A Dance with Death: Soviet Airwomen in World War II (4 page)

It should be noted that a significant proportion of the ground crews
attached to these regiments were women as well. Responsible for
maintaining and preparing the aircraft for their sometimes numerous
daily missions, the armorers and mechanics handled ammunition
boxes and machine-gun belts, made quick-time repairs, and attached heavy bombs, often working without cover in subzero weather. In the
course of one night the armorers with the 46th would haul up to four
tons of bombs each. In short, the ground crews were as dedicated as
their aircrews. They often became so close to their pilot and aircraft
that, if something happened to the plane, they felt they had failed
somehow. ("We worried until our planes returned.") 28

Although there were some who viewed the women's regiments
with contempt and even made life difficult for the airwomen they
encountered, many male pilots and regimental commanders did come
to appreciate the skills of their female colleagues. Indeed, the record of
the women's air regiments compares favorably with that of the men.
The three regiments flew a combined total of more than thirty thousand combat sorties, and of the ninety-two women who were bestowed
the title Hero of the Soviet Union in recognition of their outstanding
service to their country in the Second World War, nearly one-third were
airwomen. There were at least three fighter aces among the women
pilots, and two of the regiments received the coveted "Guards" designation-an honor not given lightly, even during the war.2°

Aside from being the accounts of the first women to engage in
combat in any numbers, there is something else that makes the recollections contained in this book special: they illustrate a commonality
of purpose among the women who served in the Second World War.
The stories cut across national boundaries in a variety of ways. There
is, for example, a striking similarity in attitude between the Soviet
women pilots and that of the women who served as military pilots in
the United States. There were, to be sure, some very major differences between the two groups, the most obvious being that the Soviet
women were engaged in actual combat while the Women Airforce
Service Pilots-the WASPS-were restricted to noncombat missions.
Moreover, unlike their American counterparts, the Soviet women's
air regiments were fully militarized, and the women who served did
so for the duration of the war. An immediate and striking similarity
can be found in the desire of both groups of women to serve-to offer
their skills as pilots in the defense of their country. A sentiment
shared by many of the women whose memoirs are recounted here is
that they had to do something. The women who volunteered did so
freely-some even lied about their experience and training in order to
gain entrance to the program. Although many of the young Soviet
women pilots volunteered as a result of an initial overwhelming
surge of patriotism, they quickly came to realize that the war was
nothing less than a national life-or-death struggle.

There is also a striking degree of similarity between the two
groups in the camaraderie that the women shared. There is a closeness-a community of being-that approaches the relationship of
family. It is not surprising to note that both groups developed their
strongest ties during periods of great stress: the WASPs during their
training, and the Soviet women while in the field.

Finally, without dwelling unduly on the issue of politics, the Soviet women were subjected to incredible political pressures. The recollections of some of the women contain grim reminders that life in
Soviet Russia in the 19305 was complicated and potentially very dangerous. The same system that nurtured their love of flying and encouraged them to explore aviation was also capable of destroying
them. That these women are now able to speak so freely about the
difficulties faced by themselves and some of their colleagues is in
itself a remarkable achievement. The fact that there is so little bitterness expressed stands as testament to their stoic determination and
patriotism. Their country needed them in time of war, and they
responded-fy, unreservedly, and sometimes with their lives. The
overwhelming pride they share in having served their country-of
having made a difference-is evident in all of the women's stories.

Though strictly speaking not a history of the Soviet women who
flew in combat, this hook represents their history-the hopes, fears,
and experiences of the young women who embarked on a most deadly
adventure, which combined the joyous freedom of flying with the
horrors and destruction of war. Their stories are powerful, moving,
and enlightening.

The women whose reminiscences are recounted in this book represent the first instance of the widespread employment of women in
combat by a major power. The successes of these young women, their
fears, their friendships, and their courage are captured here in their
own words, seasoned with the passing of half a century. Their wartime contributions, like those of the WASPs, are only now being
given the attention they so richly deserve, and the passing of these
women makes the task of gathering these memoirs critical. Their
stories-as their past deeds-speak for themselves.

Only a pilot can understand how it feels to be in the air without
the instructor. Only a pilot knows the whole scope of feelings
and sensations you experience when face-to-face with the sky
and aircraft!

-Senior Lieutenant Nina Raspopova, 46th Night Bomber Regiment

Notes

i. One of the best studies to date is J. K. Cottam, Soviet Airwomen in Combat
in World War II (Manhattan, Kans.: Sunflower University Press, 1983). There
are a number of promising works in progress on the topic and increasing
numbers of translations of memoirs and accounts published in Russian.
There is, however, ample room for further research with the opening of Soviet
archives on the Second World War.

2. Dorothy Atkinson, "Society and the Sexes in the Russian Past," in Dorothy
Atkinson, Alexander Dallin, and Gail Lapidus, eds., Women in Russia (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1977, pp. 3-4.

3. Nadezhda Durova, The Cavalry Maiden: Journals of a Russian Officer in
the Napoleonic Wars, trans. Mary Fleming Zirin (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988), pp. ix, xxviii.

4. Anne Eliot Griesse and Richard Stites, "Russia: Revolution and War," in
Female Soldiers-Combatants or Noncombatants? Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Nancy L. Goldman (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood
Press, 1982), p. 80; "Young Girls Fighting on the Russian Front," Current
History (May, 1916); and the New York Literary Digest as cited in Julie Wheelwright, Amazons and Military Maids: Women Who Dressed as Men in the
Pursuit of Life, Liberty, and Happiness (Boston: Pandora Press, 1989), P. 33.

