The Tarantula Unit, An All-Female unit of the Capital Defence Command’s 35th Special Assault Team of the Republic of Korea Army trains in building clearance. 2013/4.
Source: Military Armament
Filipina Warrior
“While women in precolonial Philippines were often designated to the venerable position of the babaylan, it was not an uncommon occurrence for them to pick up arms and become warriors.”
Christian ‘Kit’ Cavanagh
Christian ‘Kit’ Cavanagh was an Irishwoman who fought in the British army as a dragoon during the 17th and early 18th centuries.
Born in 1667 in Dublin, 'Kit’ was a wild teenager who eventually settled down to run a pub with her husband Richard Welsh. When Welsh disappeared in 1691, Cavanagh received a letter indicating he had, possibly not by choice, ended up in the British Army and been sent to Holland. Unwilling to lose her husband she left her children with her mother, disguised herself as a man and joined the British Army on a mission to find him.
As an infantryman she fought at the Battle of Landen, where she was wounded and captured by the French. She was eventually returned to the British, but was discharged from the army for killing a sergeant in a duel over a woman. She immediately re-enlisted and joined the Royal Scots Greys Dragoons, with whom she served until the end of the Nine Years’ War. During this time she grew to enjoy the life of a soldier, with a penchant for the looting that followed battle.
Cavanagh re-enlisted with the Scots Greys when the War of the Spanish Succession began in 1701. She was shot in the thigh during the Battle of Schellenberg, but refused to be sidelined and fought in the Battle of Blenheim a month later. After this battle she was assigned to guard French prisoners, where after 13 years of searching she found her husband. Unfortunately when she found Richard he was courting a Dutch woman. Having rebuked him fiercely she left and returned to her life with the Scots Greys.
Cavanagh’s identity as a man had never been challenged, despite being known as the 'Pretty Dragoon’. However when her skull was fractured at the Battle of Ramillies the surgeon treating her discovered she was a woman. She was discharged but carried on with the army as a sutleress, and some accounts claim she continued to fight on the front lines.
On return to Britain Cavanagh was presented to Queen Anne, who granted her a bounty of £50 and a pension for her services. Following her death in 1739 she was buried with full military honours.
Æthelflæd
Æthelflæd was an Anglo-Saxon queen and warrior in 9th and 10th century England, who fought to protect her land from Viking invasion.
The eldest child of King Alfred of Wessex (better known as Alfred the Great), Æthelflæd was raised in a time when the kingdoms of England were being conquered by Danish Vikings to create the new territory of the Danelaw. As a teenager she was married to Æthelred, lord of the neighbouring kingdom of Mercia, to form an alliance against the Vikings. On the way to her wedding she personally fought off a Viking attack, which may have been sent to assassinate her and prevent the marriage.
The alliance proved effective in bullying the Vikings into making a temporary peace, and the couple took advantage by building a series of forts to help defend their lands. When in 902 Æthelred began to suffer a wasting illness, Æthelflæd became the ruler of Mercia in all but name.
As ‘Lady of the Mercians’ she undertook a military and political campaign to reclaim what had been lost to the Danelaw. In 905 she led her forces in repelling a Viking attack on the port of Chester, and in 907 she took an army deep into Danish East Anglia to retrieve the bones of a Christian saint.
In 917 she again went to war, not just against Vikings at Derby, but also against Welsh kings who had been opening their borders to Viking forces. This was more of a tactical than bloodthirsty move, leading to alliances with some Welsh rulers. A cunning politician, she also cultivated ties with the king of Alba (Scotland) and even with disaffected Viking lords.
She died in 918, just days before the Vikings at York surrendered to her and accepted her as their overlord. Her life’s work led to a combined kingdom of Mercia and Wessex that lay the foundation for a united nation of England.
Catalina de Erauso
Catalina de Erauso, also known as the ‘Nun Lieutenant’, was a legendary Basque soldier and duellist in the 17th century.
Raised in a convent, De Erauso ran away at age 15 shortly before taking her vows as a nun. As Spanish society allowed little freedom for women, she took to disguising herself as a young man. After a few years roaming Spain as a page, she signed up on a ship to Peru as a cabin boy.
She worked in the Peruvian town of Trujillo in a store, but had to leave after injuring a relative of her employer in a duel. She moved to Lima but again had to leave in shame following a scandal involving a young woman. This led to her enlisting in the Spanish army and fighting in Chile during the Arauco War. At one point she was under the command of her own brother, Miguel, who never recognized her.
