When they reached their destination of Osipenko, the women of the Bridge of Wings tour dropped flowers where the Rodina had been forced to land. The townspeople took the women from their hotel to a monument of Russia’s most famous women pilots. Everywhere they looked, they saw tributes to the pilots of the Rodina.
World War II was already a major conflict in Europe before the United States joined. In the Great Patriotic War (what Russians called World War II), the Soviet Union suffered such a large number of casualties in 1941 that the government ordered all women without children to join in battling Nazi Germany.
Marina Raskova, who flew with Valentina on the historic flight of 1938, asked Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to form female military-pilot squadrons. She had been teaching military navigation to Soviet men for a few years and then received her pilot’s license in 1935. In October 1941, the all-female 122nd Composite Air Group was formed to train pilots and navigators for new regiments.
Marina chose women with a minimum of 500 flying hours to serve as fighter or bomber pilots. She oversaw all the training, which was intensive, with ten courses and two hours of drills daily. Most, like Raisa Surnachevskaya, were young, in their late teens or early 20s. Raisa was 21 and four months pregnant when she shot down two German planes.
Lilya Litvyak, also 21, was another Soviet pilot. Although she was so small that the pedals of her plane had to be adjusted so she could reach them, Lilya (or Lily) became a senior lieutenant and served in three fighter regiments. She painted a white lily on her airplane that some enemy pilots mistook for a rose. Lilya became known as the White Rose of Stalingrad; she also became the first woman in the world to shoot down an enemy aircraft on September 13, 1942, when she shot down two German fighters over Stalingrad. In all, she shot down 12 German planes. However Lilya was shot down less than a year later; she was one of nine Soviet aircraft facing off against 40 enemy planes.
Many Russian women flew with male regiments, but three of the regiments from the 122nd started out as all female—the 586th Fighter Aviation Regiment, the 588th Night Bomber Aviation Regiment, and the 587th Day Bomber Aviation Regiment commanded by Major Marina Raskova. The 588th Regiment, later renamed the 46th, flew 24,000 combat missions. They were so successful in their nighttime bombing missions that the Germans began calling them “the Night Witches.” The Russian female pilots found it amusing when they surprised German pilots, who weren’t expecting to hear female voices in the skies.
When World War II ended, 23 women received Hero of the Soviet Union medals, but Marina wasn’t there to receive hers. The plane she was flying had been caught in a heavy snowstorm on January 4, 1943, while transferring her regiment to the front. The plane crashed, killing all on board, including Marina. Her funeral was the war’s first state funeral. Her ashes were entombed in the Kremlin Wall as a sign of respect.
A Shared War Experience
Although the WASPs and the Soviet pilots fought for the same side during World War II, they believed they were worlds apart. After all, what could they have in common? Plenty, they found out. The WASPs arrived in Moscow in 1990 for what Violet Cowden described as a wonderful experience. They met 120 female World War II pilots. In 2002, the WASPs returned, although both groups were smaller.
American and Soviet women pilots were discarded at the end of the war, and for many years, their contributions were ignored. Both groups had to wear military uniforms, which meant donning men’s uniforms that were many sizes too large. Russian pilots said that military leaders even gave them men’s underwear. They had shared dangerous assignments, but most of all they shared a strong sense of patriotism. Fighting for their country was worth it all.
Valentina became the most decorated woman of the Soviet Union, receiving the Hero of the Soviet Union medal in addition to the Order of the Red Star, the Order of the Red Banner, and the medal of a member of the Supreme Soviet.
After retiring from the military in 1946, Valentina worked in civil aviation, one of only a few women who were able to continue in aviation. Even with everything the many Soviet pilots had accomplished, as soon as the war was over, they were strongly encouraged to return home and serve as wives and mothers. Valentina spent the remainder of her life living quietly with her family, including her husband, an army pilot captain, and her son. She died in 1993 at the age of 83.
