The Last Soviet Airwoman Remembers

The history of World War II that I learned growing up was mostly about how America saved the world from Nazi Germany.  My college history courses introduced me to the idea that the Soviet Union also contributed to that victory and my subsequent readings tell me that while both US nor Soviet efforts were necessary for Germany's defeat, neither was sufficient on its own.  I also learned about the scale of Soviet casualties (almost 479,000 Soviet dead and missing in the Battle of Stalingrad--more than the 437,000 American dead and wounded in the entire war).

What I did not learn about was the role of women in the Soviet war effort.  I knew the stories about how women contributed to America's war effort--Rosie the Riveter and even the women pilots who ferried aircraft in the US to free male pilots for combat.  In 2013 I came across the obituary for Nadezhda Popova, one of the most famous women pilots who flew combat missions for the Soviet Air Force.  Wanting to know more, I found an oral history of Soviet airwomen, A Dance With Death.  I always knew that the Soviets were formidable warriors but the exploits of their female combat pilots showed me that strength was widespread.  In case I needed further proof, Svetlana Alexievich's The Unwomanly Face of War dramatically drove home that point, documenting the wide variety of ways that Soviet women served in the war--from laundry workers and cooks to combat medics and snipers.

So reading about the last surviving Soviet airwoman remembering her and her comrades' service in The Great Patriotic War (the Soviet/Russian name for World War II) on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the German surrender brought that history back to mind.  If nothing else, it's a reminder that Russia has a long history of defeating invaders in no small part to the valor and determination of its people.

Post-Soviet Russia may be a kleptocratic oligarchy but I would never bet against the Russian people.

postscript

The historical novel, The Huntress, offers an accurate description of the life and times of a Soviet airwoman as one of its sub-plots.  The novel is a combination adventure-mystery-historical story with fully developed characters that  becomes more compelling and fast-paced as it moves toward its conclusion.

From Battlefield to Park

While I was in the east I visited  Civil War battlefields near Richmond, Chancellorsville, The Wilderness and Antietam.  I am drawn to these places in part because I was a soldier and in part by fascination with history.  I first visited the battlefields around Richmond in the 70's when I wanted solitude and a short drive.  I went for the for solitude but spent much of my time there reflecting on what happened on those battlefields and comparing my own combat experience.  Despite the terrible violence those places endured, they are now at peace.  I find comfort and hope in that transition. 

On this trip I found history at all three battlefields, solitude at Richmond, commercial development around Chancellorsville and The Wilderness, and complete restoration at Antietam.  And at each place I could not escape the scale of the fighting and was eternally thankful that my experience was nothing like the meat-grinder slaughter of the Civil War.

Greg Moser and I went out to Fort Harrison and Malvern Hill south of Richmond on a cloudy drizzly day.  Originally part of the Confederate defenses around the capitol, Fort Harrison fell to Union forces in September 1864.  Walking the interior of the fort amid the remains of earthen walls and artillery positions looking into the woods that have filled in their fields of fire in the past century-and-a-half seemed claustrophobic in the muted afternoon light.  Malvern Hill was much more open--deadly open to the Confederate troops that charged into well-placed Union artillery on the high ground in what was the last of the the Seven Days Battles in 1862. Looking down the barrel of a Union cannon into an open field of charging Confederates  was a stark reminder of war's grim efficiency.

My visit to Chancellorsville and The Wilderness was mostly a drive-thru on my way to Elizabeth Furnace.  I stopped at the Chancellorsville visitor center on Virginia Route 3.  Traffic all the way out from Fredericksburg was heavy through a sea of big box and strip mall development.  I was happy to turn into the calm of the visitor center for a lunch break.  Since I was short on time I palnned to get out and walk at The Wilderness but missed the turn-off and did not backtrack.  What the visit demonstrated to me was the extent to which Virginia was contested land.  Chancellorsville happened in 1863 and is regarded as Lee's greatest victory.  The Wilderness was a year later and was the beginning of the end for the Confederacy.  I saw the same cycle in Richmond where Confederate victories early in the war were matched with defeats in subsequent years.

Antietam National Battlefield in Maryland is not a place to find solitude.  Lots of people were there on a Friday afternoon in June when I visited on my way north out of Virginia .  Pat Doyle came over from Frederick, Maryland and joined me for the visit.  While waiting for him I attended an orientation.  The walls on three sides of the room were floor to ceiling windows that offered a view of  virtually the entire battlefield.  The view added to what was a well-informed and lively presentation by a young ranger.  He knew the history of the battle and the larger campaign, what the commanders where thinking and trying to accomplish, and what happened when those plans collided.  In that room, the ranger could walk from side to side, point and say this happened there, that occurred over there and explain the errors and plain good luck that happened throughout the battle.  And we could see the places he was talking about.  The orieintaion offered a good understanding of events that gave meaning to the detail we would later see throughout the battlefield.

