Lydia Vladimirovna Litvyak, (Лидия Владимировна Литвяк, (Moscow, August 18, 1921 – Krasnyi Luch August 1, 1943), also known as Lydia Litviak or Lilya Litviak, was a female fighter pilot in the Soviet Air Force during World War II. With 12 solo victories (but some authors say 11 or even 13 ) and either two , or four, shared gained in 66 combat missions, she is one of the world's only two female fighter aces, along with Katya Budanova.
Early life
Born in
Moscow, she was keen on aviation from her youth. At 14, she entered an
aeroclub.
Aged 15, she went on her first solo flight and later graduated from Kherson mililtary flying school. She became a
flight instructor at Kalinin Airclub, in the late 1930s, and when the German-Soviet war broke out, by then she had already trained forty-five pilots.
World War II
Women's regiment
After the German attack on the
Soviet Union in June 1941, Litvyak tried to join a military aviation unit, but was turned down for lack of experience. After deliberately exaggerating her pre-war flight time by 100 hours, she joined the all-female 586th Fighter Regiment of the Air Defense Force (586 IAP/PVO,
istrebitel'naia aviatsia protivovozdushnoi oborony) , which was formed by
Marina Raskova. She trained there on the
Yakovlev Yak-1 aircraft.
Men's regiment
She flew her first combat flights in the summer of 1942 over
Saratov. In September, she was assigned to the 437 IAP, a men's regiment fighting over
Stalingrad. On 10 September she moved along with Katya Budanova, Maria M. Kuznetsova and Raisa Beliaeva, the commander of the group, and accompanying female ground crew, to the regiment airfield, at Verkhnaia Akhtuba, on the east bank of the Volga river. But when they arrived the base was empty and under attack, so they soon moved to Srednaia Akhtuba. Here, flying a Yak-1 carrying the number "32" on the fuselage, she would achieve considerable success. "Liliia Litvyak was a very aggressive person", but an exceptional pilot, recalled Boris Eremin (later
lieutenant general of aviation), who was a
regimental commander in the
division to which she and Budanova were assigned, "a born fighter pilot".
In the 437th Fighter Regiment, Litvyak scored her very first two kills on 13 September, three days after her arrival and on her third mission to cover Stalingrad, becoming the very first woman fighter pilot to shoot down an enemy aircraft. That day, four Yak-1s—with Major S. Danilov in the lead—attacked a formation of
Junkers Ju 88s escorted by
Messerschmitt Bf 109s. Her first kill was a Ju 88 which fell in flames from the sky after several bursts. Then she shot a Bf 109 G-2 "Gustav" off the tail of her squadron commander, Raisa Beliaeva. The Bf 109 was piloted by a decorated pilot from the 4th Air Fleet commanded by General Wolfram Freiherr von Richtofen (a distant relative of the Red Baron) the 11-victory ace, three-time recipient of the
Iron Cross , Staff Sergeant Erwin Maier of the 2nd Staffel of
Jagdgeschwader 53. Maier parachuted from his aircraft, was captured by Soviet troops, and asked to see the Russian ace who had outflown him. When he was taken to stand in front of Litvyak, he thought he was being made the butt of a Soviet joke. It was not until Litvyak described each move of the dogfight to him in perfect detail that he knew he had been beaten by a woman pilot.
But according to other authors the first air victory of a female pilot was achieved by 586° IAP's
Leutenant Valeriya Khomiakova when she shot down the Ju 88 flown by
Oblt. Gerhard Maak of 7./KG76 on the night of 24 September 1942.
On 27 September Litvyak scored an air victory against a Ju 88, the gunner having shot up the regiment commander, Major M.S. Khovostnikov. For some historians that was her first kill.
On 14th of September, Litvyak shot down another Bf 109.
Free hunter
Litvyak, Beliaeva, Budanova and Kuznetsova stayed in the 437 IAP for a short time only, mainly because it was equipped with
LaGG 3s rather than Yak-1s, that the women flew, and was lacking the facilities to service the latter. So the four girls were moved to the 9th
Guards Fighter Regiment (9 GvIAP,
gvardeiskii istrebitel’ nyi aviatsionnyi polk). From October 1942 till January 1943, Litvyak and Budanova served, still in the Stalingrad area, with this famous unit, commanded by Lev Shestakov,
Hero of Soviet Union.