LEARN MORE
Flying for Her Country: The American and Soviet Women Military Pilots of World War II by Amy Goodpaster Strebe (Potomac Books, 2009)
Night Witches: The Amazing Story of Russia’s Women Pilots in World War II by Bruce Myles (Academy Chicago Publishers, 1990)
Women in War and Resistance: Selected Biographies of Soviet Women Soldiers by Kazimiera J. Cottam (Focus Publishing, 1998)
Women Military Pilots of World War II: A History with Biographies of American, British, Russian and German Aviators by Lois K. Merry (McFarland, 2010)
HANNA REITSCH
The World’s First Female Test Pilot
THE LAST DAYS OF World War II were exciting and dangerous— exciting for the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and other countries (known collectively as the Allies) because they were about to win the war. But Berlin, the center of power for Nazi Germany, was burning. Russian tanks had entered the city and were firing at anyone who didn’t immediately surrender. Streets were destroyed, full of huge holes from the shells. One of those shots hit a small airplane. Somehow, though, the plane was still able to land in the center of the destruction. It was the only German plane that had been able to get to Berlin during the last days of the war. The pilot, Hanna Reitsch, had orders to bring General Robert Ritter von Greim to the German leader, Adolf Hitler.
The shot that hit Hanna’s plane caused an injury to one of von Greim’s feet. Hanna had to help him to Hitler’s underground bunker. After two days in the bunker, Hanna took off; heavy gunfire showered her plane.
Unlike in the Soviet Union, female military pilots weren’t allowed in Germany in World War II, with one exception: Hanna Reitsch. Fascism, the political beliefs adopted by Germany and Italy in the early 20th century, restricted women to the roles of wife and mother. Working outside the home was frowned upon. Despite this, some did have jobs, but very few were pilots. (Another German woman, Melitta Schiller, received the Iron Cross for performing about 1,500 test dives of German dive-bombers. But Hanna was Germany’s top female aviator and a favorite of Hitler’s.)
As the world’s first female test pilot, Hanna tested many Nazi planes and weapons, even rocket-powered planes that would later lead to space travel. But her daring landing and takeoff in the last days of the Third Reich are what most people remember about her. She was one of the last people to see Adolf Hitler alive.
Hanna was born on March 29, 1912, in the eastern German province of Hirschberg, Silesia (now known as Jelenia Góra, Poland). Hanna’s ophthalmologist father wanted her to be a doctor. She wanted to fly. She planned to combine the two and become a flying missionary doctor.
Hanna recalled jumping off a balcony when she was four, trying to fly like a bird. In her 1955 autobiography, The Sky My Kingdom, she wrote, “The longing grew in me, grew with every bird I saw go flying across the azure summer sky, with every cloud that sailed past me on the wind, till it turned to a deep, insistent homesickness, a yearning that went with me everywhere and could never be stilled.”
She grew up during World War I and the immediate years afterward. The Versailles Treaty from World War I barred Germany from building “war planes.” Because of this restriction, gliders (which were like planes but had no engines) became popular in Germany.
At age 20, while in medical school, Hanna began taking glider lessons. She became an excellent glider pilot and was the first woman to fly over the Alps in a glider. She left medical school and began teaching and taking on stunt-pilot work in the movies. She even participated in an expedition to study South American weather.
What Is a Glider?
Gliders are simply planes with
out engines, but they range from paper airplanes to the space shuttle. How does something fly without an engine? A regular airplane flies by the aid of four forces: thrust, lift, drag, and weight. In comparison, a glider has no thrust and therefore will eventually fall to earth because it can’t generate enough lift. Gliders typically get their initial lift from a powered aircraft that pulls the glider before releasing it. However, when a glider pilot finds a pocket of air, he or she can actually gain altitude from updrafts.
Hanna competed all over the world. She held several glider records and became the first woman to earn the Silver Soaring Medal for a cross-country flight. She set more than 40 world records, including women’s world records for glider altitude, which she earned by reaching 9,200 feet (2,800 meters); nonstop distance flight, which she earned by traveling 190 miles (305 kilometers); and nonstop gliding, which she earned by staying in the air for 11.5 hours.