Our tour was mostly by car but we were out and walking at various sites.  The day was sunny and hot, unlike the day of the battle which is reported as cloudy and dreary.  Our conversations varied, much of the time we spent visualizing a very different landscape than the one we were viewing.  Instead of the few odd tourists at pull-outs, thousands of men contended here in desperate combat.  The Antietam battlefield has been restored to its condition on September 17, 1862 so the landscape we viewed was as it appeared on the morning of the battle.  All very peaceful, very neat.  Not at all how it appeared that evening, strewn with the carnage of America's bloodiest day.  These days the landscape is strewn with monuments and memorials to the units that fought here.  I saw many for units from my family's native state, Pennsylvania.  Often Confederate and Union memorials were on either side of a road marking what had been the epicenter of one part of the battle.  One notable memorial is for Clara Barton who tended casualties here.

We finished up at Antietam National Cemetary.  Union battle dead are buried here in honored glory along with a few interments from later wars.  The centerpiece statue has what appears to be a correction or maybe repair:  a white stone insert that adds the numbers 6 and 2 to the date of the battle.   By the time we returned to the visitor center it was closed and most everyone was gone.  The day's heat was beginning to break and the light had softened.  Good news for me as I headed west to Cumberland, Maryland.

A visit to a battlefield park is a sobering experience for me.  Sure it's a park--peaceful, orderly, usually interesting, often quiet, generations removed from the day of battle.  But the place is infused with the presence of men who fought and died in that place.  Their presence comes with every visualization and remembrance of the event.  Lincoln's words at Gettysburg apply here, too:  the soldiers have consecrated these places.

Red Star Aviatrices

A while back I noted the obituary of Nadezhda Popova, a Soviet bomber pilot and commander in World War II.  She was one of many.  The obituary mentioned an oral history,  of the three all-female bomber and fighter regiments that served on all major fronts throughout the war.  A Dance With Death tells the stories of the pilots, navigators, armorers and mechanics.  Working on metal surfaces with bare fingers in 40 below zero weather and skin sticking to the metal.  Flying in white out conditions.  Living in dugouts.  Dodging fascist fighter planes.  Crash landings.  Losses.  This is war at its most brutal.  These women experienced it.

The stories do not become repetitious even though many recount individual experiences of common events.  Each story adds depth and detail that builds a larger narrative.  The women are patriotic, strong and fighting for their homeland, wanting to serve well, dealing with hardship, even finding time for fun. They are also telling the story almost half a century after the fact and after the collapse of Communism.  That allows them to offer perspective on their nation's history and leadership but none doubt or question their service.  It was after all, The Great Patriotic War.

I was surprised at how many Soviet women learned to fly airplanes and gliders and to parachute before the war.  A number of the women mentioned the admonitions to Soviet youth to develop a skill that would serve society.   Aviation was a cutting edge technology which made it an attractive and interesting way to fulfill the state's request.  Not a few of the women mentioned wanting to fly at first sight of an airplane.  As it was, they got to fly a lot.  Hundreds of missions.  Thousands of hours.

Best of all, A Dance With Death includes 67 portraits of the Soviet airwomen taken in 1990-91 by author Anne Noogle, a fomer Woman Airforce Service Pilot.  The women are in their late 60's-early 70's, same age as Maggie's mom who was born in 1921.  The text has WWII photos of some of the women and I found myself flipping back and forth at times as I read the story.  The portraits are in turn charming, thoughtful, revealing and familiar.  Here are a few examples.

Unsung Hero

Until this morning I had never heard of Reis Leming who single-handedly rescued 27 people in 1953 during Great Britain's worst recorded natural disaster. 

George McGovern, 1922-2012

George McGovern is dead at 90.

My first vote in a presidential election was for George McGovern.  In January 1972 I was back from Vietnam as that year's presidential primary season was just beginning.  Political junkie that I was even then, I paid close attention, a newly-minted antiwar veteran strongly supporting McGovern and was excited when   won the nomination.  The chaos of the 1972 Democratic convention and bungled vice-presidential candidate selections were early signs that McGovern's campaign was a star-crossed affair but I kept up hope. 

Summer-fall 1972 was a time of change and opportunity for me.  Vietnam--the actual war part--was behind me (so I thought at the time).  I was beginning my first year of graduate school, meeting new friends, who shared my values and hopes.  One hope was to end the war.  George McGovern carried that hope.  I was deeply disappointed when he lost.  I did not like what the results told me about America.

McGovern never waived in his commitment to social and economic justice.  That was the heart of his campaign in 1972 and he continued to write and speak out during a long and active life.  Forty years later, I will say without reservation that he is the most decent person to run for president in my adult lifetime.

 Godspeed, George.