Women Warriors - Fighter Pilots

     I would like to continue a discussion on the subject of women warriors because I feel it is an area that has not been sufficiently covered by the media, and women have not been given enough credit for the significant contribution to war efforts past and present.  Media seems to only show interest when there is either Hollywood or other commercial aspect tied-in with the subject of women warriors, such a popular novel or a movie.  Most of the names will be familiar to those who have read my previous blog on female warriors, so please bear with me.
     Perhaps no country in the world (in the modern era) has utilized women in  combat more than Russia, the former Soviet Union.  It wasn't because the Russians and the Soviet Union was so enlightened and applied total gender equality,  it was more out of necessity than anything else.  That is why the Soviet Union had more female doctors, engineers, etc., than other countries.  It actually dates back to the First World War when Russia used some women in combat because of shortage of trained men!  But it was in the Second World War that women were used widely by the Soviets, at first reluctantly, in all areas of combat.  In order to allow women to serve in combat, the Soviet Generals had to get approval from Stalin, who was perhaps the biggest male chauvinist in the Soviet Union at the time!  So it was no small matter to convince the dictator that women should be allowed to participate in combat on equal footing with men.  Stalin may not have liked the idea, but with such tremendous losses of men in the outset of the war (wholesale armies surrendered or were destroyed in the first year of the war), Stalin was forced to give in and allow women who were trained to participate in combat.
     The Soviet Air Force was the first to see significant participation of women in combat.  Marina Raskova, who was an accomplished pilot (sometimes called Amelia Earhart of Russia) formed the first all female Fighter Regiment, the 586th.  This was soon followed by the 587th and 588th Fighter Regiments.  It didn't take long, however, for the all female units to break up and be integrated into regular units, so women fighter and bomber pilots flew along side of male pilots.  In fact, one of the Soviet Union's top "aces," Alexei Solomatin, for a while had as "wingmen" (wingwomen?) two female pilots, and he spoke very highly of them.  He said they were as good as any male fighter pilot and he trusted his life to their ability.
     The top Soviet female fighter pilot of World War Two was a young, beautiful, Lydia Litvyak.  She is credited with having shot down 16 German planes.  12 were solo kills, and 4 were shared with other pilots.  She flew a total  of 66 combat missions in the short two year period that she was a fighter pilot.  She was the world's first female "ace!"  To become an "ace" you have to have shot down five enemy aircraft, Lydia more than doubled that number.  She was killed in air combat over Kursk during a battle in 1943.  She was all of 22 years old!  To put this in perspective, if she was flying for the United States, she would have been considered one of the top fighter pilots, male or female!
     The other Soviet female fighter pilot who became an "ace," only the second female "ace" in the history of aviation, was Yekaterina Butnova with 11 German aircraft shot down.  Yekaterina was also killed in battle in 1943.  She was older than Lydia, she was all of 27 when she was killed!
     These two young women would have been considered top fighter pilots in any country, regardless of their sex.  They just happened to be female.  To date, they are the only two women fighter pilots to have earned the title of "Ace."