Notable People of WW2, Hero's, veterans, leaders, the famous and alike. Options

[FeezyWeezy]

Ok, time for another chapter of hostory facts. I'll start with some WW2 Aces.

Erich Hartmann





The highest scoring ace of all time was the great German Luftwaffe experte Erich Hartmann with 352 aerial kills. Flying Bf 109s (Me-109s) against the overmatched Soviet MiGs and Yaks for almost three years, he accumulated his unrivalled score. Hartmann claimed, that of all his accomplishments, he was proudest of the fact that he never lost a wingman. He is also reputed to have said. "Get close .. when he fills the entire windscreen ... then you can't possibly miss." Hartmann was born in 1922, in Weissach, Wurttemberg. At age 19 (1941), he joined the Luftwaffe and was posted to Jagdgeschwader 52 (JG 52) on the Eastern Front in October, 1942. He scored his first kill in November, and only achieved his second three months later. In the first half of 1943, he worked out some of the tactics which would prove so successful later on. If he was attacked from behind, he would send his wingman down low and out in front. Then he would get behind the enemy and fire a short, quick accurate burst, waiting "until the enemy aircraft filled the windscreen." He would normally content himself with one victory; he was willing to wait for another day. His natural talents began to tell: excellent eyesight, lightning reflexes, an aggressive spirit, and an ability to stay cool while in combat.


A Messerschmitt Bf 109G-6


Kursk


As JG 52 retreated along with German ground forces in 1943, Hartmann's score began to mount. The great Kursk offensive, Operation Zitadelle, began on July 5. The Luftwaffe planned to screen the Wehrmacht's panzers from the Soviet Il-2 Sturmoviks, armored tank-busting aircraft, armed with twin 37mm cannon. Hartmann's Staffel 7 of JG 52 moved up to Ugrim, only 14 kilometers behind the front. As the Panther and Tiger tanks moved up, Junkers Ju.52 transports flew in supplies. On the morning of the 5th, four of Staffel 7's pilots did not return, apparently their compasses misled them, due to extraordinary iron ore deposits in the area. Hartmann was promoted to Staffelkapitan on the spot. The offensive ground forward slowly on the 6th and 7th; obviously the Russians had dug in and prepared defensive lines in depth.
July 7, 1943


On the morning of July 7, 1943, sun rose over Ugrim in the northern Ukraine about 3AM. Staffel 7's Me.109 G10's lay scattered around, in the deep grass of the Ugrim airfield. Hartmann's personal plane, decorated with a large Roman numeral 'I' and the name Usch in a red heart. (Usch Paetch was his fiancee, whom he wrote to daily.) In the comfortable summer weather, the pilots slept in tents. On waking, Hartmann dressed in a gray shirt, blue-gray trousers, and gray shoes. He washed up and shaved in a small stream and ate breakfast, two eggs, cooked by a couple of Russian girls. He and the other three pilots in his Schwarm were assigned to cover an F.W.189 on a dawn reconnaissance mission.

Erich joked with his crew chief, 'Bimel' Merten, and strapped himself into the cockpit. At 3:04, the recon plane started and Hartmann set Messerschmitt's flaps and checked the fuel while Merten cranked the starter. The DB 605's twelve cylinders coughed, belched smoke, and then caught smoothly. His three comrades followed him to the take-off spot. He gunned the engine while stomping on the brakes. When he released them, his 109 shot forward and quickly reached 160 km/hour. He gently pulled back on the stick and was airborne; the other three followed him closely. They all banked left as they went through post-take-off routines: retract landing gear, close radiator flaps, ease back on the throttle, and check gauges, guns, and gunsight. They climbed to 1300 meters as they flew northeast and then swung southward, with the Fw 189 in view. The flight proceeded uneventfully and the recon plane headed for Ugrim. Hartmann's radio crackled with a report from Adler, the German forward spotting post; a group of ten to twenty Russian planes were headed west. Hartmann throttled up a bit, gained altitude, and turned his Schwarm toward the east without sighting anything for several minutes.


Drawing of Hartmann's Bf-109G Messerschmitt "Gustav" 6


Sturmoviks
Soon enough, many large Il-2's came into view. With its armor and rear gunner, the Sturmovik was a tough target. With the Sturmoviks closing head-on, Hartmann unhesitatingly ordered an attack. He dived down below them, picking up airspeed, then banked around and came up behind and beneath them, aiming for his target's vulnerable ventral oil radiator. The Il-2's flew straight on.



Hartmann's Bf 109 roared along, doing over 400 MPH; Hartmann streaked into a Sturmovik's blind spot. At 200 yards, its wingspan filled his gunsight ring; still he closed in to 150, then 100 yards before firing. He briefly triggered his 20mm cannon and his two 12mm machine guns, for about one and a half seconds, before his speed carried him in front of them. As other Bf 109s struck their targets, Hartmann glanced back and saw blue flames and black sooty smoke streaming from the Sturmovik's radiator. His twenty-second victory of the war.

