Soviet women in World War II

Soviet women played an important role in World War II (whose Eastern Front was known as the Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Union). While most toiled in industry, transport, agriculture and other civilian roles, working double shifts to free up enlisted men to fight and increase military production, a sizable number of women served in the army. The majority were in medical units.

There were 800,000 women who served in the Soviet Armed Forces during the war, which is roughly 3 percent of total military personnel. Nearly 200,000 were decorated and 89 of them eventually received the Soviet Union’s highest award, the Hero of the Soviet Union, among which some served as pilots, snipers, machine gunners, tank crew members and partisans, as well as in auxiliary roles.

At first, when Germany attacked the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, thousands of women who volunteered were turned away. Two factors changed attitudes and ensured a greater role for women who wanted to fight: the losses to the Germans after their initial success in 1941 and the efforts of determined women. In the early stages of the war, the fastest route to advancement in the military for women was service in medical and auxiliary units.

For Soviet women aviators, instrumental to this change was Marina Raskova, a famous Soviet aviator, often referred to as the "Russian Amelia Earhart". Raskova became famous as both a pilot and a navigator in the 1930s. She was the first woman to become a navigator in the Red Air Force in 1933. A year later she started teaching at the Zhukovskii Air Academy, also a first for a woman. When World War II broke out, there were numerous women who had training as pilots and many immediately volunteered. While there were no formal restrictions on women serving in combat roles, their applications tended to be blocked, run through red tape, etc. for as long as possible in order to discourage them from seeing combat. Raskova is credited with using her personal connections with Joseph Stalin to convince the military to form three combat regiments for women. Not only would the women be pilots, but the support staff and engineers for these regiments were women. Although all three regiments had been planned to have women exclusively, only the 588th would remain an all-women regiment. The Soviet Union was the first nation to allow women pilots to fly combat missions. These regiments with strength of almost hundred airwomen, flew a combined total of more than 30,000 combat sorties, produced at least twenty Heroes of the Soviet Union, and included two fighter aces. This military unit was initially called Aviation Group 122 while the three regiments received training. After their training, the three regiments received their formal designations as follows:

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