In January 1943, the 9th was re-equipped with the Bell P-39 Airacobras and Litvyak and Budanova were moved to the 296 IAP (later the 73 GvIAP, Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment) of Nikolai Baranov, of the 8th Air Army, so that they could still fly the Yaks. On February 23, she was awarded the Order of the Red Star, made a junior lieutenant and selected to take part in the elite air tactic called okhotniki, or "free hunter", where pairs of experienced pilots searched for targets on their own initiative.That day she was flying as part of a group of six Yak fighters when they attacked a dozen Ju 88s. Litvyak shot down one of the bombers, but was in turn attacked and wounded by the escorting Bf 109s. She managed to shoot down a Messerschmitt and to return to her airfield and land her plane, but was in severe pain and losing blood.
While in 73 GvIAP, she often flew as wingman of Alexei Frolovich Solomatin. Kapitan Solomatin was a flying ace. He had claimed a total of 39 victories (22 shared), when he flew into the ground, in Pavlonka, and was killed in front of the entire regiment on May 21 , while training a new flyer. Lydia was devastated by the crash and wrote a letter to her mother describing how she realized only after Solomatin's death that she had loved him..
Senior Sergeant Inna Pasportnikova, Litvyak's mechanic during the time she flew with the men's regiment, reported in 1990 that after Solomatin's death, Litvyak wanted nothing but to fly combat missions, and she fought desperately.
Litvyak scored against a difficult target on May 31, 1943: an artillery observation balloon manned by a German officer. German artillery was aided in targeting by reports from the observation post on the balloon. The elimination of the balloon had been attempted by other Soviet airmen but all had been driven away by a dense protective belt of anti-aircraft fire defending the balloon. Litvyak volunteered to take out the balloon but was turned down. She insisted, and described for her commander her plan: she would attack it from the rear after flying in a wide circle around the perimeter of the battleground and over German-held territory. The tactic worked—the hydrogen-filled balloon caught fire under her stream of tracer bullets and was destroyed.
On June 13, 1943, Litvyak was appointed flight commander of the 3rd Aviation Squadron within 73rd GvIAP. That day, six Yaks encountered 30 German bombers with six escorts. the woman ace downed a bomber and shared a victory with a comrade, but her fighter was hit and she had to make a belly landing.
She was wounded again but refused to take medical leave. She shot down two more Bf 109s on 19 and 21 July 1943.
Last Mission
On August 1, 1943, Lydia did not come back to her base of
Krasnyy Luch, in the
Donbass, from an escort to a flight of
Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmoviks. It was her fourth sortie of the day. As the Soviets were returning to base near
Orel, a pair of Bf 109 fighters dived on Lydia while she was attacking a large group of German bombers. Soviet pilot Ivan Borisenko recalled: “Lily just didn’t see the Messerschmitt 109s flying cover for the German bombers. A pair of them dived on her and when she did see them she turned to meet them. Then they all disappeared behind a cloud.” Borisenko, involved in the dogfight, saw her a last time, through a gap in the clouds, her Yak-1 pouring smoke and pursued by as many as eight Bf 109s.
Borisenko descended to see if he could find her. No parachute was seen, and no explosion, yet she never returned from the mission. Litvyak was 21 years old. Soviet authorities suspected that she might have been captured, a possibility that prevented them from awarding her the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
Recognition and controversy
In an attempt to prove that Litvyak had not been taken captive, Pasportnikova embarked on a 36 year search for the Yakovlev Yak-1 crash site assisted by the public and the media. For three years she was joined by relatives who together combed the most likely areas with a metal detector.
On May 6, 1990, USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev posthumously awarded Litvyak Hero of the Soviet Union. Her final rank was senior lieutenant.
Death controversy
Arguments have been published that dispute the official version of Litvyak's death. Although Yekaterina Valentina Vaschenko, the curator of the Litvyak museum in
Krasnyi Luch has stated that the body was disinterred and examined by forensic specialists who determined that it was indeed Litvyak, Kazimiera Janina "Jean" Cottam claims, on the basis of evidence provided by Ekaterina Polunina, chief mechanic and archivist of the 586th Fighter Regiment in which Litvyak initially served, that the body was never exhumed and that verification was limited to comparison of a number of reports. Cottam, an author and researcher focusing on Soviet women in the military, concludes that Litvyak made a belly-landing in her stricken aircraft, was captured and taken to a
prisoner of war camp.
