Lyudmila Pavlichenko

Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko (Людмила Михайловна Павличенко; Людмила Михайлівна Павличенко, Belova; 12 July 1916 – 10 October 1974) was a Soviet sniper in the Red Army during World War II.

She is credited with killing 309 enemy combatants.

She served in the Red Army during the siege of Odessa and the siege of Sevastopol, during the early stages of the fighting on the Eastern Front.

Her score of 309 kills likely places her within the top five snipers of all time, but her kills may be significantly more numerous, as a confirmed kill has to be witnessed by a third party.

After she was injured in battle by a mortar shell, she was evacuated to Moscow.

After she recovered from her injuries, she trained other Red Army snipers and was a public spokeswoman for the Red Army.

Lyudmila Belova was born in Bila Tserkva, Kiev Governorate, in the Russian Empire (now in Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine) on 12 July 1916, to Mikhail Belov, a locksmith from Petrograd, and his wife Elena Trofimovna Belova (1897–1972).

The family moved to Kiev when Lyudmila was aged 14.

Her father was a Communist Party member, and had served as a regimental commissar in the Red Army, being awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

As a child, Lyudmila was a self-described tomboy, who was fiercely competitive at athletic activities.

In Kiev, she joined an OSOAVIAKhIM shooting club, developed into an amateur sharpshooter and earned her Voroshilov Sharpshooter badge and a marksman certificate.

After seeing that she had completed multiple training courses, she was finally accepted into the army as a sniper and assigned to the Red Army's 25th Rifle Division.

There, she became one of 2,000 female snipers in the Red Army, of whom about 500 survived the war.

She was initially assigned to digging trenches and communication routes, armed with a single RGD-33 grenade due to weapons shortages.

In 1932, she married Alexei Pavlichenko, and gave birth to a son, Rostislav (1932–2007).

However, the marriage was soon dissolved, and Lyudmila returned to live with her parents.

She attended night school as well as performing household chores.

During the day, she worked as a grinder at the Kiev Arsenal factory.

She enrolled at Kiev University in 1937, where she studied history and intended to be a scholar and teacher.

There, she competed on the university's track team as a sprinter and pole vaulter.

She was also enrolled in a military-style sniping school for six months by the Red Army.

In June 1941, Pavlichenko was aged 25 in her fourth year studying history at Kiev University when Nazi Germany began its invasion of the Soviet Union.

Pavlichenko was among the first round of volunteers at the Odessa recruiting office, where she requested to join the infantry.

The registrar pushed Pavlichenko to be a nurse, but she refused.

In the second half of July 1941, a comrade was severely injured by shrapnel and handed her his Mosin–Nagant model 1891 bolt-action rifle.

On 8 August 1941 Lyudmila experienced her debut as a wartime sniper when she killed two Nazi officers in Biliaivka at a distance of 400 metres.

Pavlichenko fought for about 2 1⁄2 months during the Siege of Odessa and is credited with killing 187 soldiers.

She was promoted to senior sergeant in August 1941, when she added 100 more kills to her official tally.

At 25, she married a fellow sniper, Alexei Kitsenko.

Soon after the marriage, Kitsenko was mortally wounded by a mortar shell and died from his injuries a few days later in the hospital.

When the Nazis and their Romanian allies overran Odessa on 15 October 1941, her unit was withdrawn by sea to Sevastopol, on the Crimean Peninsula, to fight in the siege of Sevastopol.

There, she trained other snipers, who were credited with killing over 100 Axis soldiers during the battle.

In 1942, she toured the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

In May 1942, newly promoted Lieutenant Pavlichenko was cited by the Southern Army Council for killing 257 Axis soldiers.

The number of soldiers Pavlichenko is credited with killing during World War II was 309, including 36 Axis snipers.

In June 1942, Pavlichenko was hit in the face with shrapnel from a mortar shell.

When she was injured, the Soviet High Command ordered for her to be evacuated from Sevastopol via submarine.

She spent around a month in the hospital.

After the war ended in 1945, she was reassigned as a senior researcher for the Soviet Navy.

She died of a stroke at the age of 58.