Army & Navy – Lady Sniper

Junior Lieut. Liudmila Pavlichenko, Russian Army girl sniper who killed 309 Germans, had to cancel a radio interview in Manhattan last week because a dentist pulled one of her front teeth and the resulting whistle would have been noticeable on the air waves. But in a non-radio interview with Commentator Alice Hughes, she gave her unvarnished opinion of the U.S. woman’s angle on the war:

“I am amazed at the kind of questions put to me by the women press correspondents in Washington. Don’t they know there is a war? They asked me silly questions such as do I use powder and rouge and nail polish and do I curl my hair? One reporter even criticized the length of the skirt of my uniform, saying that in America women wear shorter skirts and besides my uniform made me look fat.

“This made me angry. I wear my uniform with honor. It has the Order of Lenin on it. It has been covered with blood in battle. It is plain to see that with American women what is important is whether they wear silk underwear under their uniforms. What the uniform stands for, they have yet to learn.”

In battle, Lieut. Pavlichenko commands men as well as women, wears trousers. But, she insists, she is a womanly sniper.