Hero of the Russian Federation.

 

Born into a peasant family in 1916, Yekaterina Budanova hailed from the village of Smolensk, Russia. She earned the highest grades in elementary school but had to abandon her studies because of her father’s death. For a while, she worked as a nanny. When she was 13, her mother sent her to join her sister in Moscow, where she worked as a carpenter in an aircraft factory in the 1930s. Known as “Katya,” she developed a love of aviation and joined an aviation club. She   earned her pilot’s license in 1934 and became a flight instructor in 1937.

 

After the Germans invaded Russia in June 1941, Katya enlisted in the Russian military and was assigned to the all-female 586th Fighter Regiment. The Battle of Stalingrad had sapped the supply of male pilots, so the 586th picked up the slack. In April1942, Katya flew a Yak-1 over Saratov in her first combat mission. Along with Lydia Litvyak, Katya had begun her career as one of the world’s two female fighter aces of the era.

 

Described as tall, cheerful, lively, and a skilled pilot, Katya was assigned to the 437th Fighter Regiment on September 10 of that year, flying combat missions over Stalingrad. The 437th was a LaGG-3 regiment, whose commander was skeptical of the ability of female pilots. But Katya dispelled his doubt with her aggressive attacks and skillful flying. In a LaGG-3 fighter, she claimed her first kill, a German Bf 109 fighter, in September 1942, combining forces with her colleague, Lydia Litvyak. The following month, she scored her first solo kill.

 

From October to January 1943, she served in the Stalingrad area with the elite 9th Guards Fighter Regiment, consisting of aces or potential aces. In January 1943, Katya (and Litvyak) moved to the 296th Fighter Aviation Regiment (later the 73rd Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment) and continued to fly the Yak. In this unit, Katya scored most of her combat claims. She soon got permission to go “solo hunting,” an honor reserved for aggressive and successful pilots. By June 1943, Katya had achieved 6 kills, and heavy air combat near Rostov on Don during the liberation of Donbas raised her score to 11, some of them shared. She received the Order of the Red Star that year.

 

On an escort mission near Antracit, Luhansk, on July 19, 1943, Katya spotted three Bf 109s attacking a group of bombers. She struck and a desperate dogfight ensued. Picking up an enemy aircraft in her sight, she riddled it with bullets. Katya’s fighter soared upward and swooped down on a second enemy aircraft. She “stitched” it with bullets, and it streamed black smoke. But Katya’s red-starred fighter had been hit, flames licking its wings. She landed in a field, and local farmers came to help her out of the cockpit. But she had already died. The farmers buried her near the village of Novokrasnovka. The pilots who shot her down were the only ones who claimed a Yak-1 on that date in that area.

 

Dead at only 27, Katya had achieved more than many who live to old age. Fifty years after her death, she was awarded the title, Hero of the Russian Federation.