Source: fnhfal
Liudmyla Pavlychenko
Liudmyla Pavlychenko was a Soviet soldier during World War 2 and is regarded as the most successful female sniper in history, with a total record of 309 kills.
Born in a small village in Ukraine in 1916, Pavlychenko and her family later moved to Kiev when she was 9 years old. When she was 14 she joined a shooting club and became adept at firing rifles. As a young woman she studied history at Kiev university, during which time she also practiced sprinting, pole vaulting, and took classes at a sniper’s school to improve her marksmanship.
When Nazi Germany began its invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Pavlychenko was among the first group of volunteers at the army recruiting office. Despite providing her marksmanship certificate, she was initially laughed at and told she could be a nurse instead. However she went on to prove her worth to the army by shooting two Romanian soldiers near Belyayevka, Odessa, using a Tokarev SVT-40 semi-automatic rifle with 3.5X telescopic sight. Following this demonstration she was accepted into the Red Army’s 25th Rifle Division.
Pavlychenko was initially hesitant about taking human lives, but was shocked into action after witnessing the death of a young soldier next to her. “He was such a nice, happy boy,” she recalled. “And he was killed just next to me. After that, nothing could stop me.” For the next two and half months she spent in Odessa, Pavlychenko racked up a tally of 187 kills.
After Odessa fell to Romanian forces, Pavlychenko’s unit was relocated to fight in the 8-month long Siege of Sevastopol. During the siege she continued to excel, adding a further 257 kills to her record. As her kill count rose she was assigned to increasingly dangerous missions, including countersniping hunts which could last for entire days and nights at a time. By May 1942, Pavlychenko had dispatched 36 enemy snipers in this manner. She became so notorious that the Germans broadcast radio messages trying to bribe her to defect.
Despite being wounded on four separate occasions, Pavlychenko remained in active service until June 1942, when her position was bombed and shrapnel struck her face. Because of her fame she was withdrawn from duty and sent to the United States on a publicity visit, where she became the first Soviet citizen to be received by a US President. Pavlychenko was disappointed by the disparaging comments by the American press about her appearance in uniform, but emboldened by her friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt she lashed out at them at a press event in Chicago, saying "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?”
On returning home, Pavlychenko was promoted to Major and became a sniper instructor. In 1943, she was awarded the Gold Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union for her heroic service. After the war she went on to complete her education and became a historian attached to the Soviet navy. She died aged 58 and is buried in the Novodevichye Cemetery in Moscow.
Russian Soldiers Under Instruction
Female Russian soldiers under instruction during World War 1.
Source: Time Travel Team
Nîgar Husseinî
Nîgar Husseinî from East-Kurdistan, martyred near Kerkuk.
Source: Kurdistania
Osh-Tisch
Osh-Tisch, or ‘Finds Them and Kills Them’, was a boté spiritual leader and warrior of the Crow Nation who lived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Boté was a Crow term referring to an individual possessing a gender identity different to their assigned sex, or to someone who possessed an identity of both male and female characteristics. Boté genders were considered separate to male or female genders and were distinct identities in their own right, a concept common to Native American societies and now sometimes captured under the modern umbrella term 'Two Spirit’ (see this link for more info).
Osh-Tisch was a male-assigned-at-birth boté who lived as a woman and expressed a preference for women’s work. In her life she took on a number of roles including artist, medicine woman, shaman and warrior. She was also a skilled craftswoman who made intricate leather goods and large tipis, and is known to have constructed the huge buffalo-skin lodge of the Crow Chief Iron Bull.
According to the testimony of Pretty Shield, Osh-Tisch fought at the Battle of the Rosebud in 1876, where the Crow fought as part of a US-led coalition against the Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne. When a wounded Crow warrior fell from his horse, Osh-Tisch leapt from her own horse and defended the fallen man with a salvo of rifle shots. At the same time a woman warrior named The Other Magpie was attacking the Lakota with a coup stick. Moments after The Other Magpie struck a Lakota with the coup stick he was killed by Osh-Tisch’s bullet, leading to her gaining the epithet of 'Finds Them and Kills Them’.
