The White Rose of Stalingrad and her Mechanic | Forums

[newsignalnorth]

Just wondered how much is known about The White Rose of Stalingrad i.e Liyla Litvak the female fighter ace. I'm really interested too in her mechanic Sgt Pastportnikova who it seems spent years searching for her body and plane which he found (maybe!) in 1979. Anyone know what drove him in this search? What was his motivation?
What do people think about whether or not it was her body that was exhumed and these storesis of her having been seen interviewed on Swiss TV in the 1980's?

I'd be most interested to hear any info anyone might have on these two as it's quite an interesting topic to say the least!!

As an aside I Used to log in as signalnorth but no longer can for some reason hence my new title newsignalnorth in case you think I'm just visting here as a one off in order to glean info!

[Boosher]

Pick up a copy of Anne Noggle's A Dance With Death, published by Texas A&M University Press. The story as told by her mechanic (who was a woman, btw) is in there in the chapter on the 586 IAP, although Lilya was only in the 586 for a short time.

I've also compiled a decent group of photos of Litvyak from sources I've found on the net. I can't be sure all of them are her, but there are a few that look right. I'll post some here. Sorry if they're not the greatest quality.


From the top down:

L-R: Litvyak, Budanova and Kuznetsova, possibly discussing waypoints for an upcoming flight, though that's just conjecture.

Litvyak on the wing of what looks to be a Yak-1.

Portrait of Litvyak

[DKoor]

Impressive...

[newsignalnorth]

BOOSHER, thanks, nice one! I'll go out and order that book today. Brilliant!

[newsignalnorth]

Forgot to say, that she looks rather beautiful in that last shot does she not?

[RSS-Martin]

Hmm I can add a bit of material, although I can not say much about the pictures as they are from a Russian book, but I can not read Russian even though my mom is from that corner of the world, so sorry if I can only supply pictures:

[Boosher]

Good group of photos, RSS-Martin, although these women were not part of Litvyak's regiment. These photographs are the women of the 46th Taman Guards Night bomber regiment (formerly 588 NBAP) and flew Po-2 (U-2VS) aircraft for harassment bombing duties during the Great Patriotic War. Offhand I know that the first picture you posted is of Natalya Myeklin. Their story starts out very similarly to Litvyak's, but ends up in a very different direction. Again, Noggle's A Dance With Death contains fascinating interviews from many of the surviving women, and is worth the read.

[Sillius_Sodus]

Those ladies look....sturdy.

[Romanator21]

Well, those flight jackets aren't exactly "flattering"



The view is better in the Summer

[DuxCorvan]

Originally posted by newsignalnorth:
I'm really interested too in her mechanic Sgt Pastportnikova who it seems spent years searching for her body and plane which she found (maybe!) in 1979. Anyone know what drove her in this search? What was her motivation?

Lilya's mechanic, Inna Pastportnikova, was also a lady. Since Litvak had never been found, she became a suspect of have been killed while trying to defect -don't forget those were Stalin's times- which prevented her of being decorated posthumously as HSU. Her body, apparently unceremoniusly dumped by locals in an unmarked grave after her plane crashed, had ammo wounds in the head, proving she had died in combat -if it was really her. I guess Pastportnikova wanted to prove her comrade and friend deserved an untarnished memory.