On the front lines in Chile, De Erauso reached the rank of lieutenant and became famed for her sword-fighting skills, however she fell into disfavour for killing an enemy leader who her superiors wanted captured alive. Disgraced, she fell into the habits of drinking and gambling, which in turn led to her fighting in a number of duels. This led to tragedy when she inadvertently killed her own brother in a duel gone wrong.
Grief-stricken she became an outlaw and con-artist, on one occasion absconding with a dowry paid to her to marry a young woman. She eventually entered into a convent in Lima after confessing her sex to a bishop. On return to Europe in 1624 De Erauso’s story had become public knowledge and she toured Italy as a celebrity. She was so famous that she was reportedly granted special dispensation by Pope Urban VIII to wear men’s clothing.
She returned to New Spain in 1645, using the name Antonio de Erauso, where she worked as a mule driver on the road from Veracruz. She died in Cuetlaxtla in 1650. Her autobiography, Memoir of a Basque Transvestite in the New World, is still widely read today.
The Rani of Jhansi Regiment
The Rani of Jhansi Regiment was the Women’s Regiment of the Indian National Army (INA) during the Second World War. It was named after Lakshmi Bai, Rani of Jhansi, a revolutionary heroine.
The regiment was formed in 1942, along with other Indian nationalist forces aiming to overthrow the British Raj in colonial India, with assistance from Imperial Japan. Most of the 1500 women were not from India at all, but teenage volunteers of Indian descent from rubber plantations in Malaya.
The regiment was raised in Singapore and were organised into officers or sepoys (privates) based on their education. It was led by Captain Lakshmi Sahgal, who was upper-class and highly educated. The cadets were trained in the use of rifles, hand grenades and bayonet charges. Some received additional training in field medicine and jungle warfare in preparation for operations in Burma.
In 1944 the Rani were deployed in Burma alongside other INA forces and the Japanese army. 100 Rani troops are are noted as forming a vanguard unit as part of the ongoing Battle of Imphal, while other Rani gave support to the Nursing Corps there.
By March 1945 the INA had failed at Imphal and were forced into a disastrous retreat. The Rani suffered losses from Allied air attacks during the retreat and were disbanded not long after. While Lakshmi Sahgal went on to become the Minister of Women’s Affairs in the Azad Hind government, the fate of most members of the Rani of Jhansi regiment is unknown.
Mariya Bayda
Mariya Bayda was a Russian scout in the Crimea during World War 2 who was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
Having dropped out of school at 14, Bayda worked at a hospital before joining the Red Army in 1941 as a nurse. A member of the 172nd Shooting Division, she was deployed to the front lines of the North Caucasian front.
She went on to become a scout with the rank of senior sergeant. Her Hero title was awarded following a mission in 1942 where she became involved in a gun battle against an number of Wehrmacht submachine gunners. She killed several of the Germans (some reports claim as many as 15) before escaping wounded.
In July 1942 she was again wounded and then captured by German forces. She was taken to the Slavuta concentration camp in Ukraine and was later moved to Ravensbruck. She was released by American forces on May 8, 1945.
Following the war she worked as a civil servant in Sevastopol. In 1976, she was again honoured as a Hero and an Honourable Citizen of Sevastopol. She died in 2002, aged 80.
“A British woman officer or non-commissioned officer can and often does give orders to a man private. The men obey smartly and know it is no shame. For British women have proven themselves in this war. They have stuck to their posts near burning ammunition dumps, delivered messages afoot after their motorcycles have been blasted from under them. They have pulled aviators from burning planes. They have died at the gun posts and as they fell another girl has stepped directly into the position and “carried on.” There is not a single record in this war of any British woman in uniformed service quitting her post or failing in her duty under fire.
Now you understand why British soldiers respect the women in uniform. They have won the right to the utmost respect.”
From a guide for US troops stationed in Britain in WW2
Source: http://www.hardscrabblefarm.com/ww2/britain.htm
North Vietnamese soldier
North Vietnamese soldier, from documentary “Combat Women".
Maria Rukhlina
NKVD Sergeant Maria S. Rukhlina armed with PPSh-41.
Source: Enigma
Sabiha Gökçen
Sabiha Gökçen was a Turkish aviator and the world’s first female fighter pilot.
Gökçen was one of the 8 adopted children of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey. It was Ataturk who gave her the surname Gökçen, meaning ‘belonging to the sky’. In 1935 he took Gökçen to the opening ceremony of the Turkishbird Flight School, which inspired her to attend the Air Force Academy the following year.