By the 1890s the Crows had been forced into living in reservations by the US government. During this time Osh-Tisch and two other boté were targeted by an agent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs named Briskow, who had them imprisoned, their hair cut, and forced them to wear men’s clothing. The Crow rallied to the protection of the boté and Chief Pretty Eagle used what little power he had to have Briskow removed from the reservation. Osh-Tisch’s friend and Crow historian Joe Medicine Crow later described this attack on the boté as a 'tragedy’.
Osh-Tisch continued to be targeted by preachers and other managers of the reservation for the rest of her life. Along with the gradual internalisation of United States cultural norms, this persecution led to a shift away from boté acceptance among the Crow and Osh-Tisch ultimately died in 1929 as one of the last of her kind.
(This post inspired by the Rejected Princesses article on Osh-Tisch: http://www.rejectedprincesses.com/post/92639871808/osh-tisch-princess-of-two-spirits-1854-1929)
Phoebe Hessel
Phoebe Hessel was a British soldier and local legend who lived in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Raised in Stepney, London, Hessel fell in love with a soldier named Samuel Golding when she was 15 years old and disguised herself as a man so that she could join the army to accompany him. She became a member of the 5th Regiment of Foot with Golding and served in the West Indies and Gibraltar. The two remained together in the British army for 17 years.
In 1745 she fought against the French in the Battle of Fontenoy where she received a bayonet wound to the arm. Eventually she revealed herself as a woman, although accounts vary as to whether this occurred when she was stripped to be whipped as a punishment, or if she did so voluntarily in order to stay with Golding when he was wounded. She was not disciplined for her deception and was paid the same amount as any soldier leaving the army.
She and Golding remained married for twenty years in Plymouth until his death, after which she remarried and moved to Brighton, where she became a well-known local figure and traveling saleswoman. She died in 1821 at the impressive age of 108. In her native Stepney both Hessel Street and Amazon Street are named after her, the latter due to her nickname as the ‘Stepney Amazon’.
Mandukhai Khatun
Mandukhai Khatun was empress of the Northern Yuan Dynasty (also known as Post-Imperial Mongolia) during the late 15th century. Khatun is the female honorific equivalent to Khan, meaning ‘military ruler’.
Sole daughter of an aristocratic Ongud family, Mandukhai was married at the age of 18 to Manduul Khan, ruler of the Mongol Empire. She bore one daughter to Manduul, increasing her seniority over his other childless wife. However when Manduul was assassinated in 1479 the empire was left with no recognised heir. Mandukhai then adopted the 7-year-old orphan Batmunkh, the last living descendant of the legendary Genghis Khan. Mandukhai named Batmunkh as “Dayan Khan” and through him became effective ruler of the Mongolian empire.
Under Mandhukai’s leadership the empire went to war with the the Oirats in Western Mongolia and defeated them to great acclaim. In doing so she united the warring Mongolian tribes and instituted a number of codes to enforce the Oirat’s loyalty.
Mandukhai refused the marriage offer of one of her generals and instead married Dayan Khan when he reached the age of 19. Together the two led raids against Ming China in response to Chinese attempts to strangle the Mongols by closing trade. To contain her, the Chinese expanded the Great Wall and deployed gunpowder artillery, but this did not deter the raiding. The pair also had to contend with an Oirat rebellion, during which Mandukhai fought in the battles personally, even though she was pregnant with twins.
Mandukhai died in 1510 of natural causes according to most sources, although some legends claim she was murdered by Ming agents. In her life she bore seven sons and three daughters, and it was from her line that successive khans and nobles of Mongolia were descended.
Peshmerga Militia Unit
A 700-strong all-female unit of Peshmerga Kurdish militia is currently involved in fighting the Islamic State in Northern Iraq and have been instrumental in securing the Kurdistan region.
