The White Rose of Stalingrad: Aviation Heroes #3
Lydia Vladimirovna Litvyak, an early hero for our time!
Welcome back dearest readers, today we continue our deep-dive into heroes of aviation. Today we proudly present Lydia Litvyak, better known by her nickname the White Rose of Stalingrad. Historians' estimates for her total victories range from thirteen to fourteen solo victories and four to five shared kills in her 66 combat sorties for the Soviet Air Force during World War II. She was one of very few women to earn the USSR's highest honor of Hero of the Soviet Union, albeit awarded posthumously.
Early Life
Lydia Vladimirovna Litvyak's early life was fairly unremarkable for what amounted to a Soviet peasant woman. That was until her late childhood, of course. Her mother Anna Vasilievna Litvyak was a shop assistant who no one saw as a potential threat; her father, however, was seen differently. Vladimir Leontievich Litvyak worked as a railwayman, train driver, and office clerk. During the Great Purge of 1937-1938 orchestrated by Joseph Stalin, her father was arrested as an "enemy of the people" and disappeared by the Soviet government for "disturbing the harmony of the collective good."
Lydia became interested in aviation at an early age, partly to take her mind off what had happened to her father. At the age of 14, Lydia enrolled in a community flying club. She performed her first solo flight at age 15, and later graduated from the Kherson military flying school. She became a flight instructor at Kalinin Airclub, and by the time the German-Soviet war (Operation Barbarossa) broke out, had already trained 45 pilots.
Joining the War
After the German attack on the Soviet Union in June, 1941, Lydia Litvyak tried to join a military aviation unit, but was turned down because of lack of experience. After deliberately exaggerating her pre-war flight time by 100 hours, she joined the all-female 586th Fighter Aviation Regiment of the Soviet Air Defense Force, which was formed by the famed and renowned female aviator Marina Raskova (article on her is forthcoming at a future date).
She trained there on the Yakovlev Yak-1 fighter aircraft, an already outdated aircraft by 1941, utilizing wooden wings, and simple metal (steel) fuselage alloy, The Yak-1 amounted to a composite and ungainly frame though it seemed to be a loose copy of the early versions of the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, also an outdated aircraft. Its armament was also severely lacking and in a war, its not what one wants or needs in a fighter aircraft; the Yak-1 possessed only one 20 mm cannon and one .50 caliber machine gun, both mounted in the engine cowling. A low top speed of only about 600 mph made the Yak-1 very unforgiving in any given combat situation.
Litvyak flew her first combat flights in the summer of 1942 over the besieged southwestern city (and capital of Saratov Oblast) of Saratov.
The White Rose of Stalingrad
That September, Lydia was assigned to the 437th Fighter Aviation Regiment, a men's regiment fighting over the famed city of Stalingrad (now known as Volgograd). On the 10th of September she moved 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 she and her comrades soon moved to the fallback field-base of Srednaia Akhtuba.
Here, flying a Yak-1 carrying the number "32" on the fuselage, she achieved considerable success, becoming widely known as the White Rose of Stalingrad for her achievements, though she never acknowledged the title herself. Boris Yeremin (later lieutenant-general, or, commander of Soviet aviation), a regimental commander in the division to which she and her colleague, Lieutenant Budanova were assigned, saw her as "a very aggressive person" and "a born fighter pilot" according to his memoirs.
First Kills - 13 September 1942
In the 437th Fighter Aviation Regiment, Litvyak scored her first two kills on 13 September, three days after her arrival and on her third mission to cover Stalingrad, becoming the first woman fighter pilot to shoot down an enemy aircraft. That day, four Yak-1s with Major Danilov in the lead, attacked a formation of Junkers Ju 88 bombers escorted by Messerschmitt Bf 109s.
Her first kill was a Junkers Ju 88 which fell in flames from the sky after several bursts. Then she shot down a Bf 109 G-2 (nicknamed the "Gustav" variant, by the Luftwaffe, hence "G-2") on the tail of her squadron commander. The Bf-109 was piloted by a decorated pilot from the 4th Air Fleet, the 11-victory ace, Staff Sergeant Erwin Meier of the 2nd Staffel (squadron) of Jagdgeschwader (literally translated as "hunter-fighter" isn't German fun?) 53.
Meier parachuted from his aircraft, was captured by Soviet troops, and asked to see the Russian ace who had shot him down. When he was taken to Litvyak, he thought he was being made the butt of a Soviet joke. It was not until Litvyak described each move of the fight to him in perfect detail that he knew he had been shot down by a woman pilot, much to his shock. He spent the rest of the war as prisoner-of-war, and alternating between feelings of being utterly awestruck, humbled, and growing yet begrudging respect.
Further Victories
On 14 September, according to some authors, Litvyak shot down another Bf 109. Her ill-fated opponent was, in all likelihood according to records, Knight's Cross award-recipient and 71-kill Lt. Hans Fuss (Adj.II./JG-3), injured in aerial combat with a Yak-1 on 14 September 1942 in Stalingrad area, when his G-2 fuel tank was hit, his plane somersaulted during the landing when he ran out of fuel flying back to base. He was critically injured, lost one leg and died of his wounds on the 10th of November, 1942.
On the 27th of September, two weeks after shooting down Lt. Fuss, Litvyak scored an air victory against a Ju 88, the gunner having shot up the regiment commander, Major M.S. Khovostnikov, possibly Ju 88A-4, piloted by Iron Cross-recipient Oberlieutnant (senior lieutenant) Johann Wiesniewski, 2./KG 3, MIA with all crew members. Some historians credit it as her first aerial kill. Not a simple victory, but an actual aerial kill.
