The Most Notable Fighter Aces of World War II

24. Female combat aces fought in the Soviet Air Force

Several women fought in all branches of the Soviet military during the Second World War. Soviet pilot Lydia Litvyak accounted for a total of 12 German aircraft destroyed during her war service. In doing so she claimed several firsts. She was the first woman to shoot down an enemy airplane, the first to claim the title of ace, and the first to achieve twelve victories. Her record for women aviators still stands. Lydia, a Russian from Moscow, learned to fly at an early age. Her father became a victim of Stalin’s Great Purge, vanishing in 1937. By then Lydia was already an accomplished pilot, training others to fly. By the time of the German invasion, she had trained more than 40 students to fly.

Lydia falsified her flight log, adding more than 100 hours to her time, in order to join an all-female aviation unit. She first flew in combat in 1942, scoring her first victories in September. Wounded in several attacks, and forced to perform at least one belly landing in a badly damaged aircraft, her tally reached 12 victories by the late summer of 1943. On August 1, 1943, flying her fourth mission of the day, Lydia’s aircraft fell prey to a pair of bf 109s. Lydia failed to see them as she prepared her own attack on a formation of German bombers. A mere 21 years of age at the time of her death, she received the title Hero of the Soviet Union from Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990.