The unit was created in 1996 in order to help combat Saddam Hussein loyalists. Since that time they have predominantly existed in a supporting combat role but have recently been used on the front lines at Kirkuk and securing oil fields in Bai Hassan.
The majority of the women are volunteers and have been trained alongside SWAT teams and special forces units. They are led by Colonel Nahida Ahmed Rashid, who began her military career fighting for the Kurdish separatist movement as a teenager and is now the highest-ranking female officer in the Kurdish army.
Some Western media outlets have framed the use of female soldiers as terrifying to the forces of the Islamic State and that they find it dishonourable to be killed by women. However others have pointed out that the IS and al-Qaeda field their own all-female battalions.
A BBC correspondent followed the Peshmerga women was impressed by their motivation to protect other women who have been victims of the IS forces. She also described the support they received from their families and community. “People know that they’re fighting a very, very tough fight,” she said. “But also, in a way, they know that these are pioneers, not just in Kurdistan, but in the region.”
Runak Bapir Gherib
“14 year old Yazidi girl returns home with AK
12/08/2014 — Sinjar mountains, Iraq — Runak Bapir Gherib, 14 y.o. from Shengar makes her way down the mountain after 7 days. She is with her mother and sister (in the back) waiting for a car to drive them away. She took the gun from Shengar to protect her family. YPG also gave weapons to the people who wanted to fight, but it has been impossible to verify whether this weapon was given to her by YPG or family members.”
Source: diannefeinstein-vevo
Milunka Savić
Milunka Savić was a Serbian soldier who fought in the Balkan Wars and in World War I. She was wounded no less than nine times during her service and is the most decorated female combatant in the history of warfare.
In 1912, when she was aged 24, Savić’s brother was called up to serve in the Balkan Wars against Bulgaria. Accounts vary as to whether she impersonated her brother or simply accompanied him, but it is certain that she joined the Serbian army having disguised herself as a man. She saw combat within weeks and was awarded with a medal and a promotion for taking part in repeated assaults during the nine-day Battle of Bregalnica.
During the tenth assault she was wounded by a Bulgarian grenade and while being treated in hospital her gender was revealed. Unwilling to punish her given her valour on the battlefield, Savić's commanding officer offered her a transfer to a nursing division. Standing at attention Savić insisted she would only serve her country as a combatant. When the officer told her he would give her his answer the next day Savić simply responded “I will wait” and remained standing at attention in front of him. He relented after just an hour and allowed her to return to the infantry.
Just a year after the end of the Balkan Wars Europe was torn apart by World War I and Savić continued to serve her country. Following the Battle of Kolubara in the early days of the war, she was awarded the Karađorđe Star with Swords medal, the highest award available. She received the medal a second time in 1916 after she single-handedly captured 23 Bulgarian soldiers at the Battle of Crna Bend. The war progressed poorly for Serbia, and Savić found herself fighting for the French as the retreating Serbian army was reformed under their control at Corfu. By the end of the war she had received medals from France, Russia and Britain for her bravery.
After the war Savić turned down a military pension in France to return to Serbia where she raised her daughter and a number of foster children on her own. Largely forgotten by the public, she made a living by working as a cleaning lady. During the German occupation of Serbia in World War II she was imprisoned in the Banjica concentration camp. Accounts vary as to whether this was because she refused to attend a banquet with German officers or because she was operating a hospital to treat wounded partisans. She was ultimately spared execution and released by a German officer who recognised her as a war hero.
Savić died of a stroke in 1973, aged 84. She was buried with full military honours and a street in Belgrade is named after her.
Tamara Bunke
Tamara Bunke, also commonly known as Tania the Guerrillera, was an Argentine-born German communist revolutionary who played a key role in the post-revolutionary Cuban government and in other Latin American revolutionary movements during the 1960s.
Raised in Buenos Aires by a family of expatriate German communists, Bunke grew up surrounded by the Argentine Communist Party as well as being a keen athlete and intelligent student. In 1952 the family returned to East Berlin where she studied political science and acted as a translator for the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. In this capacity she met the hero of the Cuban Revolution, Che Guevara, when she was assigned to be his interpreter.
