Pennington, Reina 1956-

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PENNINGTON, Reina 1956-

PERSONAL: Born 1956. Education: University of South Carolina, Ph.D. (history).

ADDRESSES: Offıce—Norwich University, 158 Harmon Dr., Northfield, VT 05663. E-mail—rpenning@ norwich.edu.

CAREER: Norwich University, Northfield, VT, assistant professor of history and director of peace, war, and diplomacy studies. Military service: U.S. Air Force, intelligence officer; became captain.

WRITINGS:

Wings, Women, and War: Soviet Airwomen in WorldWar II Combat ("Modern War Studies" series), University Press of Kansas (Lawrence, KS), 2001.

(Editor) Amazons to Fighter Pilots: A BiographicalDictionary of Military Women, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 2003.

Editor of Military Women Worldwide: A Biographical Dictionary, Greenwood Press; coeditor of journal Minerva: Women and War. Contributor to periodicals, including Airpower Journal, Air Force, Journal of Slavic Military Studies, and Air & Space/Smithsonian.

SIDELIGHTS: Reina Pennington, a former intelligence officer in the U.S. Air Force, used her knowledge of Soviet aviation to produce Wings, Women, and War: Soviet Airwomen in World War II Combat. The book details how, during World War II, the first women pilots were allowed to fight in combat missions—and ended up flying more than 30,000 sorties. Three all-female units were formed, grouped into fighter, dive bomber, and night bomber regiments. At the same time, Soviet women were also recruited to fly with all-male units. Pennington, who speaks Russian and did most of her research in Russia, draws on personal interviews to portray these women, who included at least thirty Heroes of the Soviet Union, and at least two ace fighter pilots.

Among the individual personalities Pennington studies is Lieutenant Liliia Litviak, the first woman in history to shoot down an enemy aircraft. Litviak was one of the few women fully accepted by her male counterparts, yet the petite blonde painted flowers on her aircraft and kept fresh flowers in her cockpit. Litviak went missing in action (MIA) after one year of service and twelve personal and two shared kills. MIAs were sometimes suspected of being deserters, and Litviak happened to be the daughter of an "enemy of the people," who was arrested in 1937. Litviak's body was found in 1979, and she received her Hero status in 1990, two years after her record was changed to read "killed in action."

Major Marina Raskova was a photogenic pilot, often compared to America's Amelia Earhart because of her long-distance flights during the 1930s. It was she who convinced Stalin to use women and who organized female flyers for the war effort. Raskova died in 1942, before her pilots were deployed. Roughly one-fourth of her "night witches" were also killed.

The Soviet women had been recruited because there was a shortage of males, not as an attempt to feminize the Soviet military. With the end of the war, most of the military careers of these women ended as well, but unlike American women, who kept the wheels of manufacturing moving while their men were at war and then were sent back to their kitchens, the Soviet women returned to improved educational and economic conditions. There were simply not enough returning men to fill traditional male jobs.

History contributor Nameeta Mathur noted that Wings, Women, and War "investigates such issues as gender relations, individual and collective performance, experience and leadership, and the overall impact of the female combat air regiments. . . . The subject matter is new, the research is supported by valuable interviews with veterans, and the book opens avenues for more global analysis on the role of women in combat."