A Thousand Sisters: The Heroic Airwomen of the Soviet Union in World War II

"War is war, and life is life."

A Thousand Sisters follows the creation and the adventures and exploits of the three Soviet regiments of female pilots created by famed pilot Marina Raskova in 1941, shortly after the start of World War II. Russia was the only country to allow women to fly in combat and it took no small amount of convincing and political clout on the part of Raskova to convince Stalin to try out the idea. Thanks to the military training undertaken by many of the young Soviet women who grew up expecting to need to defend their country against a "future war," there was no shortage of recruits who desperately wanted to help on the front lines. Almost a thousand of them would join Raskova at the training grounds in Engels, where they would be split into three regiments: the 586th Fighter Aviation Regiment, the 587th Bomber Regiment and the 588th Night Bomber Aviation Regiment (the last of whom would become better known as the "Night Witches"). Throughout the next four years of the war, these women would fly hundreds of combat missions, fighting and dying to protect their Motherland from German invasion and eventually pushing back into Germany itself. A Thousand Sisters is the story not only of the regiments but of many of the combatants themselves, with stories taken from personal accounts as well as histories.

As a history geek, I absolutely loved this book. As a librarian, I want very much to recommend it but also can recognize that it isn't going to be for everyone. A Thousand Sisters is aimed at teens, particularly girls, with stories of women who made a name for themselves in a time in which many were not allowed to participate. It's full of heroism and tragedy and friendship but it's also a ton of information and names packed into an amazing history. Wein tells personal stories to help not only empathize with the women but to remember the difference between Galya Dokutovich and Galya Dzhunkovskaya. I do think the book would have benefited from some sort of index of names as reminders because while I don't usually struggle to remember character names, I had some trouble remembering who was who sometimes while I was reading.

Overall, A Thousand Sisters is a fantastic history that needed to be brought to light and makes for fascinating reading. It never feels dry or boring, but the sheer amount of information can sometimes feel overwhelming. I'd certainly recommend it to any history geek interested in the time period and in the Russian experience of World War II.