Pilots and navigators were in the air until nightfall in a process of continuous assessment that would decide at the end of six months exactly who was assigned to which of the three regiments - the 586th Women's Fighter Regiment, the 587th Women's Bomber Regiment, or the 588th Women's Night Bomber Regiment.

The plant was near the river, to the north of Mamayev Hill, the highest ground in the city. Both the tractor plant and the hill, scenes of some of the most bitter hand-to-hand fighting of the entire war, were to become familiar navigational landmarks for the bomber crews as the months went by.

What she came to realize was that most of her friends and colleagues were undergoing the same rapid maturing and toughening process. In direct proportion to the mental toughening grew a bond of loyalty so intense it could never be shared or even properly understood by those who had not served with these elite units.

As a result our fighter aircraft were concentrated, on 22 June, on a very limited number of airfields, which prevented their proper camouflage, manoeuvrability and dispersal. Also, some of the new airfields had been built much too close to the frontier, which made them specially vulnerable in the event of a surprise attack.

Aside from being the political and cultural centre of the Soviet Union, Moscow was an important military target for German bombers if for no other reason than the railway network that fanned out in vital links to the hard-pressed Red Army.

The evacuation of the city's 600,000 residents continued, as did the round-the-clock aerial bombardment of enemy positions. In its way, this bombing was to prove more effective in providing ready-made defences than anything the Soviet army could have erected, And while the Germans advanced into the city, the air force raced against time to build

They had joined the Osoaviakhim, the paramilitary flying clubs where, from the age of seventeen, they learned free of charge to fly first gliders, then powered aircraft.

It was a thought of quite charming naiveté.

The women were soldiers now, but of equal importance to them was their femininity. Galina Junkovskaya told me, 'We knew from the outset that we were to be combat fliers, doing exactly the same type of sorties as male aircrews. We were to have equality in every possible sense, though in reality we had to struggle for that in some cases when we got