Inspired by the revolution, Bunke moved to Cuba in 1961, quickly graduating from voluntary work to a range of high-profile tasks in the militia, the Cuban Literacy Campaign and a number of government departments. She was later selected to take part in “Operation Fantasma”, Guevara’s guerrilla expedition to Bolivia aimed at sparking revolutionary uprising across Latin America.
The only woman in the operation, Bunke was trained in the use of knives, pistols and submachine guns, as well as the transmission of coded radio messages. Styling herself as ‘Tania’, she quickly impressed her superiors with her intelligence, stamina and skill for espionage. In 1964 she served as secret agent, infiltrating Bolivian high society so successfully that she became a personal friend of the Bolivian President. In this role she became an invaluable source of information for Guevara for two years.
However late in 1966 Bunke’s cover was blown due to a failure of the spy network, forcing her to join Guevara’s armed guerrilla campaign in the mountains. It is rumoured but unconfirmed that during this time she and Guevara became lovers. She became responsible for monitoring radio communications but without access to her previous information sources the operation became increasingly isolated and desperate.
Injured in the leg and suffering a high fever, Bunke was included in a group of 17 ailing combatants that Guevara tried to send safely out of the mountains. The group was ambushed by the Bolivian army while crossing the Río Grande river and Bunke was shot while wading through high water with her rifle above her head. On hearing the news of her death Guevara initially refused to believe that such a thing was possible. She was later declared a hero of the Cuban Revolution.
Milka Kufrin
Milka Kufrin was a Yugoslav partisan who fought against German occupation during the Second World War.
The daughter of Croatian peasants, Milka attended school as a child and as a young woman studied agriculture at the University of Zagreb. During her time as a student she also became a member of the Communist Youth Organisation.
In 1941 Yugoslavia was invaded simultaneously by the Axis powers of Germany, Italy and Hungary, and in response the Partisan Resistance was formed. Kufrin, then in her early 20s, immediately volunteered to join the resistance but was refused. After continuous persistence she was accepted in October 1941 and assigned to a unit stationed in Kordun.
In 1942 Kufrin was given the task of sabotaging the Zagreb-Rijeka railway line. Every night for a period of eight months she approached the railway to plant explosives, no simple feat due to how heavily guarded the rail-line was. For her efforts she was proclaimed a national hero by the Yugoslavian government.
Yamakawa Futaba
Yamakawa Futaba (1844-1909) was an educator in the Japanese region of Aizu. While little is recorded of her life, it is known that she was trained as a fighter and took part in the defense of Tsuruga Castle when it was besieged during the Boshin War. While the castle’s defenses were eventually breached, Futaba survived the siege and following the war went on to lead the movement demanding improved education for women and girls in Japan.
Bà Triệu
Bà Triệu, or Triệu Thị Trinh, was a Vietnamese warrior and military commander in the 3rd century who fought against the occupying forces of the Chinese Wu Kingdom.
An orphan of noble birth, Triệu grew up among her brother’s family as a slave. At the age of 19 she declared her intention to become a warrior to fight against the Wu, who controlled Vietnam at that time and had purged more than 10,000 people. When her brother tried to prevent her leaving she is famously quoted as rebuking him with the words: “I want to ride the storm, tread the dangerous waves, win back the fatherland and destroy the yoke of slavery. I don’t want to bow down my head, working as a simple housewife.”
Triệu was successful in raising an army of around 1000 men and women, which she led north from the Cu-phong District to engage the Chinese in open rebellion. Despite the relatively small size of her army she was successful in defeating the Wu in over 30 separate battles within a period of 2 years.
While Triệu’s war effort allowed her to carve out her own portion of Vietnam for a time, her success was a humiliation for the Wu, especially as their Confucian beliefs emphasised the natural inferiority of women. In response the Taizu Emperor of Wu sent huge numbers of troops to the Vietnamese frontier. While Triệu’s army held out for several months in the face of this new onslaught, she was ultimately killed in battle in the year 248.
