The Soviets Were Desperate
It turns out that using female bombardiers wasn’t the Soviet Union’s first choice. Before WWII, women had been barred from combat, but with the pressure of an invading enemy gave the leaders a reason to rethink their outdated policy. With Germany’s launch of Operation Barbarossa, a massive invasion of the Soviet Union occurred in June 1941.
Mrs. G. Patterson, Miss Rosemary Rees, and Mrs. Marion Wilberforce, all-female pilots of the Air Transport Auxiliary Service on January 17th, 1940. Photo by Historia / Shutterstock
By the fall, the Germans were coming down on Moscow, Leningrad was under a blockade, and the Red Army was struggling. To put it short: the Soviets were desperate. And desperate times call for desperate measures, as they say. Little did they know that their Plan B (or C or D) would end up being their saving grace.