Published on February 4, 2022 at 2:52pm
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Lydia Litvyak was born in Moscow and became interested in aviation at an early age. At 14, she enrolled in a flying club. She performed her first solo flight at 15, and later graduated from the Kherson military flying school. She became a flight instructor at Kalinin Airclub, and by the time of the German invasion, had already trained 45 pilots.
Litvyak enlisted and joined the all-female 586th Fighter Aviation Regiment of the Air Defense Force and trained on the Yakovlev Yak-1 aircraft. She flew her first combat flights in the summer of 1942 over Saratov.
In September, she was assigned to the 437 Fighter Regiment, a men's regiment fighting over Stalingrad. Here, flying a Yak-1, she achieved considerable success. Boris Yeremin, a regimental commander in the division to which she and was assigned, saw her as "a very aggressive person" and "a born fighter pilot". Litvyak scored her first two kills on 13 September and continued to find success with the 437th, including shooting down 71-kill experte Lt. Hans Fuss in his Bf.109G-2. She was moved to the 9th Guards Fighter Regiment in October 1942.
From October 1942 until January 1943, Litvyak served, still in the Stalingrad area, with the 9th Guards Fighter Regiment, commanded by Lev Shestakov, Hero of Soviet Union. In January 1943 Litvyak were moved to the 296th Fighter Regiment (later redesignated as the 73rd Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment) of Nikolai Baranov, where she would remain for the rest of her time.
On February 23, she was awarded the Order of the Red Star, made a junior lieutenant and selected to take part in the elite air tactic called okhotniki, or "free hunter", where pairs of experienced pilots searched for targets on their own initiative. Twice, she was forced to land due to battle damage and was severely wounded on more than one occasion.
On 13 June 1943, Litvyak was appointed flight commander of the 3rd Aviation Squadron within 73rd Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment. She took part in the fighting over Kursk shooting down more German aircraft during the battles in July.
On August 1, 1943 as the Soviets were returning to base near Orel, a pair of Bf 109 fighters dove on Litvyak while she was attacking a large group of German bombers. Soviet pilot Ivan Borisenko recalled: “Lily just didn’t see the Messerschmitt 109s flying cover for the German bombers. A pair of them dove on her and when she did see them she turned to meet them. Then they all disappeared behind a cloud.” Borisenko, involved in the dogfight, saw her the last time, through a gap in the clouds, her Yak-1 pouring smoke and pursued by as many as eight Bf 109s. She never returned to base. Litvyak was 21 years old. By the time of her death, she had been credited with as many as 12 victories and 3 shared.
Soviet authorities suspected that she might have been captured, a possibility that prevented them from awarding her the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. In an attempt to prove that Litvyak had not been taken captive, Litvyak's mechanic, Inna Pasportnikova, embarked on a 36-year search for the Yakovlev Yak-1 crash site assisted by the public and the media. For three years, she was joined by relatives, who together combed the most likely areas with a metal detector. In 1979, after uncovering more than 90 other crash sites, 30 aircraft and many lost pilots killed in action, "the searchers discovered that an unidentified woman pilot had been buried in the village of Dmitrievka... in Shakhterski district." It was then assumed that it was Litvyak and that she had been killed in action after sustaining a mortal head wound. Pasportnikova said that a special commission was formed to inspect the exhumed body, and it concluded the remains were those of Litvyak. On 6 May 1990, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev posthumously awarded her the title Hero of the Soviet Union. Her final rank was senior lieutenant, as was documented in all Moscow newspapers of that date.
The Skin:
I wanted to do my own to honor this great female pilot and hero. I had also come across photos that showed the exact pattern of the camouflage on her aircraft which is missed by many profiles and skins. I figure the Stalingrad event is a good time to release this camouflage skin.
