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Lady Death ‘Lyudmila Pavlichenko’s skills with a rifle are matched in this magnificent memoir by her abilities as a writer. In clear, lively prose she describes how her pre-war enthusiasm for target shooting enabled her to become one of the Red Army’s most feared front-line snipers on the Eastern Front. Arguably the finest account of sniping during World War II.’ Adrian Gilbert author of Challenge of Battle ‘Within a year after the launching of Operation Barbarossa, Hitler’s invasion of Russia in June 1941, a twenty-four-year-old Kiev female history student enlisted in the Russian Army and became one of the deadliest military snipers of all times, in any army, in any war. Lady Death is Lyudmila Pavlichenko’s taut and gritty memoirs of the “most dangerous woman in the world”, who accumulated more than 500 confirmed or probable kills. Translated from the original Russian and based on her post-war notes and wartime diary, it is undoubtedly literature’s most remarkable account of sniper action.’ Charles W. Sasser former US Army special forces soldier and author of One Shot-One Kill ‘Lyudmila Pavlichenko, the highest scoring female sniper to come out of the Red Army, provides an intimate portrayal of the struggles and obstacles Red Army combatants faced and overcame as the war on the Eastern Front unfolded. She not only proved herself on the field of battle, but also was one of the few Soviet citizens allowed to campaign for the war effort abroad and as such offers an additional, unique view of the west through a Soviet veteran's eyes.’ Yan Mann Military Historian Lady Death.indd 1 10-Jan-18 09:31:55 Available: SNIPERS AT WAR An Equipment and Operations History John Walter EASTERN FRONT SNIPER The Life of Matthäus Hetzenauer Roland Kaltenegger RED ARMY SNIPER A Memoir of the Eastern Front in World War II Yevgeni Nikolaev Forthcoming: THE SNIPER ENCYCLOPAEDIA An Illustrated History of World Sniping John Walter Lady Death.indd 2 10-Jan-18 09:31:55 Lady Death The Memoirs of Stalin’s Sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko Foreword by Martin Pegler Translated by David Foreman Edited by Alla Igorevna Begunova Lady Death.indd 3 10-Jan-18 09:31:55 Lady Death: The Memoirs of Stalin’s Sniper Greenhill Books, c/o Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 47 Church Street, Barnsley, S. Yorkshire, S70 2AS For more information on our books, please visit www.greenhillbooks.com, email [email protected] or write to us at the above address. Russian text copyright © Alla Igorevna Begunova, 2015 David Foreman English-language translation © Greenhill Books, 2018 Foreword copyright © Martin Pegler, 2018 Publishing History Lady Death: The Memoirs of Stalin’s Sniper was first published by Veche Publishers (Moscow) in 2015 as I – Sniper: In Battles for Sevastopol and Odessa All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. CIP data records for this title are available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-78438-270-4 Typeset and designed by JCS Publishing Services Ltd Typeset in 10.5pt Garamond Pro Printed and bound in England by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall Lady Death.indd 4 10-Jan-18 09:31:55 Contents List of Illustrations vii Foreword by Martin Pegler ix Note to this Edition xiv Russian Editor’s Note xv 1 Factory Walls 1 2 If There is a War 10 3 From the Prut to the Dnyestr 19 4 Frontiers of Fire 31 5 The Battle at Tatarka 53 6 Across the Sea 63 7 Legendary Sevastopol 73 8 Forest Trails 86 9 The Second Assault 103 10 Duel 116 11 On No-Name Height 131 12 The Spring of 1942 140 13 A Word from the Army Commander 156 14 Moscow Stars 165 15 Mission to Washington 180 16 My Darling 195 17 Island in the Ocean 213 18 ‘Comrade Stalin has Ordered Us . . .’ 227 19 I Am Sidelined! 236 Notes 247 Lady Death.indd 5 10-Jan-18 09:31:55 Lady Death.indd 6 10-Jan-18 09:31:55 Illustrations 1 Sniper Lyudmilla Pavlichenko of the 54th Stepan Razin Regiment 2 Senior Sergeant Lyudmila Pavlichenko, Sevastopol, March 1942, carrying a Mosin Nagant M.1891/30 with PEM scope 3 A Mosin M.1891/30 sniper rifle with PU sight 4 An SVT-40 with PU sight 5 The sniper’s diploma awarded to Lyudmila Pavlichenko, 6 April 1942 6 Bombed buildings and transport services, Sevastopol, 1942 7 A bombed building in Sevastopol, 1942 8 Junior Lieutenant Alexei Kitsenko and Senior Sergeant Lyudmila Pavlichenko, Sevastopol, January 1942 9 The leaflet Shoot the Enemy and Don’t Miss! 10 Lyudmilla Pavlichenko with an SVT-40 over her shoulder, Sevastopol, probably taken in January/February 1942 11–13 In January/February 1942 several press photographs were taken of Pavlichenko with her presentation SVT-40 14 