Ilse Hirsch

Ilse Hirsch was a Nazi resistance fighter who played a key role in the assassination of Franz Oppenhoff in the later days of World War Two.

Born in 1922, Hirsch joined the League of German Girls, part of the Hitler Youth movement, when she was 16 years old and became one of the organisation’s leaders. In 1945 she became involved with the Nazi resistance force, dubbed ’The Werewolves’, whose mission was to work behind enemy lines as the Allies advanced into Germany.

Hirsch was selected to take part in Operation Carnival, a mission to assassinate Dr. Franz Oppenhoff, who had recently been appointed mayor of Aachen by the Americans who had taken control of the city. Hirsch knew the ground well and acted as a guide for the team. Along with 5 other Werewolves she was parachuted in near Aachen and guided them to Oppenhoff’s countryside home outside the city. Oppenhoff was shot by SS Lieutenant Leitgeb on the steps of his home, after which Hirsch attempted to lead the Werewolves to safety. However she caught her foot on a trip-wire and triggered a landmine, gravely injuring her and killing Leitgeb.

Hirch’s injuries kept her in hospital for a long time but she eventually returned home. In 1949 the surviving members of the team, barring one, were arrested and became the subject of Aachen ‘Werewolf Trial’. All were found guilty and sentenced to 1-4 years in prison, but Hirsch was released. Following the war Hirsch continued to live in the Aachen area, marrying and having two sons.

Nadezhda Fedutenko

Nadezhda Fedutenko (1915-1978) was a Soviet pilot and squadron commander who served during World War II. 

From a young age Fedutenko had a fascination with planes and was a member of an aircraft modelling club in her teens. In 1935 she qualified as both a pilot and parachute instructor and begun a career as a civil aviation pilot ferrying passengers and cargo. 

With the advent of World War II she continued to serve as a pilot, flying the Polikarpov R-5, a lightweight reconnaissance bomber. She frequently flew at low altitude with no escort, delivering supplies and evacuating wounded from enemy-occupied territory. Having accumulated several thousand flying hours, Fedutenko went on to become a squadron commander in the ‘Borisov Guards’ dive bomber regiment, flying Petlyakov Pe-2 medium range bombers from January 1943 until the end of the war. 

From 1943 to 1945, Fedutenko’s squadron flew more than 500 missions in support of Soviet ground troops, including 56 daylight missions. One of her most significant missions occurred on 2nd September 1943 when her divisional leader was shot down. Taking command, Fedutenko led the 54 aircraft in a successful attack on a fortified enemy position near El'nia, enabling ground troops to launch their offensive.

At the end of the war, Fedutenko’s was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, the highest military decoration available, in addition to several further medals in recognition of her outstanding service.

Nancy Hart

Nancy Hart was a Confederate guerrilla soldier and spy during the American Civil War (not to be confused with revolutionary heroine Nancy Morgan Hart). 

Born circa 1846, Hart was raised in Roane County in western Virginia, where she learned to be a skilled horse rider and an excellent shot with both rifles and pistols. In 1861 her brother-in-law William Price, a Confederate supporter, was abducted and killed by Union soldiers. The act drove Hart into a fury and just days later she joined the Moccasin Rangers, a pro-Confederacy guerrilla regiment led by Perry Conley.

For nearly two years Hart worked for the Moccasin Rangers as a spy and a scout, posing as a farm girl to gather intelligence. She saved the lives of a number of wounded Confederate soldiers by hiding them with sympathizers. She also personally led several cavalry raids against federal outposts. After one such skirmish she was briefly captured, but she persuaded the Union soldiers to let her go based on the fact she was a woman.

Conley died in the summer of 1862, and with his loss the Moccasin Rangers disbanded, although Hart continued to spy on Union movements. Her work prompted federal officials to put a large price on her head, ultimately leading to her capture and imprisonment in a Union camp. She did not remain in captivity long however, as she seduced a guard to steal his gun, killed him and escaped on horseback. A week later Hart returned to the Union camp with 200 Confederate Cavalrymen, capturing a number of federal officers with minimal resistance.