Following her death and the consolidation of Chinese rule, Triệu was immortalised in Vietnamese folklore as a supernatural hero, often depicted riding into battle astride an elephant wielding dual golden swords.
Nancy Wake
Nancy Wake was a journalist turned resistance fighter during the Second World War.
Raised by a poor family in Sydney, Australia, Wake used a small inheritance from an aunt to travel to America and then Europe. By the mid-1930’s she had found work as a journalist and married Henri Fiocca, a wealthy industrialist.
When Germany invaded France in May 1940 she and Fiocca became heavily involved in the French Resistance. The pair were responsible for smuggling thousands of Jewish refugees and Allied servicemen into Spain. Wake often used her looks to get past Nazi checkpoints, later describing herself as “a flirtatious little bastard”.
Wake’s activities caused the Gestapo to declare her their most wanted person, dubbing her ‘the White Mouse’ for her ability to evade capture and placing a 5 million franc reward on her head. However by 1943 Nazi control over Vichy France made her work increasingly dangerous and with the collapse of her network she fled to Spain. Fiocca, who she left behind, was tortured to death for refusing to inform on her.
Wake convinced British special agents to train her as a guerilla operative. In April 1944, she parachuted in southern France to link up with Maquis resistance fighters in preparation for the D-Day invasions. She took command of a 7000-strong unit, winning the men’s respect by repeatedly beating them in drinking competitions. Over the next several months her unit fought 22,000 enemy soldiers, causing 1400 casualties in exchange for only 100 of their own. Wake herself was ruthless. She executed a girl who had been spying on the unit, killed an SS sentry with a karate chop to the neck, and on one occasion biked for 70 hours through enemy checkpoints to deliver radio codes to the Allies.
After the war Wake was heavily decorated by Britain, France and the US. During the 1950’s she worked for the British Air Ministry’s intelligence department, where she married again to a former pilot. She died in 2011, aged 98.
French Resistance Member
“A girl of the resistance movement is a member of a patrol to rout out the Germans snipers still left in areas in Paris, France, on August 29, 1944. The girl had killed two Germans in the Paris Fighting two days previously.”
Source: Histoire Fanatique
US Recruitment Poster
US Armed Forces recruitment poster from World War II.
Source: demons
Apranik
Apranik was a Military Commander and Resistance Leader of the Persian Sasanian Empire in the 7th century.
The daughter of Piran, a renowned Persian general, Apranik was raised in a time when the Sasanian Empire was coming to the end of it’s 400-year existence, having been weakened by war with the Byzantine Empire. Motivated by national pride, Apranik followed in her father’s footsteps and joined the army after finishing her schooling. She rose through the ranks from a petty officer to becoming a fully-fledged Commander.
When the Sasanian Empire fell to a full-scale invasion by the Islamic Rashidun Caliphate, Apranik took command of major battalion of the surviving Persian Army and mounted an ongoing war of resistance against their conquerors. She found that conventional warfare did not work against the guerilla tactics employed by the Caliphate soldiers, who often melted away into the desert. In response she led the Persians in hit-and-run attacks designed to inflict maximum damage in a short time.
While the Empire was never restored, Apranik’s determination and refusal to surrender inspired a wider movement of resistance. She is said to have died fighting in combat as it was preferable to capture. The white horse she rode became a symbol of freedom still recognised today and she inspired a number of other Persian female resistance fighters who were nicknamed ‘Apraniks’.
Marguerite Delaye
Marguerite Delaye was a woman who fought during the siege of the French town Montelimar in 1569 during the French Wars of Religion.
While details of her involvement are scarce, it is recorded that she lost an arm in the fighting. A statue was erected in her honour after the battle.
Bethany Gilford
Bethany Gilford, British Army Medic in Afghanistan.
Source: Military Armament