Snipers were some of the most notable heroes of World War II. And Soviet female snipers attracted a lot of attention both during the war years and in the post-war period. They aroused the admiration of the allies and sowed fear in the ranks of the enemies. The most famous female sniper in the Soviet Union is Lyudmila Pavlichenko, who is also considered the most productive. On the account of Lyudmila, 309 killed enemy soldiers and officers are officially listed. The fame of Lyudmila Pavlichenko went far beyond the borders of the USSR, the brave woman was well known in the USA and throughout the West.
The feat of brave women was actively covered in the Soviet press. The mere fact of finding fragile girls on the front line, where they risked their lives every minute, spending hours in ambushes in the heat, cold, rain and snow blizzard, causes genuine admiration and immense respect for their feat. In total, over the years of the Great Patriotic War, more than two thousand Soviet women underwent special training in sniper courses and subsequently went to the front. Unfortunately, the most famous and productive female sniper in Russian history died early - on October 27, 1974, at the age of 58. However, 45 years after her death, the memory of this brave woman is still alive.
The path of a history student to the sniper business
Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko (nee Belova) was born in the Ukrainian city of Belaya Tserkov on June 29, 1916 in a family of ordinary workers. The father of the future war heroine was an ordinary locksmith Mikhail Belov. During the Civil War in Russia, he supported the Bolsheviks and was able to build a noticeable military career, rising to the rank of regimental commissar. After the end of the Civil War, he continued to serve, but already in the internal affairs bodies of the young Soviet republic. Until the age of 14, Lyudmila lived the life of an ordinary Soviet teenager and studied at school number 3 in her hometown, until the family moved to live in Kiev. After graduating from the 9th grade of a comprehensive school, the girl began to work, getting a job at the famous Kiev plant "Arsenal" as a grinder. Simultaneously with her work, Lyudmila continued to study at an evening school in order to receive a completed education.
In 1932, Lyudmila fell in love with Alexei Pavlichenko. The girl met her future husband at a dance. Quite quickly, the couple played a wedding, in the marriage the newlyweds had a son, Rostislav. Despite the birth of a child, the marriage soon fell apart, after which Lyudmila Mikhailovna returned to live with her parents, leaving the name of her ex-husband, under which she became known throughout the world.
In 1937, 21-year-old Lyudmila Pavlichenko decided to pursue higher education and successfully entered Kiev State University. The future female sniper studied at the Faculty of History. Like many girls and boys of the 1930s, Lyudmila went in for sports, gliding and shooting. Gliding and shooting sports in those years were especially widespread throughout the Soviet Union. Lyudmila was seriously fond of shooting and, when visiting the shooting gallery, surprised her friends with accuracy. In one of the shooting ranges of OSOAVIAKHIM, they even drew attention to her, recommending snipers for enrollment in the Kiev school. Most likely, the girl was taught to shoot by her father, who fought in the Civil War and worked in the internal affairs bodies.
One way or another, Lyudmila was in no hurry to leave the university and try on a military uniform. She wanted to finish the education she had begun. Before the start of the war, Lyudmila Pavlichenko, a fourth-year student, went to her diploma practice on the Black Sea at the Odessa Museum, where she was going to seriously engage in historical research. During the trip, she left her son with her parents. It was on the Black Sea coast at the museum work that Lyudmila was caught by the news of the attack of Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union. Already in the first days of the war, Lyudmila Pavlichenko, who even before the start of the war managed to take short-term sniper courses, without thinking twice, volunteered for the front. Trained snipers were needed even then, so the newly minted Red Army soldier quickly ended up in the 25th Chapaev Infantry Division.
The combat path of Lyudmila Pavlichenko
Together with the soldiers and commanders of the 25th Infantry Division, Lyudmila participated in battles on the territory of the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and in the south of Ukraine, took part in the defense of Odessa and Sevastopol. In 1941, the girls were reluctantly taken into the army, and at first they planned to write Lyudmila as a nurse, but she managed to confirm her accuracy, besides, she had sniper courses in Kiev behind her. The girl had basic training and natural accuracy, so she was entrusted with a sniper rifle and the opportunity to participate in real battles.
It is worth noting that already on August 8, 1941, the Romanian troops reached the Dniester estuary, where they were temporarily stopped by the 12th Army, despite the heroic defense of the Soviet troops by August 13, 1941 Odessa was completely surrounded by fascists from land. As part of the Primorsky Army, the city was also defended by the famous 25th Chapaev Infantry Division. For ten weeks of fighting near Odessa, Lyudmila Pavlichenko officially chalked up 179 or 187 Romanian and German soldiers and officers. And the girl opened the account of her well-aimed shots even on the distant approaches to Odessa, in the very first battle she destroyed two Romanian soldiers in the area of the town of Belyaevka.
By October 1941, the Soviet command decided that the defense of Odessa was no longer expedient; from October 1 to October 16, the city's garrison was evacuated. About 86 thousand soldiers and officers, as well as 15 thousand civilians, artillery and ammunition were transported to Sevastopol; in addition, 125 thousand citizens were removed from the city earlier in August-September. The troops removed from Odessa strengthened the garrison of Sevastopol, taking part in the heroic defense of the city. At the same time, the 25th Infantry Division was one of the last to be evacuated. The division managed to take part in repelling the first assault on Sevastopol, which ended in failure for the Nazis.
