Olga Sanfirova

Olga Aleksandrovna Sanfirova (Russian: Ольга Александровна Санфирова; 2 May [O.S. 19 April] 1917 – 13 December 1944) was a captain and squadron commander in the 46th Taman Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment during World War II. She was posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union on 23 February 1945, making her the first Tatar woman awarded the title.

Olga Aleksandrovna Sanfirova
Native name
Ольга Александровна Санфирова
Born2 May [O.S. 19 April] 1917
Samara, Russian Republic
Died13 December 1944
Pułtusk, Nazi-occupied Poland
Allegiance Soviet Union
Service/branch Soviet Air Force
Years of service1941–1944
RankCaptain
Unit46th Taman Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment
Battles/warsGreat Patriotic War †
AwardsHero of the Soviet Union

Civilian life

Sanfirova was born on 2 May [O.S. 19 April] 1917 to a working-class Volga Tatar family. She went to secondary school in the Uzbek SSR before she moved to Moscow to attend flight school in Kolomna. After graduating flight school she worked at the Department of Aviation in Moscow before transferring to Tatarsk, Novosibirsk in 1940 to train pilots of the 78th squadron of the West Siberia Civil Aviation Directorate. She enlisted in the military in December 1941 and was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union since 1942.[1][2]

Military career

Sanfirova joined the Air Force at the encouragement of Marina Raskova. She trained at the Engels Military School of Aviation, and after graduating the Bataysk Military Aviation School in 1942 she joined the 588th Night Bomber Regiment (nicknamed the "Night Witches" by their German opponents), which was renamed the 46th Taman Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment in February 1943.[1]

During a training flight at Engels where she was flying as pilot-in-command, the plane struck high-voltage power lines, damaging the aircraft. An Engels tribunal sentenced her to ten years imprisonment, but that ruling was later amended and she was asked to join the Night Bomber Regiment to atone for damaging the plane.[3][4][1]

She rose up through the ranks from flight commander to deputy squadron commander before achieving the rank of squadron commander in 1943.[5] During the war she participated in bombing campaigns against German forces in the North Caucasus, Crimea, Taman peninsula, Kerch-Eltigen and Byelorussia.[6]

On 1 May 1943, the Polikarpov Po-2 she and Rufina Gasheva were flying was shot down by a German fighter over Soviet lines in Crimea, but both of them managed to survive after evacuating the aircraft and were rescued two days later.[6]

On 13 December 1944, the plane flown by Sanfirova and Gasheva was shot down again over a minefield. They did not always pack parachutes[7] to save weight,[8] but on that mission they had parachutes with them. Sanfirova parachuted out of the plane safely but was killed immediately when she landed and stepped on a mine. She was buried in a mass grave in the city of Grodno, Belarus.[9] Gasheva survived the ordeal and continued to fly in combat after returning to the regiment.[10]

Throughout the war she executed 630 night combat missions with 875 flight hours in combat, dropping 77 tons of bombs on enemy-controlled territory; destroying a warehouse, two Nazi platoons, five cars, three turrets, and two ferries as well as supplying Soviet land forces with 25 resupply drops of food and ammunition.[9]

Awards and honors

[9]

There is a street bearing her name in Samara, as well as statues of her at the Kolomna aviation institute where she studied, in Grodno, and in Samara.[9]

See also

References
  1. Simonov & Chudinova 2017, p. 209.
  2. Cottam 1998, p. 52.
  3. Rakobolskaya, Irina; Kravtsova, Natalya (2005). Нас называли ночными ведьмами : так воевал женский 46-й гвардейский полк ночных бомбардировщиков [We were called night witches: this is how the female 46th Guards regiment of night bombers fought]. Moscow: University of Moscow Press. p. 336. ISBN 5211050088. OCLC 68044852.
  4. "В бой идет "Дунькин полк"" [The "Dunkin Regiment" goes into battle]. Известия (in Russian). 2008-05-07. Retrieved 2018-04-26.
  5. Cottam 1998, p. 53.
  6. Simonov & Chudinova 2017, p. 210.
  7. Noggle 1994, p. 27.
  8. Soviet Union. Moscow. 1985. pp. iv.
  9. Simonov & Chudinova 2017, p. 211.
  10. Simonov & Chudinova 2017, p. 32.

Bibliography
  • Simonov, Andrey; Chudinova, Svetlana (2017). Женщины - Герои Советского Союза и России [Women - Heroes of the Soviet Union and Russia]. Moscow: Russian Knights Foundation and Museum of Technology Vadim Zadorozhny. ISBN 9785990960701. OCLC 1019634607.
  • Cottam, Kazimiera (1998). Women in War and Resistance: Selected Biographies of Soviet Women Soldiers. Newburyport, MA: Focus Publishing/R. Pullins Co. ISBN 1585101605. OCLC 228063546.
  • Noggle, Anne (1994). A Dance With Death: Soviet Airwomen in World War II. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press. ISBN 0890966028.
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