Partly out of dire circumstances and partly from a cultural worldview, it was the Soviet Union who first pressed female pilots into direct combat when Hitler invaded Russia. Ahead of Stalingrad, Stalin publicly declared that “women should be given the right to fly and fight for their country.” As a result, more than 800,000 women served in the Soviet military during the war years in hospitals, communication units, as road troops, anti-aircraft gunners, and snipers. Despite the Soviets’ notoriety for strict discipline within its military, “discipline problems were overlooked” as the number of available pilots grew perilously sparse.

In Russia, the idea of using women as pilots came as early as World War I, when the “Workers and Peasants” Red Air Fleet “desperately sought pilots” to fight against the Bolshevik forces and “did not object to the use of women in combat roles.” Despite the men’s scorn over female pilots being trained in private air clubs, Stalin ensured after the war that they continue to be utilized as training grounds for military pilots of all kinds, including women.

Inevitably, the Soviets’ early aviators tended not to survive many missions, and it was certainly no different for the women. As Colonel Dmitri Panov put it, “Participation in the war of women aviators was a real barbarity.” But of the Soviet female fighter pilots who fought the Nazis in the skies, led raids against ground targets, and stopped supply transports, the iconic Lydia Vladimirovna Litvyak stands out as the most distinguished. The most productive and highly decorated of the Soviet Union’s female pilots, Litvyak was an expert aviator by the age of 14 and trained 45 pilots in the years leading up to the war, while still a teenager. She went on to serve in several of the elite air guard regiments, and she would be credited with numerous victories as the Soviets desperately tried to hold off the German onslaught around Stalingrad.

The quirky and defiant Litvyak was described as a “silent modest beauty with a blonde shock of hair and blue eyes.” She “walked with a special gait, causing delight among others,”[3] men in particular, and she tended to look neat at all times. She wore unusually feminine garb to the degree she was allowed, including “a white comforter, a sleeveless jacket turned up in fluff, chrome boots, and a flight collar made of fur (which she was later ordered to tear off and put back into shoes).” When ordered to wear overalls, she balked. On one occasion, she told Raskova that she had worn the overalls, and when she was further questioned as to when, she replied that she had worn them “at night.”

Once she became a legend in Russia, interest abounded regarding the details of Litvyak’s life. It is said that her favorite hobbies were books and novels, and that her favorite actress was Mariya Dolina. Her favorite world destination was London, and her color of choice was black. It is at times reported that she had black eyes, but virtually everyone who knew her insisted that they were a “deep blue-grey.” Popular with the boys, she was fond of dancing, and one of her fellow female aviation students observed that she “was good in everything she tried.” As a pilot, she “had a flair for acrobatics,” which was maddening to her later commanders, but in the end, nobody could argue with her results.