#lydia litvyak

Lydia Litvyak - The white rose of Stalingrad

Lydia Vladimirovna Litvyak (1921-1943) was fittingly born on August 18, the Soviet Air Fleet Day or Aviation Day. She made her first solo flight at 15 and was training as a flight instructor by the age of 17. 

In 1937, her father was accused of having committed crimes against the Communist Party and arrested. She never saw him again. Unlike her brother, Lydia refused to change her name. 

When World War II began, Lidya had already trained 45 pilots at the Kirov Flying Club in Moscow. The USSR’s Airplanemagazine praised her for having carried out a record number of training flights in a single day (over 8 hours in flight). Lydia wanted to join the war effort, but her appeal was rejected. 

However, things changed when Marina Raskova was allowed to create female aviation regiments. Lydia joined her recruits. She was friendly and curious toward the others. She first refused to have her hair cut, but had to give up due to Marina’s insistence. Lydia was full of enthusiasm, she wrote her mother that she was “thirsting for battle”. 

In September 1942, she and some of her female comrades were moved to an entirely male regiment. They stood their ground and quickly adapted. It was during this month that Lydia was deployed in battle for the first time. She shot down two enemy planes during the fight and thus became the first woman in the world to shoot down an enemy combat aircraft on her own. 

Story has it that a renowned German ace she had shot down was captured, and asked to meet the person who defeated him. When he saw Lydia, he couldn’t believe it was first. Lydia, however, used hand movements to reconstruct their duel and he was forced to admit the truth. Impressed, he offered her his wristwatch, but she refused.

Nicknamed the “White rose of Stalingrad”, Lydia flew with a bouquet of flowers stuck on her dashboard. A white lily was painted on her plane. To become an ace, a pilot had to shoot down five aircrafts. Lydia shot down 11 enemy planes by herself within a year and added a “shared kill” to her performance. She was granted the status of “free hunter”, meaning that she could go searching for enemy aircraft or ground forces on her own initiative.

On March 22, 1943, she found herself outnumbered by the enemy two to one. She shot down a German plane, but was wounded in the leg. Lydia then found herself surrounded by six enemy planes. She flew straight in the middle of the German aircrafts and shot one of them. She managed to escape and to land, before fainting. This exploit turned her into a celebrity.

In July, she and six or five of her comrades found themselves fighting thirty six enemy planes. She shot a German bomber and a fighter, but was wounded in the shoulder and the leg and had to crash-land her plane. She refused to be hospitalized. The death of her best friend in battle didn’t stop her. A week later, she returned to combat. 

She was flying her fourth mission on August 1, 1943, when she was ambushed by a superior number of enemies. One of her comrades saw her dive into the clouds to escape. This was the last time she was seen. Nobody could find her body or plane. Since she was declared “missing”, she couldn’t be granted to rank of “Hero of the Soviet Union”.

After the war, search for her body and plane were conducted and it was discovered that she had possibly been found and buried in the village of Dmitrievka in Ukraine. On May 5,1990 Mikhail Gorbachev finally made her a hero of the Soviet Union.

Lydia’s last letter to her mother said:

“I am completely absorbed in combat life. I can’t seem to think of anything but the fighting.  I long … for a happy and peaceful life, after I’ve returned to you and told you about everything I had lived through and felt during the time when we were apart. Well, good-bye for now. Your Lily.”

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Bibliography:

Sakaida Henry, Heroines of the Soviet Union 1941-1945

Wayne Elizabeth, A Thousand Sisters: The Heroic Airwomen of the Soviet Union in World War II