Under the deadly attack of the Messerschmitts, the formation of Russian airplanes began to break up. Having regained altitude, Hartmann again zoomed down below the tail of an Il-2. He checked his own rear and stabilized his aircraft. This Russian pilot, alerted to the danger, spotted him and turned sharply to evade. The young blond ace matched the turn and instantly estimated the lead needed for a deflection shot. At 150 meters, he opened fire, and his bullets tore into the side of the Russian tank-buster. More blue flame and black smoke poured from his twenty-third victim's oil radiator.

As the remaining scattered Russian planes fled eastward, Hartmann radioed his Staffel to return to Ugrim. About 4AM, as they approached the field, Hartmann waggled his wings twice, indicating his two victories. On landing, Mertem and other ground crew gathered around him, offering congratulations. Hartmann walked to the operations tent to file his Gefechtsbericht, his after-action report. Early reports from the Adler posts already showed more Russian air activity than on the 5th or 6th. Four pilots sat in their planes, ready to take-off in less than a minute. Hartmann soon fell asleep by his own machine. But only briefly.
Two More Sorties


By 5:50, he was back in the air, leading a flight of 109s on a frei chase, and he soon found more Il-2s, escorted by fighters. The Messerchmitts attacked successfully, with Hartmann downing another Il-2 and an LaGG-3 fighter. Within an hour, he was back on the ground, with four victories for the day. Late that afternoon, he led the Staffel up again, to the northeast. They found a group of Soviet LaGG-3 fighters, which they engaged in a sprawling dogfight. It was over quickly and Hartmann had shot down three enemy fighters, making it seven for the day, his largest score so far.




Experte


He reached 50 by August of 1943. Within the month, he had reached 80, and was promoted to lead 9./JG52. Earlier in the war, 25 or 50 victories would have earned a German fighter pilot the Knight's Cross. By late 1943, Hartmann had to down 148 before he earned his Knight's Cross. By March 2, 1944, he had reached a total of 202, earning him the Oak Leaves. He was the fourth Luftwaffe fighter pilot to reach 250, the first to reach 300, and the only one to reach 350.

The Diamonds




He was awarded the Third Reich's highest regularly awarded military decoration: The Knight's Cross to the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds.

To be accurate, the highest military decoration was "The Grand Cross to the Iron Cross." It was only awarded once to Hermann Göring. The second highest military decoration was "The Knight's Cross to the Iron Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds" and was also awarded only once to the Stuka ace Hans-Ulrich Rudel. Thus, Hartmann's medal, "The Knight's Cross to the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds," was, to be precise, the third highest German military decoration through WW2, was awarded to 27 soldiers, 12 of whom were Luftwaffe pilots.

Near the end of WWII, in early May 1945, the Luftwaffe command ordered Hartmann, then Gruppenkommandeur of famous Jagdgeschwader 52, and his Commodore, Hermann Graf (another pilot, who had earned the "diamonds" to the Knight's Cross) to fly to the British sector. Both officers disregarded this order, because they felt responsible for Jagdgeschwader 52's pilots, ground crew, family members, and other civilians, who had joined the squadron, seeking protection against fierce aggression by the Czechs. The officers ordered the destruction of the unit's aircraft, and then the unit moved west in direction of territory already occupied by US troops. On May 8th, 1945, the soldiers and civilans surrendered to US troops in the region between Bavaria (German provence) and Czech border. But on May 17th, the US Army delivered all of these German troops and civilians to the Red Army. Like all others, Hartmann was then deported to Siberia, where he was sentenced to 50 years of hard labor. (Hartmann has since been rehabitated by Russian justice, which declared those sentences illegal in 1995.) The Soviets pressured him to support a build-up of an East German air force and tried to turn him into an undercover agent against the West. Hartmann refused, even though the Soviets threatened to kidnap and kill his wife and daughter, living in West Germany. Hartmann did not return to Germany until 1955, when the last German POWs were released along with the establishing of diplomatic relations between West Germany and the Soviet Union. In 1956, Hartmann joined the newly established West German Luftwaffe and contributed to the build-up of new fighter units. In 1959, he became the first commodore of Jagdgeschwader 71 "Richthofen." Erich Hartmann died in 1993.



http://wernerhartenstein.tripod.com/hartma...9;s%20grave.jpg
Hartmann's grave, Weil im Schönbuch near Stuttgart

[FeezyWeezy]

Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko

The greatest female sniper of all time was Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko, an Ukrainian. She was born on 12 July 1916 in the small village of Belaya Tserkov (the name means "white church" in Ukraine. As a child, young "Lyuda" was a gifted student. She had an independent streak and was very opinionated. When she completed ninth grade, her parents moved to Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. She found work at an arsenal where she was employed as a grinder. She also joined a shooting club and developed her talents as a sharpshooter.

