Women Warriors

     Throughout history, women have been involved in warfare, sometimes in direct combat, but more often in the more subtle form, such as espionage.  Perhaps the earliest known women warriors were the mythical Amazons who were reputedly big and strong, and equal to any man in physical strength and fighting ability.  So, beginning with early history, there have been accounts of women warriors, either individuals or groups, that participated in combat.  But more commonly, women were involved in the more subtle form of warfare, espionage.
     In America, going back to the Revolutionary War, there were many women involved in espionage.  During the American Civil War, there were many famous cases of women conducting espionage both for the Union as well as Confederacy.  There were isolated cases of women dressing as men and participating in battle, but those were rare and exceptions.  It wasn't until almost a hundred years later, during World War Two, that women's participation in warfare became more noticeable.  On our side, women were not permitted to serve in combat, so women mostly served in administrative and medical fields.  There were, however, some American women who chose to served in a more direct capacity and found a way by volunteering to serve with the British SOE.  The SOE, or the Special Operations Executive, was the British spy and special operations outfit.  It employed various men and women, many from Nazi occupied countries, and trained them to conduct espionage and guerrilla warfare.  They would then be either parachuted or landed by sea to infiltrate the Nazi occupied zone and link up with local resistance.  Many incredibly brave people, men and women served in this capacity. 
     An American woman, Virginia Hall, became Nazi Germany's one of the most wanted enemy spies during the war.  Virginia, who was fluent in French, parachuted into France after receiving training and caused great damage  to Nazi Occupying forces.  Oh, by the way, Virginia had lost a leg in a hunting accident before the war, so she had a wooden leg!  Virginia Hall survived the war and received the Order of the British Empire and a Distinguished Service Cross from our government.
     But our restriction on women serving in combat kept other women from distinguishing themselves in warfare like they did in other countries.  Our own OSS, which was more or less patterned after the British SOE, did not employ women quite like the British.  OSS did have female members, but they were mostly used in administrative capacity.  In rare instances there were female OSS members that were used operationally, but it was very rare. There were no known female members of Jedburgh Teams, the operational teams that parachuted into enemy territory to conduct guerrilla warfare.
    Perhaps the Soviet Union used more women in combat than any other country at any time before or since World War Two.  Initially, the Soviet government did not want to allow women to serve in combat, despite repeated petitions and requests by women to be allowed to serve in such capacity.  But the disastrous events at the outset of the war, where the Soviet Union lost millions of men to the Nazis, forced the Soviet leaders to rethink their policy in that regard.  Reluctantly, they agreed to allow women to serve in combat.  As a result close to a million (around 800,000) women served in combat during the war.  There were entire infantry and armored units made up of women in the army, and several fighter and bomber units in the air force.  Two women fighter pilots, Lydia Litvyak and Yekaterina Budanova, became the first female fighter aces ever!  Litvyak shot down 12 Nazi planes and Budanova shot down 11!  A total of 89 women received the Soviet Union's highest award (equivalent to our Medal of Honor), the Hero of the Soviet Union.  The youngest recipient was an 18 year old high schooler, Zoya Kosmodemyankaya. 
     There were over 2,000 women snipers in the Soviet Red Army.  The best known female sniper was Ludmila Pavlichenko who had 309 confirmed kills, mostly at Stalingrad.  Ludmila was in her fourth year as a history student in the university when she volunteered to serve.  After the war she finished her education and became a college history professor.  The youngest female sniper was Klavdiya Kalugina who was 17 when she volunteered to become a sniper.  There were several Russian Korean women who served as snipers as well as in other capacities in combat.
     There were also many women guerrilla fighters.  The youngest known female guerrilla fighter was Zinaida Portnova who joined the partisans when she was 15 and was captured and killed at 17.  The aforementioned beautiful 18 year old, Zoya Kosmodemyankava was a guerrilla fighter.  She was captured by the Nazis, brutally tortured and raped, but refused to give up the names of other guerrillas and their location.  The Nazis stripped her naked and took her out in freezing temperatures  to be hung in a village square as an example to others.  The brave and defiant 18 year old shouted at the Nazis as they slipped the noose around her neck, "you can't kill us all!"  There was no shortage of incredibly heroic women warriors.
     At this point it may be a bit confusing as to why I am talking about all these women warriors and what that has to do with The Manchurian Tales.  I wanted to show the tremendous impact that women warriors have had on the outcome of wars, particularly in the case of the Soviet Union and World War Two.  I do make mention of women's involvement during the Korean War in clandestine operations in The Manchurian Tales, and my intent is to give more information to the readers. 
     Women's participation in  the Korean War did not result in any great victories or dramatic outcomes.  In fact, it is but one of the many sad and poorly hatched and conducted operations that involved women, the so-called KLO or Korean Liaison Officer program, a euphemistic name given to this operation.  On the communist side, they did employ female guerrilla members in their "Palchisan" units that infiltrated into South Korea, but on our side, the KLO female agents were about the extent of direct participation by women in that war.