany invades the Soviet Union. The girl and her family flee to the forests to begin a partisan war against the German occupiers. Finally, Katusha enters the Red Army where she is trained as a tank driver. Her unit fights in the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk, and then pushes the Germans across Ukraine into Poland. By 1945, Katusha commands her own tank, and takes part in the final battle for Berlin.
In KATUSHA BOOK ONE: EDGE OF DARKNESS, the story opens with Katusha’s graduation from her tenth and final year of school. The next morning, Sunday June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany invades the Soviet Union. The girl and her family flee to the forests to begin a partisan war against the German occupiers.
In KATUSHA BOOK TWO: THE SHAKING OF THE EARTH Katusha, and her adopted sister Milla join the Red Army and are sent to tank school. Trained to operate the mighty T-34, Katusha fights from countryside to cities, but as in any way there is always a steep price to for victory, and Katusha must deal with her own devastating personal loss.
KATUSHA BOOK THREE: ON WINGS OF THUNDER is finished and expected to be published in 2016, and will carry the heroine to the Brandenburg Gates and the Reichstag and the end of the terrible war.