Transfer to the 9th Guards Fighter Regiment
Litvyak, and her comrades (and the only other women in the regiment) Belyaeva, Budanova and Kuznetsova, stayed in the 437th Regiment for a short time only, mainly because it was equipped with LaGG 3 aircraft other than Yak-1s; the aircraft which the women traditionally flew, and was lacking the facilities to service the latter. LaGG 3s, for reference, were much more modern aircraft but still severely lacking compared to the Messerschmitt Bf-109 and Focke-Wulff Fw-190. So, the four women of the 437th were moved to the 9th Guards Fighter Regiment. From October 1942 till January 1943, Litvyak and Budanova served, still in the Stalingrad area, with this famous unit, commanded by renowned ace Lev Shestakov, recipient of the title, Hero of the Soviet Union.
A quick note on aircraft nomenclature. The Bf-109 is simply called the "Bf" -109 not Me-109 due to the factory where it was built. Bayerische Flugzeugwerke, literally translated as Bavarian Aircraft Plant/Factory, was where Willy Messerschmitt worked when the 109 was built unlike his later designs such as the Me-262, the world's first jet fighter, back to Lydia. In the Soviet Union, assignment to a guards unit was considered prestigious and renowned.
1943 - Greatest Rise and Ultimate Fall
The dawn of 1943 saw Lydia's greatest rise, and ultimate fall.
In January of 1943, as part of the benefits of being an Allied nation, the Soviet Union's 9th Guards Fighter Regiment was re-equipped with the Bell P-39 Airacobras and Litvyak and Budanova were moved to the 296th Fighter Regiment (later redesignated as the 73rd Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment) of the 8th Air Army, so that they could still fly the Yaks. On the 23rd of February, 1943, 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.
Twice, she was forced to land due to battle damage. On the 22nd of March she was wounded for the first time. That day she was flying as part of a group of six Yak fighters when they attacked a dozen Junkers Ju 88 bombers. 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 73rd Regiment, she often flew as wingman of Captain Aleksey Solomatin, a flying ace with a claimed total of 39 victories (22 shared). On the 21st of May in that year, while training a new flyer, Solomatin was killed in front of the entire regiment in Pavlonka when he flew into the ground. Litvyak 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.
On the 13th of June, 1943, due to Lydia's courage, fearlessness, and fortitude, Litvyak was appointed flight commander of the 3rd Aviation Squadron within 73rd Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment.
Litvyak made an additional kill a month later on the 16th of July, 1943. That day, per historical records, six Yaks encountered 30 German Junkers Ju 88 bombers with six escorts. The female 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 one Bf 109 on 19 July 1943, probably 6-kill ace Uffz. (unteroffizier) Helmuth Schirra, 4./JG-3. Another Bf 109 kill followed two days later on 21 July 1943, possibly Bf 109G-6 of Iron Cross holder and 28-kill experte-leutnant. Hermann Schuster 4./JG-3. I use the terms probably and possibly to indicate kills, because historical records are not entirely accurate and we must avoid assumptions.
The Last Mission
Of her last mission, what we know is what follows. On 1 August 1943, Litvyak did not come back to her base at Krasnyy Luch (a city in eastern Ukraine). It was her fourth sortie of the day, escorting a flight of Ilyushin Il-2 Sturmovik ground-attack aircraft in the Battle of Kursk.
As the Soviets were returning to base, a pair of Bf-109 fighters dove on Litvyak while she was attacking a large group of German bombers. Soviet pilot Ivan Borisenko recalled:
"Lilya just didn't see the Messerschmitt 109s flying cover for the German bombers. A pair of them dove 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 the 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 was heard, felt, or reported. 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.
Who Shot Down Litvyak?
One of two German pilots is believed to have shot down Litvyak: Iron Cross holder and 30-kill experte-Fw. Hans-Jörg Merkle of 1./JG.52, or Knight's Cross-recipient, and future 99-kill experte-Lt Hans Schleef of 7./JG 3.
Of the two, Merkle is the only pilot that claimed a Yak-1 near Dmitryevka on 1 August 1943, his 30th victory. (Dmitrijewka is where Litvyak was last seen, near Kursk, and was reportedly buried.) This occurred before being rammed and killed (the Luftwaffe combat report of the collision was three kilometers east of Dmitrievka). Schleef claimed a LaGG-3 (often confused in combat with Yak-1s by German pilots) shoot-down on the same day, in the southern Ukraine area where Litvyak's aircraft was finally found.
Legacy and Awards
On 6 May 1990, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev posthumously awarded her the title Hero of the Soviet Union. Lydia Lityvak's final rank was senior lieutenant, as was documented in all Moscow newspapers of that date. Her awards include: Hero of the Soviet Union as mentioned, as well as:
- Order of Lenin (awarded 5 May, 1990 alongside the Hero of the Soviet Union title)
- Order of the Red Banner (awarded 22 July 1943)
- Order of the Red Star (awarded 17 February 1943)
- Order of the Patriotic War, 1st class (awarded 10 September 1943)
Numerous controversies exist regarding the manner of her death, and her kill count, to this day. But of utmost importance, one thing is for certain: women would not have the respect in the air that exists without the exploits of the White Rose of Stalingrad.
Thank you for learning along with us at Brooke In The Air Travel, and visit us at brookintheairtravel.net for all your travel needs!
