Raisa Nefedovna Surnachevskaya (russian: Раиса Нефедовна Сурначевская; 8 August 1922 18 December 2005) was a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

fighter pilot and squadron commander during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, as well as one of the very few pregnant women to have flown in combat. After the

German invasion of the Soviet Union Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named afte ...

in 1941 she volunteered to join a women's aviation regiment founded by

Marina Raskova Marina Mikhaylovna Raskova ( rus, Мари́на Миха́йловна Раско́ва, , mɐˈrʲinə mʲɪˈxajləvnə rɐˈskovə; née Malinina; 28 March 1912 – 4 January 1943) was the first woman in the Soviet Union to achieve the diploma ...

and underwent training to fly

Yakovlev Yak-1 The Yakovlev Yak-1 (russian: Яковлев Як-1) was a Soviet fighter aircraft of World War II. The Yak-1 was a single-seat monoplane with a composite structure and wooden wings; production began in early 1940.Angelucci and Matricardi 197 ...

fighters at Engels military Aviation School. She was assigned to the 586th Fighter Aviation Regiment for the war; on a mission with

Tamara Pamyatnykh Tamara Ustinovna Pamyatnykh (russian: Тамара Устиновна Памятных; 30 December 1919 – 26 July 2012) was a fighter pilot for the Soviet Air Forces during the Second World War. Following an action while on patrol on 19 March 1 ...

she shot down two Junkers Ju-88 bombers while patrolling a railway junction after a formation of 42 bombers approached. After they each shot down two planes and Pamyatnykh attempted to ram a third the formation turned around without dropping their payloads on the railways.

References

Soviet World War II pilots Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner 1922 births 2005 deaths Women air force personnel of the Soviet Union {{Russia-bio-stub

See also

References