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The Night Witches and Other Warrior Women of World War II

Khalid Elhassan December 8, 2019 31 min

Lyudmila Pavlichenko - World War II — WWII Red Army snipers. Pintrest

1. Liberating Paris

Simone Segouin during the 1944 Paris Uprising that liberated the French capital. Rare Historical Photos

On August 23^rd, 1944, Simone Segouin was with the Resistance fighters of the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans when they helped liberate Charters. She took part in capturing 25 Germans, and shepherded them to POW cages. Simone and her comrades then linked up with the French 2^nd Armored Division as it headed out to liberate Paris, and she was in the thick of the fighting that freed the French capital on August 25^th.

For her performance, Simone was promoted to lieutenant, and awarded a Croix de Guerre. After the war, she became a pediatric nurse, and in 2017, a street in Courville-sur-Eure, a small town near Charters in which she now lives, was named in her honor.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

Alter Net, December 28^th, 2018 – Josephine Baker’s Secret Life as a WWII Spy

Daily Mail, August 29^th, 2015 – The Hotpants Hotshot: Formidable Derring-do of the Nazi Hunting, Gun Toting Pin Up Teen of the French Resistance

NYPost – Meet the Dutch Girls Who Seduced Nazis and Lured Them To Their Deaths

Imperial War Museum – Odette Sansom, GC

History – Meet the Night Witches, the Daring Female Pilots Who Bombed Nazis by Night

Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation – Eta Wrobel

Loftis, Larry – Code Name Lise: The True Story of the Woman Who Became WWII’s Most Highly Decorated Spy (2019)

RTD Documentary – How a Soviet Woman Bought a Tank and Avenged the Death of Her Husband During WWII

Vice, May 11^th, 2016 – This 90 Year Old Lady Seduced and Killed Nazis as a Teenager

Washington Jewish Week, March 1^st, 2017 – Charlotte Sorkine: Unknown Hero of the French Resistance

Wikipedia – Night Witches

Wikipedia – Zinaida Portnova

World War II Database – Roza Shanina

Wrobel, Eta – My Life, My Way: The Extraordinary Memoir of a Jewish Partisan in WWII Poland (2006)

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.