Lady Death

The Memoirs of Stalin's Sniper

Lyudmila Pavlichenko

• Publisher: Greenhill Books
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781784382711
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military Biographies
• Index: History

The memoir of Lyudmila Pavlichenko, the Russian woman who was WWII's most accomplished sniper—and a friend of Eleanor Roosevelt.

In June 1941, when Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, Lyudmila Pavlichenko left her university studies, ignored the offer of a position as a nurse, and became one of Soviet Russia's two thousand female snipers. Less than a year later, she had 309 recorded kills, including 29 enemy sniper kills. By the time she was withdrawn from active duty due to injury, she was regarded as a key heroic figure for the war effort.

To continue serving the war effort, Pavlichenko spoke at rallies in Canada and the United States. She toured the White House with FDR, and the folk singer Woody Guthrie wrote a song, "Miss Pavlichenko, " about her exploits. An advocate for women's rights, she befriended Eleanor Roosevelt and toured England to raise money for the Red Army.

Never returning to combat, Pavlichenko trained other snipers. After the war, she finished her education at Kiev University and began a career as a historian. Today, she remains a revered hero in Russia, where the 2015 film, Battle for Sevastopol, was made about her life.

1

Factory Walls

The summer of 1932 saw a significant change in the life of our family. We moved from the remote township of Boguslav, in the south of Kiev Region, to the capital of the Ukraine and took up residence in an official apartment granted to my father, Mikhail Ivanovich Belov. As an employee of the NKVD (Narodny Kommisariat Vnutrennykh Del, the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs), he had been appointed to a position in the central offices of this authority in recognition of his conscientious fulfilment of his duties.

He was a solid, stern kind of man, devoted to the service. In his younger days he had started work as a fitter at a big factory, spent some time at the front during the First World War, joined the Communist Party (then called the Russia Social Democrat Workers’ Party (Bolshevik)), taken part in the revolutionary events in Petrograd, then served as a regimental commissar in the 24th Samara-Simbirsk ‘Iron’ Division, and fought against the White Guard forces of Kolchak in the central Volga region and the southern Urals. He was demobilized from the Red Army in 1923 at the age of twenty-eight. But he retained his attachment to military uniform to the end of his days and we generally saw him in the same attire: a khaki gabardine service jacket with a turn-down collar and the Order of the Red Banner on his breast. His trousers were dark blue, flared at the thigh like riding breeches, and the outfit was finished with calf-leather officers’ boots.

Naturally, Dad had the last word in the case of family disputes – if they ever arose. My lovely mother, Elena Trofimovna Belova, a graduate of the girls’ grammar school in the city of Vladimir, knew how to mollify Dad’s stern nature. She was a fine-looking woman with a willowy figure that seemed to have been finely shaped; she had luxuriant dark brown hair and brown eyes which lit up her face. She had a good knowledge of foreign languages and taught them at school. The pupils loved her. By turning lessons into games, she ensured that they achieved an excellent retention of all European words strange to the Russian ear. Under her tutelage the children not only read the languages superbly but spoke them as well.

She devoted herself just as much to us: my elder sister Valentina and me. Thanks to her, we had soon been introduced to Russian classical literature, for the works of Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Leo Tolstoy, Chekhov, Maxim Gorky and Kuprin were all in our library at home. Reflecting her gentle, dreamy character, my sister proved more receptive to literature and fiction. I was attracted by history or, more precisely, the military annals of our great country.

Before moving to Boguslav we had lived in the city of Belaya Tserkov, Kiev Region, for several years. There I attended School No. 3 and spent my childhood and adolescent years free of cares. There on Station Street we formed a close gang of friends. We played at ‘Cossacks and Bandits’, splashed around in flat-bottomed boats on the local river Ros in the summer, roamed through the old and very beautiful Alexandria Park, and raided neighbourhood orchards in the autumn. I was the leading spirit of a gang of teenage boys because I was the best shot with a catapult, could run faster than anybody, swam well and was never afraid of getting into a fight, being the first to strike any offender on the cheek with my fist.

