Nadezhda Zhurkina
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Nadezhda Aleksandrovna Zhurkina was a radio operator and gunner in the 99th Guards Separate Reconnaissance Aviation Regiment during the Second World War and one of only four women to be awarded all th
Nadezhda Zhurkina
Zhurkina's medals in a museum
Marina Raskova
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Marina Mikhaylovna Raskova was the first woman in the Soviet Union to achieve the diploma of professional air navigator. Raskova went from a young woman with aspirations of becoming an opera singer to
Nadezhda Zhurkina
…pilot a Po-2. After both of her brothers who were in the military died in combat shortly after the start of the war and inspired by the leadership of Marina Raskova, she sought to join the military. In 1944 she became a member of the Communist Party. Not long after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941…
A damaged and abandoned Po-2 forced to land in Ukrainian SSR and subsequently captured by German troops, 1941. On this type of aircraft, the Night Witches flew more than 24,000 sorties
Russian pilots and ground crew pose in front of a Pe-2 dive bomber at Poltava, June 1944. Marina Raskova died while flying this type of aircraft in a flying accident, near Stalingrad
Raskova's ashes were buried in the necropolis of the Moscow Kremlin Wall, beside Osipenko's
Soviet stamp, 1939