When the Germans attacked the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, Lyudmila Pavlichenko was a 24-year-old student at Kiev State University, majoring in history. Like many of her classmates, she rushed to join the military to fight against the Germans. The recruitment officer eyed her in amazement. She looked like a model, with well-manicured nails, fashionable clothes, and hairstyle. Pavlichenko told the recruiter that she wanted to carry a rifle and fight. The man just laughed and asked her if she knew anything about rifles. She pulled out her marksmanship certificate and proved it. Then the recruiter tried to persuade her to become a field nurse, but she refused.

She joined the Soviet Army as a shooter, attached to the 25th Infantry Division. In August 1941, Private Pavlichenko scored her first two kills near the village of Belyayevka when her unit was ordered to defend a strategic hill. She worked with a spotter. Her weapon was a Model 1891/30 Sniper Rifle fitted with a P.E. 4-power scope. It was a 5-shot bolt action rifle which fired a 148 grain bullet at 2,800 feet per second, with an effective range of over 600 yards. Anyone who has ever fired a Moisin-Nagant can tell you that it kicks like a mule! Pavlichenko fought for over two and a half months near Odessa and recorded 187 kills. When the enemy gained control of Odessa, the Soviet Independent Maritime Army was pulled out and sent to Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula. In the fierce fighting, Pavlichenko was wounded by a mortar blast in June 1942. At this time, her score stood at 309.

The Soviet High Command ordered the wounded sniper to board a submarine and leave Sevastopol. She model who had to be saved. Less than a month later, she became the first Soviet citizen to be received by President and was a heroic role Mrs. Roosevelt at the White House. Afterwards, she toured various American and Canadian cities to talk about her experiences.


Jr. Lieutenant Lyudmila Pavlichenko was a guest of Eleanor Roosevelt at the White House in August 1942. She was a part of the USSR delegate to the International Student Service Assembly held in Washington, DC. When she toured Canada, the Winchester Company presented a special engraved rifle to her.

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Guards Major Lyudmila Pavlichenko never returned to the fighting. As an instructor, she trained hundreds of snipers by war's end. On 25 October 1943, she became a Hero of the Soviet Union. After the war, the Heroine returned to complete her studies at Kiev State University. From 1945 to 1953, she was a research assistant of the Chief HQ of the Soviet Navy. She participated in numerous international conferences and congresses. She was also active in the Soviet Committee of the Veterans of War. Lyudmila Pavlichenko died on 10 October 1974 at age 58 and is buried at the Novodevichiye Cemetery in Moscow.








Senior Sergeant Roza Shanina, with 54 confirmed kills (actual kills were usually very much higher), wearing the medal of the Order of Glory 2nd and 3rd Class. She was killed in 1944 it seems. Not much known about her it seems. (unless you know Russian, than I might know some sites) (she looks HOT )



The Soviet women's contribution to their country's all-out battle for survival was heavily embellished by Stalin's propaganda machine, with the intention of both rallying the Russian people and persuading his British and American allies to open a second front in Europe. A celebrated girl-sniper, who had reportedly shot no fewer than 309 German soldiers while fighting with the Red Army on the Dnieper Front, was sent on a well-publicized tour of the United States.

Throughout the summer of 1943, American newspapers and magazines featured the heroic exploits of other Soviet military heroines, giving the impression that women and men were fighting alongside one another all along the eastern front. The reality was less spectacular, if no less heroic, for those individual women were not officially in front-line Red Army units but were guerillas operating behind the German lines. Nor, as the testimony of some of the veteran female pilots reveals, had the Soviet military come to terms with the female warriors in its midst.

'We were to have equality in every possible sense, though in reality we had to struggle for that in some cases when we got to the front,' recalled one of the woman pilots. None of them faced a greater initial resistance than a stunning blonde with grey eyes and wooing smile called Lydia Litvyak. The commanding officer of the unit to which she was initially posted near Stalingrad in August 1943 refused to let her fly with his men and ordered her to seek an immediate transfer. But Lieutenant Litvyak used her considerable charm to plead for just one chance to prove her combat skill. The sceptical Red Air Force commander could not resist, and Lydia was given a plane to show what she could do. After a dogfight in which she skilfully out-manoeuvred a German to share the 'kill' of a Messerschmitt 109, Lieutenant Litvyak removed all doubts about a woman's ability to fight in combat. She was welcomed to a permanent place in the squadron.