Pavlichenko in the summer of 1942, probably after 16 July when she was promoted to junior lieutenant and received the Order of Lenin 15 A press photograph, perhaps also from summer 1942 16 Soldiers and officers of the coastal army with their decorations and medals 17 Junior Lieutenant and sniper platoon commander Lyudmila Pavlichenko with her troops (32nd Guards Parachute Division), Moscow military district, August 1942 18 Pavlichenko in front of a portrait of the Supreme Commander, shortly before her visit to the USA 19 Lyudmila Pavlichenko, probably at the time of her trip to the USA 20 Another photograph from the same time, with her decorations visible: Badge for Distinguished Sniper, Guards Badge, the Order of Lenin and the medal for Battle Merit Lady Death.indd 7 10-Jan-18 09:31:55 viii Lady Death 21 The Soviet delegation to the 1942 international student assembly: Nikolai Krasavchenko, Vladimir Pchelintsev and Lyudmila Pavlichenko 22 The Young Communist League delegation outside the Soviet embassy in Washington, DC 23 Pavlichenko with Eleanor Roosevelt and Justice Robert Jackson 24 Lyudmila Pavlichenko, Donald Brown, owner of a tea factory and activist in the charitable public organization Russian War Relief, and Vladimir Pchelintsev in Baltimore, USA, October 1942 25 Lyudmila Pavlichenko meeting Joseph Davis, former US ambassador to Moscow 26 A photograph given by Eleanor Roosevelt to Lyudmila Pavlichenko 27 A rare informal photograph of Pavlichenko, from the time of her visit to the USA 28 Photograph taken during Pavlichenko’s address to the international student assembly in September 1942, in the Grand Hall of the American University in Washington, DC 29 The Lord Mayor of Birmingham, Walter Lewis, with Pavlichenko and Pchelintsev 30 Pavlichenko and an officer of the British Royal Air Force view Allied aircraft at RAF Heathfield, in Ayre, November 1942 31 Pavlichenko with textile workers in Manchester, November 1942 32 Pavlichenko with Agnia Maiskaya, the wife of the Soviet ambassador to Britain at the reception to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the October Revolution 33 Major Lyudmila Pavlichenko of the Soviet coast guard, 1964 34 Veterans of the second defence of Sevastopol at a jubilee celebration in honour of the city’s liberation (May 1964) Lady Death.indd 8 10-Jan-18 09:31:55 Foreword by Martin Pegler Within the field of sniping literature this memoir is completely unique, for it is the first ever written by a female front-line sniper. Lyudmila Mykhailovna Pavlichenko was not just any sniper, however, for she was to become the highest-scoring female sniper, with 309 official kills. Official kills, it should be noted, were those observed by a second party. In common with most snipers, many of Pavlichenko’s kills were made during attacks where stopping to take notes of how many enemy soldiers had been dispatched was neither wise nor practical. Her exact total therefore remains unknown, but around 500 would not be improbable. On another level, this remarkable memoir also sets the record straight about much of the ill-founded criticism and inaccurate writing that has been subsequently aimed at her, particularly suggestions that she was not a sniper at all, but the product of the Red Army propaganda machine. Once geared up to laud the exploits of an individual, the Soviets were indeed formidable creators of myths, but Pavlichenko as well as fellow sniper Vasily Grigoryevich Zaitsev were the genuine article. Indeed, it is ironic that had their unwanted fame not caused them to be plucked from their front-line duties when they were, there is little doubt that both would merely have become names on a war memorial. The lifespan of a Soviet sniper was normally short; at Stalingrad, neophyte snipers had an expected combat life of two weeks. The longer you survived, the better you became and the stronger the chances were that you would live – up to a point. But in warfare, there is a law of diminishing returns where front-line combat is concerned, and eventually battle fatigue, sheer physical exhaustion and the willpower to continue will take their toll and mistakes happen. The life of a sniper was not unlike that of a pilot, for it could be ended by one mistake and there was seldom a second chance. Not that Pavlichenko had the slightest inkling that she was destined for a future that would earn her the nickname ‘Lady Death’, win her the highest awards that the Soviet Union could bestow, meet with Stalin and travel to America, Canada and Europe. Like tens of thousands of other young Russians, before the war she appeared destined to work within the Communist Party system; being an intelligent woman Lady Death.indd 9 10-Jan-18 09:31:55