Women in Air War: The Eastern Front of World War II. Rev. ed.

Sidney Allinson is a Victoria-based communications consultant, Canadian
news correspondent for Britain’s The Army Quarterly and Defence, and
author of The Bantams: The Untold Story of World War I.

This is a book about the brave and magnificent Soviet women who flew
against the German Luftwaffe in World War II. Of the one million women
who joined the Soviet Armed Forces, many thousands served in combat as
airforce pilots, navigators, gunners, and mechanics. These Soviet
airwomen served in both all-female regiments and mixed-gender units, and
performed exactly the same duties as did their male comrades. They are
justly honored as national heroines in Russia to this day, yet remain
largely unrecognized by the rest of the world.

Editor Kazimiera Cottam is an expert military translator who brings
strong research skills to this project. The book—an edited and
expanded edition of the Soviet original published in 1984—is made up
of short chapters that were written by 60 airwomen as firsthand accounts
of their wartime experiences. They tell their stories with modesty and
humor, and with an astounding matter-of-factness about often horrifying
events.

There are numerous exciting stories of air combat, night-bombing raids,
“man-to-man” dogfights, and the ill-treatment in Nazi prison camps
of those shot down and captured. Accounts of flying night-bombing raids
in flimsy biplanes are particularly hair-raising. The airwomen were not,
one of them points out, “transformed overnight into kind of
pseudo-male soldiers. Girls stayed girls; they embroidered
forget-me-nots on footcloths, flew kittens in their aircraft, danced on
the airfield, and at times, cried at the slightest provocation.”

These understated memoirs reveal how, in the face of heavy physical
work, brutal cold, rigorous military discipline, and unrelenting air
combat, the Soviet airwomen displayed an indomitable spirit and ability.
The text is enhanced by numerous photographs of the airwomen.