A Thousand Sisters: Part III

by Elizabeth Wein
This nonfiction work tells the story of how thousands of young Russian women volunteered to be trained as pilots, navigators, and mechanics to defend their country during World War II.

Here are links to our lists for the book: "Battle Cry: A Prologue"–Part I, Part II, Part III, Parts IV–V
40 words 23 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. straggle
    go, come, or spread in a rambling or irregular way
    One by one, the pilots and navigators of the 588th eventually straggled into their new airfield.
  2. smolder
    burn slowly and without a flame
    As they approached the target area under cover of darkness, there was nothing to light their way but the smoldering glow of burning coal mines.
  3. apprehension
    fearful expectation or anticipation
    But for Lyuba Olkhovskaya’s squadron, the excitement and triumph of that night slowly turned to apprehension, and eventually to grief.
  4. sobering
    tending to make someone serious and thoughtful
    Another sobering accident happened in the dark when Galina “Galya” Dokutovich, one of the navigators, returned from a nighttime flight mission that summer.
  5. starboard
    located on the right side of a ship or aircraft
    Suddenly a white plume of steam trailed from the starboard engine and it stalled.
  6. trifle
    act frivolously
    She told them calmly, “Never mind, girls, this machine mustn’t be trifled with, but certainly is airworthy.”
  7. armament
    weaponry used by military or naval force
    Galina Volova, the regimental armament engineer, called their duties “unspectacular but difficult and important.”
  8. stifling
    characterized by oppressive heat and humidity
    They worked covered with sweat in stifling enclosed cockpits in the summer.
  9. bay
    a compartment in an aircraft used for some specific purpose
    It wasn’t equipped for passengers—the young women had to ride in the bomb bays in total darkness.
  10. inferior
    of low quality
    The men were flying complicated Lavochkin-5 (La-5) fighter aircraft, and they thought the Yak-1s that the young women had arrived in were inferior and underpowered.
  11. oblige
    provide a service or favor for someone
    He turned out to be one of the Luftwaffe’s most celebrated and deadly flying aces, and he wanted to meet the pilot who’d shot him down.
    Lilya Litvyak was only too happy to oblige.
  12. disdainfully
    without respect
    He was so impressed that he tried to give her his wristwatch, but she disdainfully refused it!
  13. partisan
    a fervent and even militant proponent of something
    Eventually they also made hazardous supply flights to the partisans, the guerrilla groups who were fighting against the Germans in the Bryansk Forest near the Russian border with Ukraine.
  14. steppe
    an extensive plain without trees
    While Stalingrad was burning, they were cooling their heels in the fragrant fields of the Russian steppes, surrounded by sagebrush and birdsong.
  15. erratic
    having no fixed course
    Zhenya Prokhorova had taken off one night for a training flight when Commander Aleksandr Gridnev noticed that she was flying erratically. Aleksandr assumed there was something wrong with Zhenya’s aircraft and called out the emergency vehicles.
  16. valiantly
    with heroic courage or bravery
    No matter how valiantly a woman proves herself in battle, her experience of war will always differ from a man’s experience, because she is a woman.
  17. conform
    be similar, be in line with
    Don’t forget: the pressure to conform was a matter of life and death in Stalin’s time.
  18. paradox
    a statement that contradicts itself
    The 588th’s chief navigator, Zhenya Rudneva, wrote in her diary on December 2, 1942, “This is silly, a complete paradox: after all, the war is going on, there is so much horror and spilled blood all around, yet I am convinced that for me this is the best time of my life.”
  19. turmoil
    violent agitation
    My mind was in a turmoil. I told myself mentally: ‘It must have been a printing error; this couldn’t have happened.’
  20. shroud
    cover as if with a burial garment
    When we took off at dawn, a frosty mist shrouded the ground.
  21. citadel
    a stronghold for shelter during a battle
    He had his generals get to work on a springtime plan for crushing the Red Army near the city of Kursk, and hoped to get to Moscow that way. The new plan had a new name: Operation Citadel.
