She was twice awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, and although she was nominated for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union during the war, she never received it. Yekaterina Budanova claimed an estimated total of 11 kills (5 of which were solo) in her career as a combat pilot, making her one of the war’s two female fighter aces. It’s believed that the pilot that shot her down was either Georg Schwientek of JG 52 or Emil Bitsch, of 8./JG 3. But Katia’s red starred fighter had been hit tongues of flame were already licking at the wings.”īudanova was buried on the outskirts of the village of Novokrasnovka. She “stitched” it with bullets, and the second Messer, streaming black smoke, escaped to the west. Katia’s fighter rapidly soared upward and swooped down on a second enemy aircraft. This was the fifth aircraft she killed personally. Katia managed to pick up an enemy aircraft in her sight and riddle him with bullets. “ She spotted three Messerschmitt going on the attack against a group of bombers. She managed to put out the fire and force landed in no-man’s land, but she was already dead when local farmers tried to pull her from the aircraft. In the morning she took off to do an escort mission and got involved in a dogfight with Bf 109s near Antratsit in Luhansk Oblast. She shot down one (her fifth solo kill) and damaged another, but her aircraft was also hit. By June 1943, Budanova had six victories to her credit and heavy air combat saw her claims raised to 11.īudanova’s last mission happened on 19 July 1943 near Novokrasnovka. In 23 February 1943 she was awarded the Order of the Red Star. Budanova was given permission to become a “lone wolf” and do freelance operations just like the best male pilots. It was when Budanova and Litvyak were moved to the 296th Fighter Aviation Regiment of Nikolai Baranov (or 73rd Fighter Aviation Regiment) that they achieved the bulk of their combat claims.
Her first two solo victories were against a Junkers Ju 88 and a Bf 109.īudanova and Litvyak later served with the elite 9th Guards Fighter Regiment, commanded by a Hero of the Soviet Union, Lev Shestakov, where they were allowed to remain for an extra three months after other women were returned to the 586th. While Yekaterina was described as a “cheerful, lively character”, Litvyak looked “thoughtful and quiet”. This is where Yekaterina shot down her first opponent alongside Litvyak, a Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter. On 10 September, Budanova was assigned with Lydia Litvyak, Mariya Kuznetsova and Raisa Belyayeva to the 437th Fighter Aviation Regiment, based on the east bank of the Volga river and in constant engagement with the fighting over Stalingrad.
The units consisted usually of three women, usually instructors or members of pre-war flying clubs. Yekaterina enlisted in military aviation in June 1941, after the German attack on the USSR, and was assigned to the 586th Fighter Aviation Regiment, a unit consisting only of female pilots and formed by Marina Raskova, record holder for a non-stop flight and survivor of a crash-landing in Siberia. Still, the work that women were doing was mostly hidden by the government as they did not want the Red Army to appear weak, or raise women’s expectations for permanent or front-line roles in the military. Even when the law proved to be more theoretical than practical and women faced harassment and disdain when enlisting, once they proved their ability to accomplish a number of tasks they quickly earned the respect of their commanders. It wasn’t until 1939 that a law on “ universal military duty” was passed, allowing women to be formally accepted into the military. During several air parades she joined, she flew a single-seater Yakovlev UT-1, a single-seater trainer aircraft used by the Soviet Air Force from 1937 until the late 1940s.
Ace fighter pilot license#
She first began working as a carpenter in an aircraft factory, where she developed an interest in aviation. She soon joined a local aeroclub’s parachutist section and got her flying license in 1934, becoming a flight instructor in 1937. When she was thirteen, she was sent to Moscow to join her sister. She had top grades in school, but had to begin working as a nanny to care for her family after her father’s death. Yekaterina was born in 1916 in Smolensk, a village in Russia, to a peasant family.
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