Jewish Soviet Lydia Vladimirovna Litvyak was a fighter pilot in the Soviet Air Force during World War 2.
With five solo victories, she claimed up to twelve solo victories and two to four shared kills in 66 combat sorties. In about two years of operations, she was the first female fighter pilot to shoot down an enemy aircraft, the first of two female fighter pilots to have earned the title of fighter ace and the holder of the record for the greatest number of kills by a female fighter pilot. She was shot down near Orel during the Battle of Kursk as she attacked a formation of German aeroplanes.
When she shot down a Bf 109 G-2 "Gustav" on the tail of her squadron commander, Raisa Beliaeva, the Bf 109 was piloted by a decorated pilot from the 4th Air Fleet, commanded by General Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen (a distant relative of the Red Baron), the 11-victory ace, staff Sergeant Erwin Maier of the 2nd Staffel of Jagdgeschwader 53. Maier parachuted from his aircraft, was captured by Soviet troops, and asked to see the Russian ace who had outflown him. When he was taken to Litvyak, he thought he was being made the butt of a Soviet joke. It was not until Litvyak described each move of the fight to him in perfect detail that he knew he had been shot down by a woman pilot.