  22. naive
    inexperienced
    But also, they didn’t like how he was talking down to them. They weren’t a group of naive schoolgirls—they were a regiment of well-trained aviators, and some of them had already flown in combat under enemy fire.
  23. shirk
    avoid one's assigned duties
    But whether or not Valentin wanted to be there leading the 587th, and whether or not they wanted him there, he wasn’t going to shirk his responsibility as a commander.
  24. rigorous
    demanding strict attention to rules and procedures
    Valentin Markov came up with a rigorous training program for his pilots. Even though they were already flying combat missions, he made them drill in high-altitude flying and precision dive-bombing.
  25. tarpaulin
    waterproofed canvas
    They built new airstrips as they needed them and lived with the local population or even in hastily dug trenches in the ground sheltered by tarpaulin sheets.
  26. sortie
    an operational flight by a single aircraft
    “My pilot had a stupid navigator and I had a mindless pilot.... By her fifth sortie, Dina felt very tired and kept falling asleep.”
  27. provisions
    a stock or supply of foods
    There, they would be able to collect flour, sugar, and other provisions, as well as explosives and fuel.
  28. discern
    perceive, recognize, or detect
    There were circles before my eyes; I couldn’t discern any digits. I shut my eyelids until they hurt, rubbed them with my hand, opened them again, and still couldn’t see anything.
  29. reprimand
    an act or expression of criticism and censure
    But just as fog didn’t stop them from flying and an official reprimand didn’t stop them from using their own maintenance system, exhaustion and anxiety attacks didn’t stop them from fighting.
  30. legacy
    anything handed down by someone or something in the past
    Her lasting legacy to the 587th Bomber Aviation Regiment was in choosing the challenging Pe-2 dive-bomber planes that they flew, and the 587th’s commitment to those planes would have made her proud.
  31. artillery
    large but transportable armament
    In their bombing runs, the Pe-2s came under enemy fire from every possible direction: submachine guns fired by soldiers on the ground, antiaircraft guns and ground artillery pointed at them in the sky—and of course, German aircraft attacking them.
  32. dismal
    causing dejection
    The 587th was involved in six massive air battles while they were at Krasnodar, including, on a dismal and cloudy day in early June, probably their most dramatic engagement of the entire war.
  33. casually
    not methodically or according to plan
    “Why aren’t you saying something? Tell me some kind of a story, or perhaps sing us a song. Only don’t forget to turn off the radio.”
    That was so they wouldn’t get in trouble if anyone with a radio receiver overheard them casually chatting to each other in the air!
  34. plume
    anything that resembles a feather in shape or lightness
    Now Tonya Skoblikova’s Pe-2 let out a plume of white smoke as it, too, was hit by gunfire.
  35. harrowing
    causing extreme distress
    Masha, Galya, and Ivan were now able to fill the rest of the regiment in on the end of their own harrowing story.
  36. boisterous
    marked by exuberance and high spirits
    Her pilot, Katya Fedotova, described Tonya as “quick and boisterous. She had a boyish haircut and grey, cunning eyes.”
  37. posthumously
    after death
    Soon afterward, Dusya was posthumously given the Gold Star of Hero of the Soviet Union, the first of the 46th Guards to be awarded this medal.
  38. initiative
    readiness to embark on bold new ventures
    She and Katya were both granted the special status of okhotnik, or “free hunter”—a fighter pilot who could use her initiative to go searching for enemy aircraft or ground forces to attack.
  39. strafe
    attack from above with machine guns or cannon fire
    They flew low over the base's makeshift buildings and strafed the canteen with gunfire.
  40. fray
    a noisy fight
    The fighter planes started firing their guns, and more and more aircraft joined the fray, until there were nine Soviet fighter pilots battling forty Luftwaffe aircraft.
Created on Thu Nov 10 14:11:44 EST 2022 (updated Thu Feb 09 15:40:22 EST 2023)

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