A FEMALE sniper shamed her doubters by defeating every man she faced during World War Two – clocking up an impressive kill count.
Lyudmila Pavlichenko earned herself the nickname Lady Death, humiliating recruiters who had told her to become a nurse.
Ukrainian-born Pavlichenko was studying history at Kyiv University when German troops flooded into the Soviet Union.
When she decided to enlist in the Red Army, the recruitment officer couldn’t contain their amusement at her pristine nails and tidy hair.
Fearless Pavlichenko proudly showed off her marksmanship certificate to prove her shooting ability yet was urged to train as a nurse instead.
But the defiant 24-year-old refused to take no for an answer, and showed up at an impromptu trial held by a Red Army unit.
She was handed a gun and picked off two Romanians pointed out to her with ease.
Bowled over, the unit immediately enlisted her and she was given a position in the 25th Capayec Rifle Division.
Within 75 days Pavlichenko had gunned down 187 Nazis in Odessa.
The deadly sniper’s impressive success rate and reputation brought with it more treacherous missions.
She was then moved to Crimea to fight in the battle of Sevastopol – and was handed her riskiest assignment yet, counter-sniping.
Brave Pavlichenko faced off with enemy snipers one-on-one – and was victorious in every duel, some of which lasted a whole day and night.
Her astonishing capability did not go unnoticed by the Germans, who even attempted to bribe the sniper by blaring messages over radio loudspeakers.
They brazenly offered her “plenty of chocolate” and the position of officer.
But Pavlichenko could not be swayed and was promoted by Red Army bosses to lieutenant.
After taking shrapnel to the face during a bombing in 1942, Pavlichenko was pulled from combat and spent time in hospital recovering.
Having become a Red Army poster-child, however, she soon found herself on US turf and arrived in Washington DC in July 1942.
In August of that year, Pavlichenko achieved a remarkable feat by becoming the first Soviet citizen to be invited to the White House, receiving a special invitation from President Franklin Roosevelt.
At just 25, the remarkable marksman forged an unusual friendship with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.
Pavlichenko then found herself whisked on a tour of the country to speak of her experiences as a woman in battle at Eleanor’s request.
Irritated by the blatant sexist nature of questions she fielded on the road, Pavlichenko opted not to bite her tongue.
In response to a journalist’s query about women wearing makeup on the battlefield, she cleverly remarked that although there was no specific ban, the chaos of war left no room to worry about a flawless appearance.
By the time the tour reached Chicago, Pavlichenko’s patience had worn thin after endless “silly” questions.
Standing before a large crowd, she said: “Gentlemen. I am 25 years old and I have killed 309 fascist occupants by now.
“Don’t you think, gentlemen, that you have been hiding behind my back for too long?”
Her words prompted a huge roar of support and cemented her as a propagandist for the Red Army.
Pavlichenko also toured Canada and the UK, before heading back to the Soviet Union to train snipers until the war ended in 1945.
Of 2,000 female Soviet snipers, Pavlichenko was one of just 500 to survive.
She then swapped her rifle for books as she returned to Kyiv University to complete her Master’s Degree.
With the war over, Pavlichenko took up a career as a historian working as a research assistant at Soviet Navy headquarters until 1953.
She later became active in the Soviet Committee of the Veterans of War.
Despite her tales of glory from her days on the battlefield, Pavlichenko’s personal life was far from glittering.
She suffered from depression after her husband’s death during the war.
Pavlichenko had married fellow sniper Alexei Sitsenko at the age of 25, but soon after they wed he was wounded by a mortar shell and died in hospital days later.
Sniping sensation Pavlichenko died at the age of 58 on October 10, 1974, from a stroke and was buried in Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.
To this day, Pavlichenko remains the world’s most successful sniper with 309 kills under her belt – a number that is likely much higher as confirmed fatalities had to be witnessed by a third party.
Female heroes of WW2
LYUDMILA Pavlichenko was one of many female heroes of World War Two.
These were some of the others:
Lee Miller
Model-turned-war photographer Lee Miller famously worked as a war correspondent for Vogue during World War Two.
When war broke out in 1939, New York-born Miller was living in London with British painter Roland Penrose.
Defying calls for her to return to her family in the US, Miller took up a new role as a photojournalist for Vogue.
She documented the Blitz and liberation of Paris – and in 1942 became accredited to the US army.
Miller also photographed concentration camps at Buchenwald and Dachau – laying bare the atrocities of the Nazi regime and taking some of the most compelling and important images of the war.
During the siege of St Malo in 1944, Miller was the only photographer present and covered the battle alone for several days.
She was famously photographed in Hitler’s bathtub on April 30, 1945 – the day the ruthless dictator took his own life.
Nancy Wake
Known by the Nazis as The White Mouse, Nancy Wake became the most wanted woman in France during World War Two.
New Zealand-born Wake was residing in Marseille when war was announced and she became a courier for the Pat O’Leary escape network.
Fearless Wake helped allied airmen evade capture and flee to Spain.
She escaped to Britain after coming under German radar in 1943.
Wake then joined the Special Operations Executive in the UK, which worked with the French Resistance.
After getting trained in espionage, bomb making, and hand to hand combat, Wake was later parachuted into France.
While there, she ensured resistance groups were well-armed and even participated in the battle between them and the Germans.
Wake famously cycled more than 300 miles past a Nazi checkpoint to deliver a report – and is claimed to have killed a Nazi with her bare hands.
Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker was renowned for her talent as an entertainer – but she played an important part in saving refugees and smuggling military secrets during the war.
Baker’s sheer popularity in Paris in the 1940s gave her access to parties and gatherings, where she rubbed shoulders with high-ranking officials.
She cleverly charmed them to secretly extract valuable information – which the American-born entertainer passed on to French military intelligence.
Baker moved to the south of France after the Nazi occupation and started working with the French Resistance.
She sheltered refugees and also forwarded military secrets to England – writing in invisible ink on her sheet music.
Virginia Hall
Virginia Hall was considered one of the most dangerous Allied spies by the Gestapo – despite having one leg.
She had been rejected to work as a diplomat by America’s Foreign Service in 1937, after a hunting accident caused her to lose the limb.
But by 1941, Hall – who had a wooden prosthetic leg she affectionately nicknamed Cuthbert – had joined the UK’s Special Operations Executive (SOE).
She spent 13 months in France organising spy networks, running safehouses and delivering key intelligence to the British government,
Hall then fled France and joined the Office of Strategic Services, acting as a wireless operator.
She returned to France in 1944, and disguised herself as an old peasant woman – even filing down her teeth to make her costume more believable.
Hall helped train and arm resistance groups to support the Allied invasion of Normandy – known as D-day.