Hanna flew other aircraft as they became available. In 1938, she became the first helicopter pilot and took the first indoor helicopter flight in the Deutschlandhalle, an exhibition hall in Berlin. She described this way: “Professor Focke and his technicians standing below grew ever smaller as I continued to rise straight up, 50 meters, 75 meters, 100 meters. Then I gently began to throttle back and the speed of ascent dwindled until I was hovering motionless in midair. This was intoxicating! I thought of the lark, so light and small of wing, hovering over the summer fields. Now man had wrested from him his lovely secret.”
As one of the first working helicopters, the Focke-Wulf Fw 61 received a lot of attention. Hanna demonstrated it every night for two weeks and even showed famed pilot Charles Lindbergh what it could do. She set the first helicopter records for endurance, speed, and altitude. Hanna’s skills attracted attention, and soon she was recruited to be a test pilot by the Luftwaffe. This German air force, which Hitler had been secretly growing, became an official branch of the Third Reich’s military in 1935. After its existence became public, twenty squadrons were ready to go to war, and thousands more pilots joined up too. Hanna recommended an all-woman squadron, but that idea was rejected.
When Germany went to war, Hanna began testing various aircraft, including gliders, airplanes, helicopters, and weapons. She called German warplanes “guardians of the portals of peace.” She became much in demand and was even given the honorary title of “flight captain.”
Hanna tested the first operational jet fighter, the twin-engine Me-262 Schwalbe (“swallow”). She also tested one bomber that had steel blades installed on the edges of its wings. It was developed to cut heavy steel cables attached to barrage balloons. Barrage balloons were a ground-based air-defense apparatus used to keep attacking planes from getting too close or accurate with weapons.
Perhaps the most dangerous plane Hanna tested was the Fieseler Fi 103R, intended to be a manned flying bomb. In an ideal scenario, the pilot would detach from the plane after directing the bomb toward its target, but the canopy made the chance of pilot survival very small. Hanna didn’t recommend the Fieseler Fi 103R, not because it was likely to be a suicide mission but because she felt like the frame was unstable. She also had concerns about the engine’s uncontrollable shaking and its noise level.
Hanna was a talented pilot who supported Hitler and the Third Reich. No one knows how much she knew about the events of the Nazi regime outside of flying—but she clearly admired Hitler. As the only woman awarded both the Iron Cross and Luftwaffe Diamond Clasp, she continued to wear the Iron Cross long after the war ended, even though many regarded it as a symbol of Nazi Germany.
Hanna left Hitler’s bunker as the war was ending, and two days later, she surrendered to Allied forces. She was interrogated over the next 18 months. When asked if she was a Nazi, Hanna replied, “I was a German, well known as an aviator and as one who cherished an ardent love of her country and had done her duty to the last.”
When she left the bunker, she had carried with her a poison capsule filled with cyanide. Cyanide poisoning was one of the methods Hitler chose for his own death. Why didn’t she take it as well? During her interrogation with the US Army, on October 9, 1945, Hanna testified that the thought of never flying again stopped her. (Years later, she showed the capsule to another glider owner, which seems to speak to her love of flying.) Also, she realized that Hitler was growing more disturbed in his last days.
After the war, Hanna returned to flying and sharing her love of flying with other women pilots. Concentrating on gliders, Hanna won the bronze medal in the International Gliding Championships in Madrid, Spain, in 1953. She went on to set two more glider altitude records.
In 1961, the former test pilot for the Nazis met president John F. Kennedy and was accepted for membership in the American Test Pilots’ Association. When she was 65, she flew a glider almost 600 miles (970 kilometers) in Pennsylvania and set a new distance record for gliders. A year later, she died of a heart attack.
