The War at Home

  Badass belles, big hair, rifles, fur. What else needs to be said? These ladies are Northwestern students drilling in Evanston, IL on January 11, 1942. As Chicago wasn't under any foreign threat, I can only assume these ladies were practicing for a bayonet charge against the fascists of the local totalitarian regime: patriarchy.

From left to right are: Jeanne Paul, age 18, of Oak Park, Illinois,; Virginia Paisley, 18, of Lakewood, Ohio; Marian Walsh, 19, also from Lakewood; Sarah Robinson, 20, of Jonesboro, Arkansas,; Elizabeth Cooper, 17, of Chicago; Harriet Ginsberg, 17.

Belles, Bombs, and Broomsticks

  Not long ago I praised Marina Raskova, who among so much else founded 3 women's air regiments in the Soviet Union. While many pilots aspire to the glamor of the fighter's cockpit, only one of these air regiments was a fighter group. But it was the 588th Night Bomber Regiment which gained the greatest fame and renown. And inspired the most fear in their enemies. The German air ace Johannes Steinhoff said in September 1942, "We simply couldn't grasp that the Soviet airmen that caused us the greatest trouble were in fact women. These women feared nothing. They came night after night in their very slow biplanes, and for some periods they wouldn't give us any sleep at all."
  The Soviet air arm having been decimated by the Luftwaffe almost immediately, the Soviets were forced to use every available aircraft for defense. This included the Polikarpov Po-2, which was a wooden biplane from the 1920s used as a trainer and crop duster. This outdated aircraft was expected to fly against the modern craft of the Luftwaffe, so there was a great need to develop new doctrines to address the obvious technological deficit. Thus the Night Witches were born. 

A reviewing general lamented that they all "looked like boys"

    Perhaps imagining it might dissuade some, the male commandant insisted that none could fly with hair longer than 2in, that they must cut it or the military barber would. The ladies instead elected to cut each others' hair, and thereby seemed to echo the Spartans at Thermopylae as those warriors combed each other's hair and prepared for their deaths.

Women of the 588th coven

   The Po-2 was far slower than the German planes, and had no armor whatsoever. It was thus employed at night because it would be an easy target in daylight, but these women made the most of their limitations to become veritable nightmares. The strategy they adopted was to cut their engines before reaching German lines, glide silently into range, and drop their bombs with no warning at all. Soon these ladies were giving the Germans around Stalingrad and the Caucasus night terrors nearly every night, and the Germans gradually learned to listen for the awful sound of the wind going through the wooden wings, which they said sounded like broomsticks in the sky.
  The Soviet witches flew 23,000 sorties during the war and dropped 3,000 tons of bombs. Because the planes were so light, they could carry only six bombs at a time, so multiple missions per night were often necessary. Moreover, due to the weight of the bombs and the low altitude of flight, the pilots carried no parachutes. Not a lot of options if your plane gets hit, especially considering the wooden frame will burn, burn, burn! Over the course of the conflict, 30 Night Witches died in combat. Nevertheless, it became the most highly decorated regiment in the entire Soviet Air Force: each pilot had flown at least 1,000 missions.

One Mean Mother

  Don't revolutionary movements always seem to include a semi-mythical woman warrior who aided the endeavor, sometimes with her very life? And unlike the seasoned, trained men who so often participate in conflicts, she seems to require a civil background to contrast with her martial achievement. Perhaps this is a modest nod to valor and martial prowess of that half of the population who are not considered to be fighters. This woman is fighting to overthrow the Nazi oppressors who have controlled her city for over three years.

 Her polka-dot dress and steel helmet complement her stick grenades perfectly.

I Can Not Resist

  This unnamed belle of the French resistance was photographed in Paris on August 29, 1944. She had killed two Germans already in the fighting.

French military styles are so fabulous!

