The Russian Girls !

[Bill Garvy]

Junior Lieutenant Elena Fillipovna Morozovna – Case Compiler-Typist, Counterintelligence Section “SMERSH,” 202nd Middle-Don Red Banner Bomber Aviation Division.

More about her in the coming weeks, stay tuned. . .

[Bill Garvy]

Another of Junior Lieutenant Elena Fillipovna Morozovna, this one from her service record. . .

Thanks, Auke!

[jpgonc]

I know a lot about World War 2 but I must admit that I've never heard of the Night Witches... fabulous account of feminism heroism!

I will add one to the lot: Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya (Зоя Космодемьянская) - I didn't saw her listed here... I think.
Great Soviet partisan and a Hero of the Soviet Union! Unfortunately she was hanged by the Germans for sabotage on November 19, 1941. She was just 18 years old.

[Bill Garvy]

Anna Ivanovana Shorokhova of Tashkent, Uzbekistan through the years; March, 1956 from her Komsomol Book, June, 1956 from her Labor Union Book, she was an interior painter, and finally July, 1974 from her Communist Party Identification Book.

[Larboard]

Roza Yegorovna Shanina Senior Sgt in the 184 Rifle Divison , 54 Kills until she was KIA in January 1945.

Great thread! One of my all time favorite WWII images ever.

Remember the heroes...

[CBH]

I know a lot about World War 2 but I must admit that I've never heard of the Night Witches... fabulous account of feminism heroism!

I will add one to the lot: Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya (Зоя Космодемьянская) - I didn't saw her listed here... I think.
Great Soviet partisan and a Hero of the Soviet Union! Unfortunately she was hanged by the Germans for sabotage on November 19, 1941. She was just 18 years old.

Sometimes when sitting around a camp fire at night I think about the Night Witches , in Biplanes with the motor off just waiting to dive bomb my fire !

[Bill Garvy]

Engrossing Night Witches film, in six parts, starting here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-5cVgjJZu4. It's in Russian, but with subtitles.

Enjoyed this film last night. . .

[Paul D]

Thanks Bill !

[Bill Garvy]

You're welcome, Paul.

An esteemed collector colleague shared with me the following observation and quote which I think germane to the topic at hand:

"An author's commentary on his impressions of visiting the Soviet Union in the late 1980s.

'But more than anything else, I like the dying breed of true believers.

'Communism was bankrupt in every respect. The bosses in the Kremlin knew it and commenced grabbing. The workers in the resource-chomping factories saw it, as did the young and the non-Slavs, the quarter-billion subjects without a future. But a generation of proud Soviets remained - aging, poor, and mostly women - who still made the country function, to the extent that it worked at all.

'Only its women allowed the Soviet Union to endure as long as it did. Not the Red Army, nor the industrial gigantism, not the succession of goofy five-year plans. Sober and devout, women in the forties through mid-sixties swept the streets, cooked the food, petted the drunk, and excused every delay on the path to the Communist promised land. They were honest, those women. Painfully so. Had I been minded to found a joint-venture corporation amid the Soviet rubble, I would have hired only women.'

Looking for Trouble: Adventures in a Broken World (p. 29) - Ralph Peters"

[Larboard]

Here is a nice group one, don't know if it's been posted before, I think it's from the end of the war?