Whirly-Girls
Women airplane pilots were rare. Even rarer were helicopter pilots. In 1955, six of the thirteen known female helicopter pilots from the United States, France, and Germany decided to band together as a group called the Whirly-Girls. Their motto: “Their eggbeaters aren’t in the kitchen.” (The rotors of a helicopter were often referred to as “eggbeaters.”) Today there are more than 1,000 Whirly-Girls hailing from 30 countries.
LEARN MORE
From Nazi Test Pilot to Hitler’s Bunker by Dennis Piszkiewicz (Praeger, 1997)
Hanna Reitsch: Flying for the Fatherland by Judy Lomax (John Murray Publishers, 1990)
“Hanna Reitsch: The Last Interview” on YouTube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vxxHyl46co
PART IV
All Part of the Job
For many years, aviation didn’t present many career opportunities for women. The lucky few had money or sponsors, but even sponsorships gradually dropped off as airplanes became more common. Eventually, it seemed as though everyone had seen airplanes flying overhead and had even experienced riding in airplanes. There were also more pilots, which meant fewer available jobs. And those jobs usually went to men.
For many women, this wouldn’t do. They didn’t have the time or money to make aviation a hobby. They enjoyed flying and using the specific skills that piloting a plane required. They wanted jobs doing what they did best: flying.
During the 1930s, commercial airlines developed as airplanes increased in size in order to take passengers. A nurse in Cresco, Iowa, believed that these passenger airlines should have someone on board whose job it was to take care of the passengers while the pilot flew. Ellen Church persuaded Boeing Air Transport to use a cabin crew. The first passenger planes to use them held only twelve passengers, and the first flight attendants were required to be single women younger than 25. They also had to help the ground crews push the airplanes into the hangers. Flight attendants, or stewardesses as they were called then, became a successful addition to the flying experience.
Although Helen Richey piloted a commercial airline around the same time, commercial airlines took longer to accept women in the cockpit. Women such as Captain Beverly Burns and Captain Lynn Rippelmeyer persisted, but it wasn’t until the 1970s and 1980s that women pilots began making inroads into the commercial airline industry. Slowly, determined women entered the male-dominated profession.
Rather than trying to obtain jobs in commercial aviation, other women pilots pursued the entertainment route. What mattered most about that type of flying wasn’t gender, but how well they flew. Barnstorming faded with the introduction of aviation regulations, but stunt flying and performing in aerobatic shows became just as big. After sound became a part of movies, action adventure movies began using stunt flyers. Because pilots weren’t receiving decent wages, in September 1931 Pancho Barnes and other flyers formed the Associated Motion Picture Pilots to negotiate pay, insurance, and safety standards. Today’s movie stunt pilots are members of the Motion Picture Pilots Association (MPPA), a union that monitors entertainment aviation.
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br /> Other women found industries where their piloting skills could be useful. Mary Barr became the US Forest Service’s first woman pilot in 1974. By 1983, Charlotte Larson had become the first woman to work as a smoke jumper aircraft captain. Smoke jumpers are an important part of firefighting teams in wilderness areas.
Today, only 5 percent of the 53,000 members of the Air Line Pilots Association are women, and only 450 are airline captains. A deterrent for both men and women is the cost of training, which can range up to $100,000. Starting pay for regional or specialty airlines can be horrible. Although most female airline pilots today are based in the United States, women are making progress in other areas of the world, such as Asia.
Finding a job in aviation isn’t impossible, but it does take dedication and a willingness to think creatively.
PANCHO BARNES
Stunt Flyer Extraordinaire
IN 1930, AN EARLY talking picture, Hell’s Angels, featured two brothers with very different personalities who enlisted in Great Britain’s Royal Air Force after World War I broke out. The film’s producer, famed millionaire aviator Howard Hughes, considered the aerial battle scenes to be the most important. He wanted it to look authentic when the brothers destroyed a German munitions factory and then tried to escape the squadron of enemy fighters coming after them.
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