Volodymyrska St, 60, Kyiv, Ukraine, 01033
In 1937 Lyudmila Pavlichenko entered Kyiv University, where she studied history, with an intent on being a scholar and teacher.
1942
London, United Kingdom
Lieutenant Lyudmila Pavlichenko, Ukrainian Soviet sniper, speaks into a microphone at a 'Tribute to the Soviet Union' event at Empress Hall in Earl's Court
1944
Twice Hero of the Soviet Union Major-General Sidor Kovpak and Hero of the Soviet Union sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko.
Lyudmila Pavlichenko, 26-year-old Russian guerrilla sniper who has killed 309 germans, for which she was made a senior lieutenant and given the order of Lenin, a former historian, she participated in the defense of Odesa and of Sevastopol where she remained until the last, she has been wounded four times.
Lyudmila Pavlichenko, 26-year-old Russian guerrilla sniper who has killed 309 germans, for which she was made a senior lieutenant and given the order of Lenin, a former historian, she participated in the defense of Odesa and of Sevastopol where she remained until the last, she has been wounded four times.
Lyudmila Pavlichenko, 26-year-old Russian guerrilla sniper who has killed 309 germans, for which she was made a senior lieutenant and given the order of Lenin, a former historian, she participated in the defense of Odesa and of Sevastopol where she remained until the last, she has been wounded four times.
Ukrainian Red Army Soviet sniper, Lyudmila Pavlichenko, shaking hands with Mr. Jones at a party given by former Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Joseph E. Davies.
1942
London, United Kingdom
Lieutenant Lyudmila Pavlichenko, Ukrainian Soviet sniper, speaks into a microphone at a 'Tribute to the Soviet Union' event at Empress Hall in Earl's Court
1942
Sharpshooter Lyudmila Pavlichenko, the hero of the soviet union, who killed more than 300 nazi soldiers.
1944
Twice Hero of the Soviet Union Major-General Sidor Kovpak and Hero of the Soviet Union sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko.
Volodymyrska St, 60, Kyiv, Ukraine, 01033
In 1937 Lyudmila Pavlichenko entered Kyiv University, where she studied history, with an intent on being a scholar and teacher.
Lyudmila Pavlichenko, 26-year-old Russian guerrilla sniper who has killed 309 germans, for which she was made a senior lieutenant and given the order of Lenin, a former historian, she participated in the defense of Odesa and of Sevastopol where she remained until the last, she has been wounded four times.
Lyudmila Pavlichenko, 26-year-old Russian guerrilla sniper who has killed 309 germans, for which she was made a senior lieutenant and given the order of Lenin, a former historian, she participated in the defense of Odesa and of Sevastopol where she remained until the last, she has been wounded four times.
Lyudmila Pavlichenko, 26-year-old Russian guerrilla sniper who has killed 309 germans, for which she was made a senior lieutenant and given the order of Lenin, a former historian, she participated in the defense of Odesa and of Sevastopol where she remained until the last, she has been wounded four times.
Ukrainian Red Army Soviet sniper, Lyudmila Pavlichenko, walking across the lawn in front of the Russian Embassy with two gentlemen.
Ukrainian Red Army Soviet sniper, Lyudmila Pavlichenko, shaking hands with Mr. Jones at a party given by former Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Joseph E. Davies.
https://www.amazon.com/Lady-Death-Memoirs-Stalins-Greenhill/dp/1784382701/?tag=2022091-20
2018
Pavlichenko was born in 1916 in Bila Tserkva, a village near Kyiv, Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire. As a girl, she was boisterous and competitive. In her early teens, she moved with her parents - a government employee and teacher - to Kyiv. After hearing her neighbor’s son brag about his shooting skills, she joined a local shooting club.
In Kyiv, Lyudmila joined an OSOAVIAKhIM shooting club. She earned her Voroshilov Sharpshooter badge and a marksman certificate. As a teenager, she attended evening school at night.
In 1937 she entered Kyiv University, where she studied history, with an intent on being a scholar and teacher.