These backyard pursuits came to an end when I was barely fifteen years old. The change happened suddenly, over a single day. Looking back, I can compare it with the end of a world, a voluntary blindness, a loss of reason. Such was my first, schoolgirl, love. The memory of it remains with me for the rest of my life in the form of this man’s surname – Pavlichenko.1

Fortunately, my son Rostislav is not at all like his father. He has a kind, tranquil nature and an appearance characteristic of our family: brown eyes: thick dark hair, tall stature and solid build. He is of Belov stock and is continuing our traditions of service to the homeland. Slava graduated with distinction from Moscow University’s law faculty and the KGB Senior College. He bears the title of a Soviet officer with honour. I am proud of him.

At our new home in Kiev we settled in quite quickly and began to get used to the big noisy capital city. We did not see much of Dad; he was kept at work until late. Thus, our heart-to-heart talks with him usually took place in the kitchen after supper. Mother would put the samovar on the table and, over a cup of tea, we were able to discuss any topics with our parents and ask them questions. The main question soon came up.

‘What do you plan to do now, my dear children?’ asked Dad, sipping the hot tea.

‘We don’t know yet,’ answered Valentina, going first by right of seniority.

‘You should think about a job,’ he said.

‘What kind of job?’ asked my sister in surprise.

‘A good job, in a good workplace, with a good salary.’

‘But, Dad,’ I broke in, ‘I’ve only done seven years at school. I want to study further.’

‘It’s never too late to study, Lyudmila,’ said Dad firmly. ‘But now is the very time to begin your working life, and with the right information on the application form. Especially since I’ve already made arrangements and they are prepared to take you.’

‘Where’s this?’ My sister pouted in a show of defiance.

‘At the Arsenal factory.’

From the Askold Tomb Park you could see the broad, smooth, watery expanse of the river Dnyepr stretching out on your left and, on your right, the straight and fairly short Arsenal Street [renamed Moscow Street in 1942]. At the start of the street stood a very imposing building. This was the Arsenal workshops, built under Nicholas I. They say the Tsar himself laid the first brick in their foundations. The walls were 2 metres thick, two storeys high, and the bricks were light yellow, which is why the locals began to refer to the building as the ‘tile house’.

However, neither the workshops nor the factory adjoining it had anything to do with delicate artefacts from clay. They had been founded on the orders of Empress Catherine the Great and constructed over a lengthy period, from 1784 to 1803. They made cannons, gun carriages, rifles, bayonets, sabres, broadswords and various other pieces of military equipment.

During the Soviet period the works also mastered the production of items necessary for the economy: ploughs, locks, twin-horse carts and equipment for mills and sugar refineries. The Arsenal staff worked with total commitment and in 1923 they received an award from the government of the Ukraine – the Order of the Red Labour Banner.

The factory building appealed to me at first sight. It bore a strong resemblance to a fortress. Rectilinear in shape (168 x 135 metres), with a large internal yard, a tower, rounded outer walls, with the ground layer adorned with a large ornamental wooden facing, this building looked as if it had come from an engraving of an ancient battle. All that was lacking was a moat below the walls, a drawbridge across it, and heavy gates guarded by warriors in shining armour.

After fulfilling some formalities (for instance, signing a state secrets clause) my sister and I were enlisted in the garrison of this ‘fortress’ – Valentina as a progress-chaser, because she had already turned eighteen and had a school-leaving certificate, and me as an ordinary worker owing to my youth (I was only sixteen) and lack of any professional skills. It took me half a year to adjust to the rhythm of factory life and to make friends with the other workers. I was accepted into the Young Communist League. In May 1934 I transferred to the turners’ shop, where I spent about a month training, and then earned the right to work independently, soon acquiring the qualification of turner, sixth grade.

It was an interesting time. The Arsenal was changing before our very eyes. New lathes of Soviet manufacture were being introduced, improved equipment was installed, new production capacities were coming into force and old premises were being renovated. Seeing the efforts being made by the authorities to expand industry, the factory folk responded with extra effort. Incidentally, the prices paid for our wares also rose noticeably, and the lathe-operators in our workshop operated on a piecework basis.

