Yesterday's Weapons Forums

...or more properly, Heroines. Times were tough & everybody participated as needed. SW

Hero of the soviet Union, Lydia Litvak with her Yak-9. After her pilot husband was killed by Germans, she became a fighter pilot, too. KIA - aerial combat.



Hero of the Soviet Union, Maria Dolina shown with her PE-2.


Ekaterina Budanova shot down 11 enemy planes with her Yak-1. KIA - aerial combat and posthumously awarded Hero of the Russian Federation.


Alexandra Samusenko - Tank battalion commander and target of many panzerfausts. KIA 1945.



Hero of the Soviet Union Ludmila Pavlichenko, sniper. 309 kills of whom 36 were Grman snipers.


Nameless soldier. No medals shown, but her 'thousand yard stare' speaks volumes.


Hero of the Soviet Union was roughly equivilent to the American Medal of Honor. They were not handed out for trivial matters.

This post is not to glamorize Russia - but an example of the desperation to win at any cost. Tough times, indeed. SW

Interesting picture show. That is really cool!

i never even thought of the idea of 'glamorize russia' , i thought only of how much these women gave to their country and how befiting the honor

I never gave the glamorizing thing a thought. At this point (60 odd years later), knowing more than we used to about the Soviet Union, I don't believe that honoring the old heroes and heroines of a defunct regime would be idolizing the ideology. These were folks the same as you and me that (forced conscription aside) fought a despised enemy. They had a reason to hate and fight. They did it with dedication and they won. Once they saw and heard of the atrocities, people like Vasilli Zeitsev fought because they wanted to. A lot of them had family and friends murdered at the hands of the Einsatz Grupen. As long as the people are being honored and not their uniforms, I see no shame in it. Seeing that you are a vet yourself I can understand the cautious disclaimer. The Communists were my enemy too, but I came a generation later and it was only the ideology that I guarded against. My war was one without bullets. "Better Dead Than Red!"

Another reason many women joined the armed forces: you got something to eat. During the course of the war, actual millions of Russians starved to death.

There was quite a photoset of women who fought during the war. Most had been awarded Hero of the Soviet Union.

I picked these 5 as they looked most like someone you would see at the mall. Just ordinary people.. who wouldn't give up. SW