Lily became known as the White Rose of Stalingrad.

They were ordered to test their guns en route, and the short bursts smashed through the new fabric pasted over the gun ports. The women had gone to war.

Although there had been over five hundred violations of Soviet airspace by German photo-reconnaissance aircraft in the months leading up to Barbarossa, frontier troops had been given orders not to shoot them down for fear of offending Hitler.

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.

What do you think we're doing here, Rasanova?" she said. "Do you really think we're playing war games? Our people are dying out there every day by the thousands. We'll be lucky if we survive the winter. And you whine to me because you're not getting exactly what you want. Now get out of my office and never let me hear you speak like that

They have since disputed the effects of the PO-2 night bombing in terms of physical damage, but they found the effect on morale devastating. Troops nicknamed the aircraft the 'sewing machine' and the 'duty sergeant', and the pilots were dubbed 'the night witches'. Troops already exhausted after a day's march were obliged to hack deep trenches for s

Just before midnight on 26 November, 1942, Hitler addressed a personal message to every soldier in his Sixth Army, then trapped in the Stalingrad pocket. He ordered them to stand fast and assured them he would do everything in his power to support them. What he meant was that he would supply them by air with fuel, food, and ammunition until a relie

On 14 June, just eight days before the attack, a broadcast from the Kremlin had described the rumours of a German attack on the Soviet Union as 'an obvious absurdity'.

In the first three weeks of their new offensive, the Germans captured 400,000 prisoners, 1,250 tanks, and over 2,000 guns. It had all the appearances of the beginning of a rout.