I had no cause to complain. I had a screw-shaping, turning lathe with a DIP300 gearbox made by Moscow’s Red Proletariat Factory in 1933. ‘DIP’ came from the initials of the Russian words ‘Dogonim i Peregonim’ [TN: ‘we will catch up and overtake’]. It was designed to process cylindrical, conical and complex surfaces, both external and internal.

I remember much of it as if it was yesterday – stockpiles of shafts for every possible gear. With one stroke of the cutting tool I would shave off between 0.5 and 3mm (or more) of metal. I would choose the cutting speed in accordance with the hardness of the material and the durability of the tool. In general, tools made from high-carbon steel were used, although there were others – with soldered discs of super-hard tungsten and titanium alloys. The sight of dark blue-violet metal shavings curling out from under the blade still strikes me as incredibly beautiful. However hard the metal, it yields to human strength. You merely need to devise a slick enough implement.

While uniting people in work, our factory also presented them with the opportunity of spending their free time in a sensible way. True, the factory club did not stand out for its bright and lavish decor. It was small, even cramped. However, its premises were sufficient for the activities of various circles: a blue-collar workers’ theatrical group, an arts studio – which taught drawing, dressmaking and sewing (very useful for women) – and gliding and shooting clubs. The assembly hall was a regular venue for special festive evenings held under the slogan ‘Three Generations Together’, at which veterans of the Revolution and Civil War and young production workers who had exceeded their quotas by 50 per cent and more were honoured.

At first my friend and I – she talked me into it – opted for the gliding circle. There was a lot in the newspapers about aviation and the feats of pilots and so we enthusiastically attended the theoretical classes and attentively took notes in lectures given by a gallant air force lieutenant on the lifting force of an aeroplane wing. However, my first flight with an instructor decidedly cooled my ardour. When the grassy field of the aerodrome rushed swiftly to meet us and then suddenly receded somewhere below, my head began to spin and I could feel the nausea in my throat. ‘In other words, the air is not my element,’ I thought to myself. ‘I am a profoundly terrestrial being and have to have my feet on solid ground.’

The instructor of the factory shooting circle, Fyodor Kushchenko, worked in our shop and constantly urged young people to come to the shooting range. He himself had recently done emergency service in the Red Army and become keen on shooting. He assured us that there was something entrancing about the flight of a bullet and the way it hit the target.

A likeable and charming lad, Fyodor tried to persuade me to join with similar arguments. However, I remembered my flight in the glider, which had pretty soundly shaken my faith in my own abilities, even though when you are young – there’s no point in pretending otherwise – they seem boundless. Apart from that, I regarded Kushchenko’s talk as commonplace skirt-chasing. My limited but harsh life experience prompted me always to be on my guard with members of the opposite sex.

One day (it was at a Young Communist League meeting) I got sick of listening to Kushchenko’s stories. I answered Fyodor in a sarcastic tone. Those sitting around us appreciated my joke and laughed loudly. Our League organizer was at that moment reading a rather boring report on the work of Ukrainian League members towards early fulfilment of the workshop quarterly plan. He thought the laughter was directed at him and for some reason got very angry. A verbal skirmish arose between him and some of the League members in the hall – in the course of which some colourful epithets and unlikely comparisons were employed. In the end the organizer expelled Kushchenko and me from the room as the instigators of the disturbance.

Stunned by this banishment, Kushchenko and I made our way towards the exit. The working day was over and our steps echoed through the empty corridor. Suddenly Kushchenko said:

‘We really need to calm ourselves down.’

‘We do,’ I agreed.

‘So, let’s go to the range and have a few shots.’

‘Do you think that’ll help?’

‘Of course. Shooting is a sport for calm people. Although inborn abilities are also required.’

‘And what other abilities?’ I could not refrain from a vitriolic question.

‘The most down-to-earth kind. Such as a good eye or a precise feel for the weapon,’ he replied, jangling a bunch of keys he had taken from the pocket of his leather jacket.