In 2000, Nina Raspopova, a veteran of the 46th (Taman) Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment (also known as the "Night Witches") informed Polunina that she had seen a woman greatly resembling Litvyak, alive and being interviewed on a Swiss television program. Polunina has written that the kills of top-scoring Soviet pilots, including those of Litvyak and Budanova, were often inflated; and that Litvyak should be credited with five solo aircraft kills and two group kills, including the observation balloon.) (Return from Flight) by Natalya Kravtsova fictionalizes the death of Solomatin, stating that he was killed when he ran out of ammunition while battling with a German Bf 109 fighter plane over his own airfield. Litvyak and others at the airfield watched the fight and witnessed his death.
Litvyak was awarded with the Order of the Red Banner, Order of the Red Star, and was twice honored with the Order of the Patriotic War.
White lily, white rose
She was called the "White Lily of Stalingrad" in Soviet press releases; the white lily flower may be translated from Russian as
Madonna lily. She has also been called the "White Rose of Stalingrad" in Europe and North America after reports of her exploits were first published in English. A play about her,
White Rose, was performed once in
Coventry.
Decorations
Aerial victories
September 13, 1942
two solo, a Junkers Ju 88and a Messerschmitt Bf 109 (of E. Maier.) Another source suggests a Heinkel He 111 instead of a Ju 88.
September 14, 1942
one solo, a Bf 109 (according to historian Hans D. Seidl , it was a kill shared with Katya Budanova)
September 27, 1942
one solo, a Junkers Ju 88
March 1, 1943
one solo, a Focke-Wulf Fw 190
one shared (According to another source, the shared kill was a Bf 109 while the solo was a Ju 88)
July 19, 1943
one solo, a Messerschmitt Bf 109
July 31, 1943
one solo, a Messerschmitt Bf 109
one shared, a Messerschmitt Bf 109
According to the Aranysas article, Litvyak did not score a kill on August 1, 1943; but this was the day she was shot down, by four Bf 109s.
References
Notes
Bibliography
Bergström, Christer. Stalingrad—The Air Battle: 1942 through January 1943. Hinckley England, Midland, 2007. ISBN 978-1-85780-276-4.
Jackson, Robert. Air Aces of WWII. Ramsbury, MarloboRugh, Vital Guide, Airlife Crowood Press, 2003. ISBN 1-84037-412-8.
Morgan, Hugh. Gli assi Sovietici della Seconda guerra mondiale (in Italian). Edizioni del Prado/Osprey Aviation, 1999. ISBN 84-8372-203-8.
Polak, Tomas with Christofer Shores. Stalin's Falcons—The aces of the red star. London, Grub Street, 1999. ISBN 1-902304-01-2.
Seidl, Hans D. Stalin's Eagles—An illustrated Study of the Soviet Aces of World War II and Korea. Atglen, PA, Schiffer Military History, 1998. ISBN 0-7643-0476-3.
Shores, Christopher. Air Aces. Greenwich CY, Bison Books, 1983. Isbn 0-86124-104-5.
Spick, Mike.The complete fighter ace: all the world' fighter aces, 1914–200. London, Greenhill Books, 1999. ISBN 1-85367-374-9.
External links
The best Soviet WW2 pilots A photo gallery of female pilots
Lydia Litvyak Memorial
">WWII Ace Stories. Dariusz Tyminski. Lilya Litvak—The "White Rose" of Stalingrad.
Category:1921 births
Category:1943 deaths
Category:People from Moscow
Category:Women in World War II
Category:Women in the Russian and Soviet military
Category:Female aviators
Category:Soviet World War II flying aces
Category:Soviet Air Force officers
Category:Heroes of the Soviet Union
Category:Russian people of World War II
Category:Soviet World War II pilots
Category:Soviet military personnel killed in World War II
Category:Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in Russia
Category:Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in the Soviet Union
Category:Aviators killed in shootdowns
