This is better than 10 years ago when the story was, she watched her boyfriend shot down over their field in a duel with a 109. Later out of grief she dove into superior numbers to avenge her dead boyfriend with her life.
In 2000 a Swiss special on Russian female pilots showed one who had been wounded twice, bailed out after a fight with overwhelming numbers, and survived the war in Switzerland as a wife and mother up to 2000 at the time. She was identified by a surviving ww2 female pilot who had flown with her after watching the Swiss special. The current Russian government stayed silent.
To make things weirder. That photo looks like my mother from around 1952 when she was 21.
Just leave this as the Russian's had female combat pilots in ww2 and this one shot down a few Germans. Just like they had female snipers and female combat troops. Russia needed the numbers for Boss Stalin to whup Hitler. Along the way the political officers didn't miss any opportunity to create hero's for the people to be inspired by. She was allowed to place flowers in her cockpit which is where the nicknames white Lilly and white Rose come in. In a letter found years later to her mother, it seems she wasn't even in love with her dead boyfriend. But, it was good PR for the "People".
She was a combat pilot.
