26. In Less Than a Year, “Lady Death” Had Over 300 Confirmed Enemy Kills
As the Siege of Sevastapol progressed, Lyudmila Pavlichenko’s reputation as a deadly sharpshooter grew. She began to train other snipers to follow in her lethal footsteps, and by the time the siege came to a close, her trainees had killed about 100 Axis personnel. By June 1942, Pavlichenko’s personal confirmed kill count had climbed to 309. By then, she was a famous national heroine nicknamed “Lady Death”, and known to all and sundry throughout the USSR. She was also well known to the enemy.
The German military tried to bribe Pavlichenko, and sent messages across the front lines via loudspeakers that blared stuff like: “Lyudmila Pavlichenko, come over to us. We will give you plenty of chocolate and make you a German officer“. When that didn’t work, the inducements became threats, and towards the end of her time in Sevastopol, German loudspeakers blared: “If we catch you, we will tear you into 309 pieces and scatter them to the winds!” Rather than scare her, the fact that the enemy accurately knew her kill count only made her happy.