It was near Sevastopol that Lyudmila Pavlichenko officially brought the number of killed enemies to 309 enemy soldiers and officers, among them there were 36 enemy snipers who intensified their work near the city after the front stabilized and the hostilities acquired a positional character. In the battles near Sevastopol, Lyudmila suffered a severe personal shock. In December 1941, she met Junior Lieutenant Alexei Kitsenko, who was also a sniper. The couple became close and struck up a relationship, snipers went on missions together. In the end, the couple filed a report to the command about the marriage, but fate decreed otherwise. In March 1942, during a mortar attack on a sniper position, Kitsenko was mortally wounded, his arm was torn off by a fragment of a mortar shell. Alexei, 36, died in front of his beloved on March 4, 1942.
And already in early June, Pavlichenko herself was seriously injured, which saved her life. Lyudmila managed to be evacuated from the besieged city to the Caucasus among the last wounded after the start of the next offensive by German and Romanian troops. The last assault on Sevastopol, which began on June 7, 1942, ended in success for the Nazis. After 10 days of continuous battles, the enemy captured a number of important artillery positions, heights and reached the approaches to the height dominating over the terrain - Sapun Mountain. On July 1, the organized defense in Sevastopol ceased, only groups isolated from each other and blocked garrisons offered resistance to the enemy. The 25th Infantry Division, in which Lyudmila Pavlichenko served, ceased to exist. The fall of the city became a tragic page in the history of the Great Patriotic War, only the highest and part of the middle command staff were able to evacuate from Sevastopol, tens of thousands of Soviet soldiers were captured by the Nazis. At the same time, the invading troops suffered very heavy losses under the city. During the last assault, the leading German companies often had no more than 25 active fighters.
Lyudmila Pavlichenko and Eleanor Roosevelt
After a long treatment in the Caucasus, Lyudmila Pavlichenko was summoned to Moscow to the Main Political Directorate (GPU) of the Red Army. In Moscow, they decided to make a brave woman a symbol of the fight against the invaders, and also to include Lyudmila in the Soviet delegation, which will go to Great Britain, the USA and Canada. In the West, the delegation was supposed to talk about the state of affairs on the Eastern Front, the struggle waged by the Soviet Union against Hitlerite Germany. It was assumed that the members of the Soviet delegation would meet not only with journalists and the public of the countries, but also with politicians. It was an important propaganda and educational mission, the main goal of which was to open the eyes of the Western man in the street, primarily the Americans, to the horrors of the war that was unfolding on the territory of the Soviet Union.
It was in the USA, at one of her speeches, that Pavlichenko uttered a phrase that went down in history. Addressing American audiences, Lyudmila stated:
“I am 25 years old, at the front I managed to destroy 309 fascist invaders. Don't you feel, gentlemen, that you've been hiding behind my back for too long?"
After this phrase, the audience froze at first, after which they burst into applause. The trip was very successful, the newspapers wrote a lot about Soviet heroes, and journalists competed in the epithets that were awarded to Lyudmila Pavlichenko. In the Western press she was called "Miss Colt", "Bolshevik Valkyrie" and "Lady Death". This was recognition and world fame, while many Americans took a fresh look at the war in the Soviet Union, about which they had a very distant idea before.
During a trip to the United States, Lyudmila Pavlichenko, who knew English well, met the wife of the American President, Eleanor Roosevelt, and even lived for some time in the White House. The first lady and the most famous Soviet woman sniper became real friends and carried this friendship throughout their lives. Despite the fact that they lived in different countries, which after the end of the war again became irreconcilable ideological opponents already within the framework of the outbreak of the Cold War, they maintained friendly relations and corresponded with each other for a long time. In 1957, they met again in Moscow during the visit of Eleanor Roosevelt to the USSR.
Feat is not measured by the number of killed enemies
Today there is a lot of speculation about whether Lyudmila Pavlichenko really chalked up 309 killed enemy soldiers and officers. Indirect evidence casts doubt on this figure, since in 1941 soldiers and officers of the Red Army were nominated for government medals and for lesser feats, at the same time Pavlichenko received the first award only on April 24, 1942 - it was a medal "For Military Merit". And after the evacuation from Sevastopol, she was presented to the Order of Lenin. The title of Hero of the Soviet Union was awarded to the famous female sniper in October 1943, almost 1.5 years after the battles near Sevastopol died down. At the same time, Soviet snipers were presented to a similar rank for much less merit.
The dispute about the number of Nazis killed by Pavlichenko will continue in the future. But it is quite obvious that this brave woman deserves full respect, regardless of what image Soviet and then Western propaganda made of her during the war years. This work during the difficult war years was also of great importance for victory, the country needed heroes and leaders to follow and to be equal to.
Regardless of the number of enemies killed, Pavlichenko earned her fame and fame for the courage and courage shown at the front during the battles of 1941-1942, which were very difficult for the entire Red Army. The brave girl voluntarily went to the front in 1941, which in itself was already a serious challenge; in 1941, women were taken into the army almost in exceptional cases, especially in combat units. Lyudmila Pavlichenko with honor endured heavy battles on her fragile shoulders in the defense of Odessa and Sevastopol and never sat in the rear. During her time at the front, she was seriously wounded four times and received three wounds. Wounds, concussions and ordeals that fell to her lot led to the early death of Lyudmila - at the age of only 58 years. Today we can only bow to the courage, courage, and self-sacrifice of this woman, who, in a difficult time for the country, shouldered the task of protecting our Motherland on her fragile shoulders and did everything in her power to bring victory over the enemy closer.
Everlasting memory.