She honed her skills by flying bomber and fighter planes in the 1st Aircraft Regiment and in 1937 took part in the military operation against the Dersim rebellion, also known as the Dersim Massacre, making her the first Turkish female air force combat pilot. A report of her actions describes the "serious damage" inflicted by the 50kg bomb she dropped upon a group of 50 fleeing “bandits.” She was awarded the Turkish Aeronautical Assosciation’s first Jeweled Medal for her performance in this operation.
In 1938 Gökçen carried out a five-day flight around the Balkans to great acclaim, and continued to fly until 1964. Throughout her career, she flew 22 different types of aircraft for more than 8000 hours, 32 hours of which were active combat and bombardment missions. An airport in Istanbul is named after her.
[Read more about Sabiha Gökçen]
Vera Krylova
Vera Krylova was a Russian nurse and fighter in World War 2.
Originally a schoolteacher, Krylova joined the Russian medical corps as a nurse in the summer of 1941. The role involved her frequently working on the battlefield, often within 100 feet of the enemy lines, where she dressed wounds of injured soldiers. She is credited with having dragged hundreds of wounded men to safety from the battlefield.
In August 1941, at the height of Operation Barbarossa, Krylova’s company became separated and was caught in a German ambush. The commanders of the company were shot, causing confusion. Reportedly, Krylova rallied the Russians by mounting a riderless horse and firing a gun several times into the air, leading them into the nearby forest for shelter. Linking up with a retreating unit of Russian artillery, she then led her men in a series of counter-attacks to keep the Germans off-balance as the company made its retreat back to Soviet lines.
An unconfirmed story tells of another engagement Krylova was involved in a year later, where she hurled grenades to against a German tank formation to buy time for her comrades to escape.
While accounts of Krylova have been skewed by the attention given to her by the Russian media, it is known that she survived the war and later returned to teaching.
Emilia Plater
Emilia Plater was a Polish noblewoman who fought in the November Uprising against Russia in 1830-31.
The estranged child of a noble Polish-Lithuanian family, Plater’s childhood was mostly spent in Latvia but she was raised to value her Polish ancestry. When the November Uprising against Russia occurred, Plater decided to join, declaring it to be a moment she had been hoping for her whole life. Cutting her hair short and wearing a uniform of her own devising, she assembled a volunteer army which contained 280 infantrymen, 60 cavalry and 700 peasants armed with war scythes.
In April 1831 her army crossed the border from Latvia into Russian-controlled Lithuania, where unconfirmed reports say she seized the town of Zarasai. She later joined with Polish forces to take part in the Battle of Prastavoniai and also fought at Maišiagala.
In May, Plater crossed swords with the Polish General Dezydery Chłapowski, who was unimpressed with her and advised her to return home. She refused adamantly, insisting she would wear her uniform until Poland was free. She became a Captain in the Polish–Lithuanian army and fought against the Russians until late June, when heavy losses caused Chłapowski to order a retreat to Prussia. Plater disagreed with the order and refused to follow it, choosing instead to try and break through to Warsaw. However shortly after separating from the main force she became seriously ill and died.
In death Plater was hailed as a hero of the uprising by the Polish press, and has since been immortalised in a number of paintings and poems still popular in Poland today.
Congolese Para-Commando
A Congolese female para-commando during jump training at Leopoldville in 1967.
Source: Wikipedia
Soviet Sniper
Photo taken between 1941 and 1943.
Source: Soviet Partisans
Eleonore Prochaska
Eleonore Prochaska was a German soldier who fought in the Prussian army during the Napoleonic Wars.
Born in 1785 to a poor Prussian army officer, Prochaska spent her childhood in an orphanage following the death of her mother and seemed destined to a life of domestic service. However when war broke out against Napoleon in 1812 she chose to disguise herself as a man and enlist in the army under the name August Renz. She had no qualms about the deception, and in a letter to her brother wrote that she was convinced of the rightness of her actions.
As a member of the 1st Jägerbataillon of the Lützow Free Corps, Prochaska served first as a drummer and then as an infantryman. Her military career was cut short however when she was severely wounded at the Battle of the Göhrde. The surgeons treating her discovered she was a woman and took her to Dannenberg, where she eventually died of her wounds three weeks later.