Her male comrades, however, were probably behind one practical joke which terrified Lydia's female wing-mate. While on patrol, ten thousand feet above the river Don, she discovered a mouse. 'I know it sounds crazy – a fighter pilot frightened by a mouse but I'd always had this fear of mice,' Olga Yemshokova recalled years later. 'And particularly now it was sitting on my lap looking up at me, in that tiny cockpit.' She admitted she 'could feel her flesh creeping' as she opened the cockpit and flung the little furry creature out into the slipstream.

During the next ten months, Lydia Litvyak led a charmed life as she out-flew and out-fought German pilots over the eastern front to become a Soviet fighter 'ace' as well as the focus of romantic rivalry between many of the men who flew with her. But Lydia left no-one in any doubt that she had fallen in love with the handsome Lieutenant Aleksey Solomatin, with whom she had flown 'tail' in her first combat mission. Such personal relationships were strictly discouraged in the mixed Red Air Force regiments. Women were deliberately quartered in a distant part of the airfield, even if this meant they had to live in converted cowsheds. But no regulations could prevent many of the female aircrew from forming emotional attachments with the men with whom they shared the dangers of battle.

'Lydia told me that it was agony up there sometimes when Aleksey was being attacked. But of course it gave each of them an incentive to fight really well,' remembered her mechanic, Ina Pasportnikova. 'Far from their love for each other affecting their concentration, I think it helped. Lydia had always shown the sort of aggression you need to be a good fighter pilot. But her love for Aleksey was the thing that turned her into a killer.' Lydia Litvyak survived a burst of German cannon fire in which she sustained serious leg wounds. The encounter left her with a limp and sharpened her killer instinct, which hardened into a driving obsession after Aleksey Solomatin died in a crash. Shortly afterwards she claimed her tenth victim, a famous German 'ace'. He had the misfortune to survive to be confronted with the pilot who had ended his career. The Luftwaffe hero refused to believe he had been out-fought by a woman until Lydia icily explained the manoeuvres in the action that had brought him down. 'The German's whole attitude, even his physical appearance, changed,' reported an eyewitness to the confrontation. 'He was forced to concede in the end that no-one except the pilot who had beaten him could possibly have known, move by move, exactly how the fight had gone. There was no question of saluting the victor. He could not meet her eye. To have been shot down by a woman was more than he could bear.

Lydia Vladimirovna Litvyak
Лидия Владимировна Литвяк
"White Rose of Stalingrad"



Born in Moscow August 18, 1921, she was keen on aviation from her youth. At 14 she entered an aeroclub, and at 15 flew an aircraft for the first time. In the late 1930s she received her flight instructor licence.

After the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, she tried to voluntarily join a military aviation unit. At last, she managed to get enlisted in the 586th Fighter Regiment (586 IAP), formed by Marina Raskova from female pilots (to do so, Lydia exaggerated her pre-war flight time, to 100 hours of flight, which was a minimum limit to get enlisted).



She flew her first combat flights in the summer of 1942 over Saratov. In September, she was assigned, along with other women (among others, Katya Budanova), to the 437th IAP, fighting over Stalingrad. On September 13, 1942 she shot down her first aircraft — a Junkers Ju 88 bomber, and a fighter plane. In the following months she shot down several further aircraft, all while flying Yak-1 fighters. In late 1942 she was moved to the 9th Guards Fighter Regiment (9 GIAP), and in January 1943 to the 296th IAP, renamed later into the 73rd Guards Fighter Regiment. On February 23, she was awarded with a Red Star order. Two times she was forced to land due to battle damage, and she was also twice injured (on March 22 and July 16, 1943). She was made a 2nd Lieutenant. In February 1943 she married a fighter ace Aleksey Solomatin, flying in 73rd GIAP, who was killed in June 1943. Lydia became a famous press hero, but she also was physically and mentally worn out.



On August 1, 1943, Lydia's Yak-1b fighter was shot down during combat, and she went missing. She was 22 years old at that time. The authorities suspected she might have been captured, therefore they decided not to award her with a title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Only in 1979 it was found that her aircraft fell near Dmitrovka, a village in Shakhterski district. She had been killed by a head wound (although some reports indicate she had actually been able to crash-land, but had been pinned by the wreckage), and had been buried anonymously in a common grave in 1969. After further verification, on May 6, 1990, USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev posthumously awarded her with the title "Hero of the Soviet Union" and promoted her to a full lieutenant.

There are different data as for Litvyak's victory score in different publications, with no official data. Most often 11 individual kills and 3 team kills are quoted, but also 8 individual and 4 team, or other numbers. She also shot down an observation balloon on May 31, 1943. She was awarded with the Order of the Red Banner, Order of the Red Star, and Order of the Patriotic War (twice).

She was also known as the White Rose of Stalingrad. A play about her, White Rose, was performed once in the Belgrade Studio Theatre in Coventry.

http://www.soviet-awards.com/digest/litvyak/litvyak1.htm



[size="1"]More Russian woman will folow