Hi all,

My name is Helene and i'm french, i was searching for infomation about women WWII USSR pilots when i seen this thread... of year 2004... but i don't know where to ask for further informations and such things. In fact i speak just a little bit of Russian (words and common sentences, some verbs etc.) and a bad english (school). I'm nearly pilot (not yet licensed but... i fly and i know how to fly "my" aeroplane) and i see that like a memory duty to the former pilots (not only women).

I also wanted to add that russians were not the first women pilot to fight but the fisrt officially recognized, before them, during First World War there was Marie Marvingt who figth in the "1er Groupe de Bombardement" (First Bomb Squadron). She was born in 1875 in Aurillac, France but lived most part of her childhood in Nancy were an high school and a gymnasium have her name, in France she is not really well known, there is a lot of aviatrix that we could talk about but Marie was not only an aviatrix, she was an athlete, she won many prize, espacially in 1908, 1909 and 1910 at winter olympic games, she was given the medal for all sport by the french sport academy (never given before or after to men or women) she made the "tour de France" alone because it was forbiden to her because she was a woman, for 1911 to 1914 she developed the idea of the medical aviation, she had found the ingenior and the builder but the builder had financial problems and the idea was forgoten. In 1914 when the war begun she engaged as a male infantryman in the 42 BCA (Bataillon de Chasseurs à Pied / Alpin) under the nickname of "Beaulieu" with the complicity of a lieutnant. After she served as nurse for the red cross and went to the 1st GB in 1915, she made something else but even in french i've difficulties to understand that so... After first war she went to north Africa to serve as war correspondent, she could develop air ambulances, during world war two i think she served as a nurse but i'm not sure, after, in 1948 she invented an association for injuried pilots, she did more than 6000 conferences about air ambulances, when she was 80 years old she made a flight in reaction helicopter, for her 86 years she made Paris - Nancy riding a bike and she died in 1963 at the age of 88.

I would like to be able to tell as much things about Ekaterina Budanova, Lilya Lytvak etc. but i have no information