Retrospectively Prochaska was hailed as a war heroine and was seen as a ’Joan of Arc’ of her time. Her life inspired numerous plays and poems, as well as a piece of music dedicated to her by Ludwig van Beethoven.
Linda Bray
Linda Bray was a Captain in the US Military Police who became the first woman to lead US troops in battle.
Bray commanded a unit of 45 soldiers in the 988th Military Police Company during the US invasion of Panama in 1989. During this time a routine mission went awry when her unit encountered a unit of Panamanian Defense Forces (PDF) stationed at a dog kennel. The 40-odd PDF troops refused to surrender their position, leading to a firefight that lasted 3 hours.
Eventually Bray’s unit took the kennel and forced the PDF into retreat, having killed 3 PDF soldiers and taken 1 prisoner while suffering no casualties of their own. Judging by the money, uniforms and arsenal of weapons discovered within the kennels, it is assumed that it was in fact a Special Ops base for the PDF.
Instead of being praised for her actions, Bray came under serious criticism by her superiors as military police are supposed to be non-combative. “The responses of my superior officers were very degrading, like, `What were you doing there?’” Bray later said. “A lot of people couldn’t believe what I had done, or did not want to believe it."
Disenchanted by her experiences, Bray requested to be discharged from the army. She received the Army Commendation Medal for Valor. Her actions sparked a controversial proposal in US congress that women should be able to perform all roles within the US army, which was ultimately defeated. When similar legislation was successfully passed more recently in 2013, Bray stated that she was "thrilled”.
Maria Bochkareva
Maria Bochkareva was a Russian soldier who fought in World War I and the founder of the Women’s Battalion of Death.
A peasant girl from Novgorod, Bochkareva suffered two abusive romantic relationships until the beginning of the World War 1 when she left her partner to join the army. While initially rejected she made a personal petition to Tsar Nicholas II who granted her request.
Bochkareva endured ridicule and sexual harassment within her regiment, but also won many of her fellow soldier’s respect. In her first battle, following an ill-fated attack by her unit, Bochkareva crept out into No Man’s Land and dragged over 50 wounded men to safety before she was herself wounded in the leg. Bochkareva participated in at least 100 more excursions into No Man’s Land over the course of the war, during which she was wounded twice more and decorated three times for bravery.
After the Tsar’s abdication in 1917, she petitioned the Minister of War for permission to create an all-female shock battalion. After a month of intensive training the Battalion of Death, numbering 300 women, was deployed to the Russian Western Front. The Battalion performed admirably in battle near Smorgon, taking three German trenches. However it was later disbanded due to male hostility amid the crumbling war effort.
Bochkareva’s political opposition to the Bolsheviks put her life in danger following the October Revolution and she was forced to flee to the US. There she met with President Woodrow Wilson, who was reportedly moved to tears by her pleas that he intervene in Russia. She returned to Russia in August 1918 in hopes of raising a peasant army to fight the Bolsheviks, but this ultimately failed. She was later captured by the Bolsheviks, stripped of her uniform and executed by firing squad in 1920.
Jeanne de Clisson
Jeanne de Clisson, also known as the Lioness of Brittany, was a Breton pirate who launched a reign of terror across the English Channel in the 14th century.
Jeanne became embroiled in the events of the Hundred Years’ War between England and France when her husband, Oliver, placed his support behind the English candidate to rule Brittany. For this he was tried and executed for treason by King Philip VI of France.
Enraged, Jeanne swore vengeance for the betrayal. She sold her husband’s remaining land so that she could buy three warships, which she had painted black with red sails. Under Jeanne’s command the ‘Black Fleet’ raided the English Channel for the next 13 years, destroying any French warships they came across. Each time Jeanne had the crew slaughtered, save for one or two French sailors which she sent back to the French king to let him know what she had done.
While an independent privateer, Jeanne formed an alliance of convenience with the English and helped to keep supplies available to the English forces for the Battle of Crécy in 1346. Even after Philip VI died in 1350, Jeanne continued to wreak havoc on French shipping. She made a point of targeting ships carrying French noblemen, which she boarded so that she could personally behead the aristocrats with her axe.
In 1356, Jeanne retired from piracy and married an English lieutenant. She later returned to France, where she died in 1359.
Frances Wills and Harriet Ida Pickens
“Frances Wills (left) and Harriet Ida Pickens being sworn in as Apprentice Seamen by Lieutenant Rosamond D. Selle, USNR, at New York City. In December 1944, they became the Navy’s first African-American “WAVES” officers.”
Source: demons