The shooting range was located on some reserve factory land adjacent to the main building. No doubt it had once been storage space – a long, low structure with bars on the windows, which were located almost under the roof. From the lofty heights of my present knowledge I can say that the Arsenal range in the mid-1930s met all the necessary standards. There was a room with desks, chairs and a blackboard on the wall for theoretical classes, a small armoury with lockable cupboards for rifles and pistols, a safe for ammunition, and a firing line allowing one to fire from a rest, kneeling, standing or lying (on mats). Twenty-five metres away from it were thick wooden shields on which targets were mounted.

Fyodor opened one of the cabinets and took out a newish rifle, which was not that long, just over a metre (111cm, to be precise), but fitted with a massive birch stock and a thick barrel. This item from the Tula arms factory was well known in the USSR under the brandname TOZ-8. It was manufactured between 1932 and 1946 and, together with the modified TOZ-8M, it seems that about a million of them were made. This reliable, simple, small-bore single-shot rifle with a longitudinally sliding bolt, designed for 5.6 × 16mm rimfire ammunition, rendered valuable service not only to sportsmen, but also to hunters. I write about it with affection, for it was with the TOZ-8 that my enthusiasm for rifle shooting began, my apprenticeship as a sharpshooter.

There are detailed instructions on handling firearms. Of course, Kushchenko could have talked about them first. Instead, he did something different. He simply handed me the rifle and said:

‘Get acquainted!’

To be honest, I had thought that firearms were much heavier and more difficult to hold in one’s hands. But this rifle weighed less than 3.5kg. Given my experience of sometimes setting up quite cumbersome items for processing on the lathe, it took no effort on my part to lift it. I also found the coldish chilly metal of the barrel and the receiver pleasant. The downward-curved shape of the bolt handle indicated that the designers had considered the convenience of the person in charge of the weapon.

First of all, Fyodor suggested checking the ‘rifle’s flexibility’ to find out if it was suitable for me. In this regard everything turned out fine. The back of the butt fitted firmly into the hollow of my shoulder, with my right hand I could freely grasp the grip of the butt and I placed my index finger – and I have long fingers – on the trigger between the first and second phalanx. It just remained to incline my head to the right, press my cheek to the comb of the butt and focus my open right eye on the sights. The sighting bar was right in the middle of the notch and was visible in its entire magnitude.

‘Now you can fire,’ said Fyodor.

‘What about cartridges?’

‘Just a minute.’ The instructor took the rifle from me, loaded it and pointed it at a target. There was a loud sound, like a rod striking a metal sheet. I started in surprise. Kushchenko smiled.

‘That’s from not being used to it. Have a go. You can do it.’

The rifle ended up in my hands again. Painstakingly replicating all the moves involved in positioning it, I took my first shot. The ‘Melkashka’ (as we called the TOZ-8) did not have a powerful recoil. Besides, on Fyodor’s advice, I had pressed it firmly into my shoulder so that I would not feel any unpleasant sensation. Kushchenko allowed me three more shots, and then went to look at the target. He brought the paper sheet inscribed with black circles back to the firing line where I was waiting for him, not without some nervousness. He looked closely at me and said:

‘For a beginner that is simply amazing. It’s clear you have ability.’

‘Surely not inborn?’ I felt compelled to joke for some reason.

‘It certainly is.’ My first coach was serious. I had never seen Fyodor Kushchenko so serious.

Our shooting circle held sessions once a week, on Saturdays. We began by studying the mechanism of a small-bore rifle in detail, stripping and assembling the breechblock, and getting into the habit of caring for the weapon thoroughly: cleaning and oiling it. Classes were held in the room with the blackboard, where the basics of ballistics were taught. I was surprised to learn that a bullet does not fly directly to its target, but, owing to the impact of gravity and wind resistance, describes an arc, as well as revolving as it flies.

We also had lectures on the history of firearms. It began in the fifteenth century with matchlock guns, when technical developments first made it possible to use the projectile properties of gunpowder. Then flintlock weapons came to be widely used, followed by the caplock mechanism. The truly revolutionary change occurred at the end of the nineteenth century, with the advent of rifles with magazines, grooves in the barrel and longitudinally sliding bolts, facilitating rapid loading, a longer range and greater accuracy.

Manual firearms seem to me to represent the most perfect creation of human mind and hand. Their construction always made use of the latest innovations. The technological solutions necessary for their m...