Click in the field, then press CTRL+C to copy the HTML code
<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=477513" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The White Rose of Stalingrad</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her nickname was Lilya.<br>In the Great Patriotic War<br>When Hitler’s armies invaded the Soviet Union<br>She became a Soviet air ace, <br>Known as the “White Rose of Stalingrad”.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Lydia Litvak was born<br>Into a Moscow Jewish family.<br>In 1935, at the age of 14, she joined a flight club <br>And a year later she had her first solo flight. <br>When the Germans attacked Russia, <br>Lilya joined the Soviet Air Force. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">In the summer of 1942 she was assigned<br>To the 437th Combat Regiment<br>Fighting over the skies of Stalingrad. <br>At first the men were reluctant<br>To take her seriously<br>But soon it became evident<br>That she was an excellent pilot.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Lilya was a pensive and beautiful young woman<br>Who got into trouble because of deviating from <br>The prescribed dress code of the Soviet Air Force.<br>Once she cut off the fur lined trim of her boots, <br>Producing from it a fur collar for her flight suit.<br>She was jailed for the offense.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Nevertheless, her desire for expressing<br>Her feminine individuality was irrepressible <br>And she continued to design<br>Her own military outfit. <br>Among other things she bleached her hair.<br>Military regulations permitted this. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And then she took pieces of parachute silk, <br>Sewed them together, <br>Painted them in different colors<br>And wrapping them around her neck<br>She created her own air combat fashion.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Lilya flew a Yak-1 fighter plane, <br>Which she embellished in painting white roses<br>On its sides. She made her first kills<br>Of enemy planes on September 13,1942, <br>Shooting down two Luftwaffe aircrafts, <br> A Ju-88 and a Bf 109 G-2. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The German flyer of the downed Bf 109 <br>Was Erwin Maier, a decorated combat pilot.<br> He bailed out and parachuted <br>In Soviet-held territory. He asked his captors<br>To see the Russian ace that shot him down.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">When the Soviets brought in Lilya, <br>Maier thought first that they made him the butt<br>Of a Bolshevik joke. But after Lilya showed him <br>Her flight maneuvers in the dogfight, <br>The German pilot’s disbelief turned <br>To surprised admiration.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Once, during a mission, Lilya was wounded<br>And she belly-landed in fascist-held territory. <br>German soldiers were rushing from every direction<br>On the field to catch her. She could see them <br>Running towards her with their weapons in hand. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet before they could take Lilya captive, <br>A Soviet aircraft appeared from the clouds<br>And landed next to her. Its pilot helped her climb<br>Onto his plane and took off as fast as he could <br>Under intense enemy fire. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">On another occasion, in the course of air combat<br>Lilya was wounded in her leg but kept engaging<br>The Nazi aircrafts. She had whirled between<br>The enemy planes painted with black crosses<br>On their fuselage and the underside of their wings, <br>The swastika insignia hectoring on their tails.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">She fired at the enemy aircrafts <br>With high explosive ammunition <br>From her 20 mm cannon <br>And 12.7 mm heavy machine gun <br>And at the end she managed to bring back<br>Her Yak-1 to base.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Lilya’s daring exploits included the destruction<br>Of a German observation balloon, <br>Which the Wehrmacht used <br>For artillery targeting against Red Army positions.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The hydrogen-filled balloon was protected<br>By an alignment of anti-aircraft guns that created<br>A deadly fire wall. The balloon flew high and far, <br>Out of the range of the Soviet artillery <br>And no Red Air Force pilot succeeded <br>To shoot it down. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Lilya volunteered to do the seemingly impossible.<br>First her commanders did not endorse the sortie<br>Because they regarded it as a suicide mission. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But Lilya devised a plan <br>Of approaching the balloon<br>From an unexpected direction, flying over<br>Enemy-held territory.<br>She succeeded to shoot it down. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">August 1,1943, was another exhausting<br>And bloody day of the war. <br>Lilya already completed three sorties<br>But was sent again to take off with her squadron<br>And escort a formation of Ilyushin II-2 planes. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">As the Soviets were returning from their mission, <br>two German Bf-109 fighters dived on Lydia’s Yak-1. <br>Her plane was hit. Smoke began to pour<br>From its fuselage. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The German pilots recognized the white roses<br>Painted on the aircraft and now as many as eight<br>Messerschmitt Bf-109 fighter planes joined<br>In pursuing the damaged Yak-1 plane <br>Of the Soviet ace. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">She could not bail out. <br>Her plane crashed but did not explode.<br>Lilya was killed of a head wound. <br>She was twenty one years old.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Lilya shot down 12 enemy air planes in the war<br>And was the top scoring female fighter pilot<br>Of the Red Air Force. She and her close friend, <br>Katya Budanova, were the only two female aces<br>Of the Second World War.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In 1990 USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev <br>Posthumously awarded Lydia Litvak<br>The gold medal of the Hero of the Soviet Union.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Paul+Hartal">Paul Hartal</a><div class=q>
<img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share">
<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=477513" data-title="The White Rose of Stalingrad de Paul Hartal" data-description="Her nickname was Lilya.
In the Great Patriotic War
When Hitler’s armies invaded the Soviet Union
She became a Soviet air ace, 
Known as the “White Rose of Stalingrad”.

Lydia Litvak was born
Into a Moscow Jewish family.
In 1935, at the age o..."></div>
</div>
</div>