5. Flight, April r6, 1915.

6. Only those women's regiments in Perm and Petrograd were used in combat. See Maria Botchkareva, Yashka: My Life as Peasant Officer and Exile
(New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co., 1919(, pp. 154-71; and Reina Pennington,
"Wings, Women, and War: The Formation and Development of Soviet Women's
Military Aviation Regiments, 1941-42." Seminar paper, Department of History, University of South Carolina, p. 3 (n. 40).

7. Barbara Evens Clements, "The Birth of the New Soviet Woman," in Bolshevik Culture, ed. Abbott Gleason, Peter Kenez, and Richard Stites (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985), p. 220.

8. Aviatsiya i Rossiya (Moscow: Mashinostrocnic, 1968), p. 316.

9. Richard Stites, The Women's Liberation Movement in Russia: Feminism,
Nihilism, and Bolshevism, 1860-1930 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1978).

10. Ellen Jones, Red Army and Society (Boston, Mass.: Allen & Unwin, 1985),
p. 99, as cited in Pennington, "Wings, Women, and War," p. 6.

ri. Pennington, "Wings, Women, and War," p. 9; and Cottam, Soviet Airwomen, p. I.

12. 'Agitprop " flights were made a common phenomenon, with membership
and fund-raising drives by the Society of Friends of the Airfleet recruiting
some 2 million members and raising more than 5 million rubles by June, 1925.
See William E. Odom, The Soviet Volunteers: Modernization and Bureaucracy in Public Mass Organization (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1973), p. 6o.

13. Cottam, Soviet Airwomen, p. I. According to Osoaviakhim's publication Samolet, i9 percent of the pilots in the USSR in 1935 were women. For the
same year, only 370 or 3 percent of the 14,177 pilots in the United States were
women. Samolet (Mar., 1935), p. 22.

14. Bolshaya Sovestskaya Entsiklopediya, (3rd ed.), vol. 21, p. 466.

i5. Marina Chechneva, Nebo Ostaetsia Nashim (Moscow: Voenizdat, 1976),
pp. 9-10; V. Mitroshenko, "They Were First," Soviet Military Review (Mar.,
1969), pp. 20-22; and Pennington, "Wings, Women, and War," p. 10.

16. Alexei Flerovsky, "Women Flyers of Fighter Planes," in Soviet Life (May,
1975), P. 28.

17. Cottam, Soviet Airwomen, p. 317.

18. Pennington, "Wings, Women, and War," p. ii.

19. The women's regiments, like all others are mentioned only in the context
of the action in which they participated. See Sovetskiye Voenno-vozdushnye
sily v Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voine 1941-1945 (Moscow: Voenizdat, 1968).

20. M. A. Kazarinova and A. A. Polyantseva, eds., V nebe frontovom. Sbornik
vospominaniy sovietskikh letchits uchastnits Velikoy Otechestvennoy voyny
(Moscow: Molodaya Gvardiya, 1962), pp. 186-96; and Cottam, Soviet Airwomen, pp. 4-5.

21. Flerovsky, "Women Flyers," p. 28; Cottam, Soviet Airwomen, p. 6; and V.
S. Murmantseva, Sovetskiye zhenshchiny v velikoy Otechestvennoy voyne
(Moscow: Mysl', 1974), p. 18o.

22. Cottam, Soviet Airwomen, p. 7.

23. Cottam, Soviet Airwomen, pp. 11-12.

24. Murmantseva, Sovetskiye zhenshchiny, p. 85; Kazarinova and Polyantseva, V nebe frontovom, p. 26; Cottam, Soviet Airwomen, pp. 9-14.

25. COMM, Soviet Airwomen, pp. 18-19.

26. Cottam, Soviet Airwomen, pp. 16-18.

27. Cottam, Soviet Airwomen, pp. 16-17, 19-20.

28. Cottam, Soviet Airwomen, p. 22; and Senior Sergeant Galina Drobovich,
regimental mechanic of the 586th.

29. Pennington, "Wings, Women, and War," pp. 29-32.

The American Committee for Aid to the Soviet Union in the
war against Nazi Germany announced that on June 22, 1943, a
supply ship would be launched at one of the wharfs in California. It would be named "Marina Raskova" in memory of the
heroic Russian Air Force pilot.

Pravda, Moscow, June zo, 1943

Marina Raskova was loved and venerated in the Soviet Union much
as Amelia Earhart was in the United States. She was a navigator by
profession. In that capacity, along with two women pilots, V. S.
Grizodubova and P. O. Osipenko, she flew from Moscow to the Far
East in 1938, opening up the route across Siberia and establishing a
new nonstop distance record for women. During the course of this
mission, overcast skies completely obscured all visual landmarks,
leaving radio signals as the only means of orientation. When the radio
station ceased transmitting, there was nothing to do but continue on,
eventually to run out of fuel. Raskova's crew position in the nose of
the aircraft was hazardous for a crash landing, and she was ordered to
parachute from the plane over the taiga, a dense, swampy, forested
area of Siberia. She landed in the swamp and struggled through the
taiga for ten days before she finally came to the site of the aircraft.

The story of this flight was widely publicized, and her courage and
stamina caught the imagination of the people. When the women
returned to Moscow, Stalin bestowed upon them the nation's highest
award, the Gold Star of Hero of the Soviet Union. They were among
the first women to have ever received that honor. Raskova was not
only intelligent and brave, she was a most beautiful young woman.

Marina Raskova's fame and influence were crucial to the formation and training of women's combat regiments in World War II.
When the war began, she joined the People's Defense Committee and
was aware that letters were pouring in from women pilots all over the country begging to be taken into the army air regiments. She proposed to the government that female air regiments be formed with
volunteer women pilots and that these pilots, along with other volunteers selected by the Komsomol, be trained as mechanics, staff personnel, gunners, and navigators.