Lyudmila Pavlichenko

G nzagazine

East Chicago International News Service

Friday, Mar 3, 2023

"Lady Death" of the Red Army

Especially ambitious against boys, she enjoyed proving that girls could be just as good—if not better. At age 14, Pavlichenko relocated to Kiev with her family. While in Kiev, she enrolled in a sharpshooter class where she earned her Voroshilov Sharpshooter Badge, a type of civil decoration and a marksman certificate.

Lyudmila Pavlichenko

Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko, history’s deadliest female sniper, is considered to be a Soviet propaganda myth by some, including some people in Russia. She was born in 1916 in Belaya Tserkov, a large Ukranian city south of Kiev. As a child, Pavlichenko described herself as a tomboy and enjoyed being competitive in various activities.

To be outclassed is never an option

Not only did she do just as well, she honed her skills to become an amateur marksman, earned a Voroshilov Marksman badge and her marksman certificate.

After a neighbor’s son boasted of his shooting ability, she joined a paramilitary youth sporting group that taught rifle skills, setting out “to show a girl could do just as well.”

At the age of 15, she found herself pregnant. Though she married Alexei Pavlichenko and gave birth to their son, the marriage failed and she returned to live with her parents, attending night school to complete her high school studies and working by day as a metal grinder at a munitions factory.

She enrolled at Kyiv University in 1937, where she studied history, fully expecting to become a teacher and a scholar, and competed on the university’s track team as a sprinter and pole vaulter.

Operation Barbarossa Nazi Invation

After completing basic training, she was assigned to the Red Army’s 25th Rifle Division, becoming one of 2,000 female snipers, of whom only 500 survived the war. Lyudmila Pavlichenko was the only one of those 500 to receive the Hero of the Soviet Union award, the military’s highest honor, while she was still alive.

She was 24 and in her fourth year of studies in June 1941 when Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa and invaded the Soviet Union. Pavlichenko was among the first eager round of volunteers at the Odessa recruiting office, where she specifically asked to join the infantry. The male registrar turned her down, urging her instead to become a nurse. Needless to say, Pavlichenko wasn’t having it.

187 Kills and a Honeymoon

She fought on the front line for two and a half months during the Siege of Odessa, earning a documented 187 kills, and was promoted to Senior Sergeant in August of that year. At 25, she married fellow sniper Alexei Kitsenko. Sharing a trench, the newlyweds spent the first few days of their marriage hunting Nazis. As Pavlichenko recalled,

"The honey moon had a positive effect in my shooting"

But the honeymoon came to an end in March of 1942 when Kitsenko was mortally wounded by a mortar shell and died several days later. Now the war was personal for Lyudmila Pavlichenko.

"Lady Death" is born

She was known as “Lady Death” for her ability with a sniper rifle. But in June of 1942, she was hit in the face by shrapnel from a mortar shell and evacuated by submarine from Sevastopol to Moscow, spending a month in the hospital.Once she was fully recovered, she was given a new role — that of public spokesperson for the Red Army, and a trip to the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

The higher the number of her kills, the more dangerous her assignments became, including engaging in duels with enemy snipers. Never one to be outdone, Pavlichenko won every duel she fought, including one lasting 3 days, holding her position for 15-20 hours at a stretch. Her total of confirmed kills during World War II was 309, including those 36 Axis snipers, making Lyudmila Pavlichenko the most successful female sniper in recorded history.

She spoke at factories, attended dinners and galas, led sharpshooting demonstrations for American sharpshooters, raised money for the Red Army, and rubbed elbows with luminaries like Charlie Chaplin and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. After four months, she returned to Moscow ready to fight. But having been made an officer, she was too valuable an asset to send back into the fray, so she was given the post of sniping instructor for the next wave of Red Army sharpshooters, a position she held until 1944. In 1943 she was awarded the Gold Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union as well as the Order of Lenin (twice), the highest civilian decoration awarded by the Soviet Union.

"Girl sniper"

Wounded four times, and speaking very little English, Pavlichenko set off for a publicity tour as part of the Soviet Union’s attempt to convince its allies to open a second front against Nazi Germany. She was the first Soviet citizen received by a U.S. president when Franklin D. Roosevelt welcomed her to the White House. Afterward, Eleanor Roosevelt invited her to accompany her on a tour of the country to tell American audiences about her experiences as a woman in combat. She accepted the First Lady’s offer and the two became fast friends.

A Military Hero

Today Lyudmila Pavlichenko is celebrated as a military hero and the most successful female sniper in recorded history. Two commemorative Soviet postage stamps were printed in her honor — one in 1943 at the close of her fabled battle career, the second in 1976 after her death. She has also been celebrated in popular culture. American folk singer Woody Guthrie wrote a song in 1942 called Miss Pavlichenko as a tribute to her war record that was released as part of The Asch Recordings.

When the war ended, she returned to Kyiv University to finish her education and became a historian, just as she had once planned. From 1945 to 1953 she was a research assistant at Soviet Navy headquarters. In 1974, Pavlichenko died of a stroke at the young age of 58. She had suffered for years from depression and PTSD while battling alcoholism. She was cremated, her ashes enurned in the columbarium of the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.

+info

Resources

• stewart.ross.33. (2022, July 31). Lady death. Stew Ross Discovers. Retrieved March 3, 2023, from https://stewross.com/lady-death-pavilichenko/
• Malloryk. (2021, March 21). "lady death" of the Red Army: Lyudmila Pavlichenko: The National WWII Museum: New Orleans. The National WWII Museum | New Orleans. Retrieved March 3, 2023, from https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/lady-death-red-army-lyudmila-pavlichenko
• Levins, S. (2022, April 20). History's deadliest female sniper: Ukraine's Lyudmila Pavlichenko. WednesdaysWomen. Retrieved March 3, 2023, from https://wednesdayswomen.com/historys-deadliest-female-sniper-ukraines-lyudmila-pavlichenko/
• https://youtu.be/PPt55gCoja0