Rascal of the Soviet Union

  It's difficult to over-emphasize the contribution of all the badass belles of the SU during the Great Patriotic War. No other nation was so desperate and so ostensibly egalitarian, and the kickass killer ladies who came forth gave those Nazis hell! WWII showcased new, 'modern' methods of murder and mayhem that often largely or entirely scrapped the classic excuse that women weren't as combat capable as menfolk because they lacked the physical strength of men. Ha! Marina Raskova was out to prove this misguided wisdom dead wrong, and she did it with the power of the newfangled flying machines of the 20th century.

Aviatrix goggles and riveted steel.

  Even before the war the women of the Soviet Union were setting world records, and Ms. Raskova was breaking barriers in her home country too. She was the first female navigator in the Soviet Air Force, and the first to teach at the Zhukovski Air Academy. Sure sure, everyone has heard of the American Amelia Earhart, who was the first woman to fly solo ~2,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean, and of her infamous disappearance while later attempting to fly around the world with only her navigator Fred Noonan. Meanwhile, in Mother Russia Marina Raskova, opera singer turned chemist turned aviatrix, navigated a flight of three ladies nonstop across Asia from Moscow to the Far East. Count 'em, that's over 4,000 miles! This flight nearly ended in the same way as Earhart's ultimate endeavor because the crew could not find the landing strip in bad weather. Fortunately, they were able to crash land and all survived. Ms. Raskova parachuted out before the crash and found herself in the wilderness of Siberia with no food or water. She wandered for 10 days before finally arriving at the airfield she'd been flying to.

Polina Osipenko, Valentina Grizodubova, and Marina Raskova with trademark grin.

   When WWII broke out, Ms. Raskova naturally advocated for her fellow ladies to help defend the Motherland. She succeeded in convincing the military to form 3 all-lady air combat groups: a fighter regiment and two bomber regiments. And not only the pilots, but the ground crews, officers, gunners and mechanics were all ladies too! Ms. Raskova herself comanded the 125th Guards Bomber Aviation Regiment until her death in a crash landing near Stalingrad in 1943. She received the first state funeral of the war.

Ladies of the 586th all-female fighter regiment.

Women of Winter

 While the Allies were engaged in their "Phoney War" with the Nazis, Finland was getting invaded by the Red Army of the Soviet Union. Though the Red Army had more than three times as many soldiers as the Finns, thirty times as many aircraft, and a hundred times as many tanks, Finland defended itself for over three months in the Winter War. Not too shabby Finland!

  Why, I've never seen anything so... so... GORGEOUS.

  With their manpower stretched to the limit, Finland turned to woman power! The Lotta Svard was formed. It was the largest voluntary paramilitary force in the world, and it was composed entirely of women. They were officially unarmed, except for a women's antiaircraft unit guarding the capital of Helsinki.

I <3 this lovely lady with a Big Gun.

A Thorny Rose

  There were many women who fought and died as well as any man during the war, but few fought and died the way Sophie Scholl did. While still a teen attending the University of Munich, she began an underground propaganda operation with her brother and a friend called The White Rose. They printed and distributed pamphlets calling Hitler a mass murderer, and saying that he has seduced the German people. After months of frustrated investigation into who was distributing these leaflets, the Gestapo caught a break when the handyman at the University, who was a Nazi party member, saw Sophie and her brother carrying the pamphelets and reported them. These ruthless state police "interrogated" the youths for months before their trial. When Sophie finally appeared in court beside her co-conspirators, she had a broken leg. Nonetheless, she face the sociopathic Nazi judge and called him out in his own courtroom: “You know the war is lost. Why don't you have the courage to face it?” You can imagine his reaction. He sentenced them to beheading. Fortunately, Sophie is neither demonized for her defiance nor wholly forgotten by her people. In 2005 a film called Sophie Scholl: The Final Days was released in Germany. But she was such an outstanding young lady that I couldn't pass over her story after I read it.

Sophie with her brother, 1942. I hope that's a real flower pinned to her shirt.

Did I mention she had great hair?