White Lily of Stalingrad: Exploits and Secrets in the Fate of the Famous Pilot Lydia Litvyak

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

It is difficult to imagine a more masculine business than war. However, there are always women who can break the prohibition created by nature itself and stand up to defend the Motherland on an equal basis with men. Lydia Litvyak is officially considered the most prolific female pilot of the Second World War. For just one bright year, she was a hero glorified by the Soviet press, and then for many decades her name was erased from history. The title of Hero of the Soviet Union and the Gold Star medal were awarded to Lydia only in 1990.

On August 18, 1921, a daughter was born into the family of the railway worker Vladimir Litvyak. For some reason, the girl did not really like the name Lida, and since childhood she insisted that her name should not be Lydia, but Lilia. However, it certainly could not be equated with a delicate plant. Aviation has become the girl's main hobby since early childhood. At the age of fourteen, she enrolled in the flying club, and a year later, having overtaken most of the guys, she already made her first solo flight.

Further, historians find it difficult to say exactly why steep "zigzags" begin in the fate of Lydia. First, she enrolls in geology courses and goes on an expedition to the Far North, and then enters the aviation instructor pilot school, but not in Moscow, but in distant Kherson. According to some reports, just at this time, in 1937, Lida's father, Vladimir Leontyevich, was repressed, but there is no documentary evidence of this fact left.

After graduating from the flight school, Lydia Litvyak moved to Kalinin (today - Tver) and began working at the Kalinin flying club. According to the widespread version, she was an instructor pilot and managed to train 45 cadets a few years before the war. However, this fact does not "fit" well with the fact that later, in order to get to the front, she was forced to ascribe 100 flight hours to herself. In any case, by 1941 the 22-year-old girl was an experienced pilot and from the very first days of the war she began to ask for the front. However, in the first months of battles, there were no female flight military units in our country yet.

In fact, at that time they were not in any army in the world. By the way, even by the end of the war, when the necessity forced all the participants to attract female pilots to the service, in Great Britain and the USA they served in auxiliary transport units, and the famous "Valkyries of the Luftwaffe" mainly flew in bombers or were testers. Our women fighters of the Second World War, among whom was Lydia Litvyak, still remain a unique fact of true heroism and dedication.

By the fall of 1941, the Soviet command made a decision to create a female military aviation. This was mainly done by the efforts of the famous female pilot, the first woman - Hero of the Soviet Union Marina Raskova. October 10, 1941 Lydia Litvyak enlisted in the 586th Fighter Aviation Regiment.

In the spring and summer of 1942, Lydia Litvyak, serving in the regiment, patrols the skies over the Saratov region, but on September 10, 1942, eight pilots from the first squadron of the air regiment were transferred to the male fighter air division - to Stalingrad. It is there that the glorious combat path of the winged "White Lily" begins. There is a legend that it was then that Lydia asked to paint a white lily on the fuselage of her plane (“Lily” was her call sign as well), but this detail is not visible in any photograph of those years, and the memories of her contemporaries about this fact have not been preserved. However, in the people's memory, the blond young pilot really remained under this beautiful nickname.

On September 13, during the second sortie over Stalingrad, Lydia shot down a Ju-88 bomber and a Me-109 fighter. The Me-109 pilot turned out to be a German baron, who won 30 air victories, a knight's cross. On September 27, in an air battle from a distance of 30 meters, she hit the Ju-88. Then, together with Raisa Belyaeva, she shot down Me-109. Soon she was transferred to the 9th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment - a kind of team of the best pilots. In total, 11 aerial victories will be counted for the Russian pilot.

One of the striking feats of Lydia was the shot down of an enemy balloon. This important spotter of fire was carefully covered by anti-aircraft guns. To cope with it, Lydia went deep into the rear of the enemy and, going against the sun, destroyed the aircraft. For this victory, she received the Order of the Red Banner. Several times she was wounded, but she always returned to service, as soon as she got to her feet.

Lydia also got a short personal happiness. In March 1943, she married a fellow soldier, Captain Alexei Solomatin, with whom she fought in a bunch (he is the leader, she is the slave). Only two months later, Alexey died, and not during a combat mission, but during a training battle:

(from the memoirs of Inna Passportnikova, fellow soldier L. Litvyak)

At the end of July 1943, there were heavy battles to break through the German defense on the line of the Mius River, which closed the road to Donbass. Military aviation supported the ground forces of our army. The day of August 1 turned out to be especially difficult. In one day, Lydia Litvyak made 4 sorties. On that day alone, she shot down two enemy planes personally and one in a group. The last flight was her last.

It is sad that the death of the heroic aviator has become a pretext for gossip and unverified accusations. Since her plane simply did not return, there were rumors that Lydia was captured by the Germans "traveling with the Nazis in a car." Because of this, L. Litvyak's nomination for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union was postponed. For many years this name was simply forgotten "until the details of the case were clarified." Because of this combination of circumstances, in the first post-war years, the name of the "White Lily of Stalingrad" was not immortalized. Until now, there are large gaps in the biography of Lydia, since historians began to study her fate much later.

In the 60s, by the efforts of schoolchildren-search engines, the remains of Lydia were found in a mass grave in the village of Dmitrovka in the Shakhtyorsky district of the Donetsk region. Thus, thanks to the work of the detachment of the 1st school of the city of Krasny Luch, the fate of the legendary pilot became a little clearer, although we will probably never know about her last minutes of life. In May 1990, the Gold Star medal No. 11616 was transferred for safekeeping to the relatives of the deceased heroine.