Hart married a fellow Moccasin Ranger named Joshua Douglas and after the war they had two sons. Hart died in 1902 and is buried on Manning Knob in Greenbrier County.

Yuenü

Yuenü or ‘the Lady of Yue’ was a legendary Chinese swordswoman from the state of Yue, in the province of Zhejiang, during the 5th century BCE.

While also known as Aliao and Maiden of the Southern Forest, the actual name of Yuenü is undocumented. It is known that she served during the reign of King Goujian of Yue at the end of the ’Spring and Autumn era’. Caught in an ongoing war with the Wu state to the north, Goujian sought military specialists to better train his troops. Having already recruited a champion archer from Chu, he was advised of a young woman of the Southern Forest whose skill with the sword was infamous.

Goujian invited the woman to attend his court, where she demonstrated the ability to counter the attacks of several opponents at once. The woman claimed to have developed her own sword-fighting style for protection in her native forest, and was also known to be a skilled archer. Impressed by her skills, Goujian gave her the title of Yuenü and enlisted her to train his best officers and soldiers in her techniques.

Yuenü’s techniques were described as simple but powerful, based around a philosophy of strengthening the spirit  while remaining openly calm in combat. She likened the art of the sword to a door, which can be divided in yin and yang. Hers is the earliest known exposition on the art of the sword, which influenced Chinese martial arts for generations, introducing the concept of using agility and fluid speed to counter the advantages of physical strength.

Yuenü is also credited with developing a new form of metallurgy that could create untarnishable bronze swords with flexible cores and extremely sharp edges, which became known as 'Yuenü swords’. In 1965 archeologists discovered one such sword buried alongside the remains of King Goujian.

Erika Szeles

Erika Szeles was a young soldier and nurse in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. When her photo was taken by a Danish photographer her image graced the covers of several European magazines and she became an international symbol of the revolution.

Szeles was born to Jewish parents in 1941 and raised solely by her mother after her father’s death in a Nazi concentration camp. At age 14 she trained as a cook at the Hotel Béke in Budapest. While her mother was a hardline communist, Szeles had an older boyfriend who converted her to the anti-communist cause.

When Hungary’s revolution against the Soviet Union began on October 23rd 1956, she was 15 years old. When her boyfriend formed a resistance group with some fellow students she chose to join them. She quickly learned how to use a sub-machine gun and fought alongside the group in several skirmishes with Soviet soldiers.

The iconic photo above of Szeles holding her sub-machine gun was taken around November 1st 1956. A few days afterward she was approached by friends who, knowing that Russian divisions were pouring into Hungary, feared for her safety. They argued that she was too young to be fighting and she agreed to put down her gun and to instead serve the resistance as a Red Cross nurse.

On November 8th the resistance group she was with became involved in a heavy firefight with Russian soldiers in the center of Budapest. When a friend of hers was wounded she ran forward to help him. Despite being unarmed and wearing a Red Cross uniform she was gunned down and died instantly. She was buried in the Kerepesi Churchyard in Budapest.

Szeles’s story remained largely unknown for some 50 years, until in 2008 journalists were able to uncover the truth about the young woman from the infamous picture. She is now recognised as a martyr of the Hungarian Revolution.

The Siege of the Alcázar

Women at the Siege of the Alcázar in Toledo, during the Spanish Civil War.

Source: fnhfal

Soldaderas

Female soldiers during the Mexican Revolution (1910 - 1920).

Source: Ut i Vida Världen

Kurdish YPG fighter

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.”

–

News Sources:

http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-07-16/kurdish-iraq-fight-against-isis-isnt-just-men

http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-08-07/meet-female-colonel-leading-kurdish-forces-battle-against-isis

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28308632

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.