In 1930, when Lyudmila Pavlichenko was fourteen, she was working in a munitions factory.
When German forces invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Pavlichenko felt called to action. She left school, hoping to volunteer for the Red Army’s 25th Rifle Division. Army leaders initially wanted Pavlichenko to be a nurse. After some pleading with a registrar, she was able to join as a sniper because of her training.
She was taken to the front and handed a rifle. She was told to try and hit two Romanians working downrange with the Germans. Pavlichenko took them both out with ease and was immediately accepted into the Red Army’s Chapayev Rifle Division.
Lyudmila Pavlichenko was sent out to the Moldovan and Greek fronts where she chalked up an incredible 187 confirmed German kills in her first 75 days in live combat. This kind of warfare saw snipers from both sides positioned between enemy lines and well away from supporting units. They had to remain still for hours at a time in order to avoid detection by other snipers.
Pavlichenko was moved on to Sebastopol where she dueled with highly trained enemy snipers, eventually tallying 36 kills off some of the deadliest and most highly decorated of Hitler’s men.
Pavlichenko gained promotion through the ranks due to her fearlessness and extraordinary kill rate. However, it also meant that she became a prime target in battles. The Wehrmacht made her a focus of their artillery and bombing strategies.
Eventually, after eight months and having been hit in the face with shrapnel from a close encounter with Nazi munitions, Pavlichenko was taken off the battlefield. By then, she had become a key propaganda figure, evoking pride at home and fear abroad. The Nazis had even begun broadcasting personal appeals to her to defect to their side in exchange for comfort and candy.
Instead, she became a sniper instructor for the Red Army. She was one of about 500 surviving female snipers, out of 2,400, who fought for the Red Army during World War Two. Her kill tally of 309 stands as one of the top five tallies. It is likely to have been even higher as confirmed kills had to be witnessed by a third party.
Pavlichenko eventually returned to the Soviet Union to continue training other snipers, after other publicity stops in Canada and Great Britain. Despite a relatively privileged position as a heroic figure there, she struggled with the lasting effects of her injuries and personal demons: alcoholism, what today we might call post-traumatic stress disorder, and the memories of a romantic partner who had died on the frontlines, in her arms, in early 1942.
When the war ended, Pavlichenko worked as a historian for the Soviet Navy. In 1957, she reunited with Eleanor Roosevelt when the former first lady visited Moscow and stopped by Pavlichenko’s apartment. While the pair were at first reserved in the presence of a Soviet minder, Pavlichenko soon made an excuse to pull Roosevelt into another room. She reportedly threw her arms around the former first lady while the pair reminisced about their experiences 15 years earlier.
Lyudmila Pavlichenko was one of 2,000 female snipers who fought for the Red Army in World War II, and one of the 500 who survived.
Her score of 309 kills likely places her within the top five snipers of all time, but her kills are likely much more numerous, as a confirmed kill has to be witnessed by a third party.
In 1943, Lyudmila was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union and the Order of Lenin.
Quotations:
"The only feeling I have is the great satisfaction a hunter feels who has killed a beast of prey."
"I am amazed at the kind of questions put to me by the women press correspondents in Washington. Don't they know there is a war? They asked me silly questions such as do I use powder and rouge and nail polish and do I curl my hair? One reporter even criticized the length of the skirt of my uniform, saying that in America women wear shorter skirts and besides my uniform made me look fat. This made me angry. I wear my uniform with honor. It has the Order of Lenin on it. It has been covered with blood in battle. It is plain to see that with American women what is important is whether they wear silk underwear under their uniforms. What the uniform stands for, they have yet to learn."
"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?"
Lyudmila Pavlichenko gained a reputation for being confident and outspoken. She didn’t like being told what to do.
In 1932, Lyudmila married Alexei Pavlichenko, a doctor, and gave birth to a son Rostislav. Alexey divorced her very soon after.
At age 25, Lyudmila Pavlichenko married a fellow sniper, Alexei Kitsenko. Alexei was mortally wounded by a mortar shell. Kitsenko died after a few days in the hospital.
