The white lily

I8217;m reminded of my plane-mad brother8217;s childhood heroine, Lilya Litvyak, a Muscovite. It seems she was blonde, grey-eyed and stunningly pretty. She learnt to fly at 14 and served as a fighter pilot in World War II. She outshone her male trainers and perfected a flamboyant low-sweep-and-roll landing manoeuvre that became her signature. Mad about flowers, she painted a white lily on either side of her Yakovlev Yak-18217;s fuselage. She would pick wildflowers to take on sorties and pinned a postcard of yellow roses above her instrument panel. In September 1942, she became the first woman in the world to shoot down enemy aircraft. Having first helped scatter a group of German bombers, she brought down a highly-decorated German ace in a Messerschmitt Bf 109. She became so fearless and accurate that German pilots would scatter when they spotted the Yak-1 with the white lilies coming at them. She completed 168 missions and personally shot down 12 planes, sharing three more kills.

Lilya was shot down on August 1, 1943, by a group of eight German bombers who attacked her together like the Kauravas encircling Abhimanyu. Her regiment, the 73rd Guard IAP, nominated her for a Hero of the Soviet Union medal. But it took until 1990 for Lilya to be honoured, since her plane and body could not be traced until the late eighties on a crash site at a remote farm. On the morning of her last flight she8217;d found some wildflowers that she pinned up inside her plane. Lilya was no bloodthirsty, vengeful zealot. She simply did her duty. Her country was attacked and so she fought with the coolest skill and courage to defend it. Don8217;t you think she exemplifies Lord Krishna8217;s words in the Gita: Sva dharmam api chavekshya na vikampitam arhasi/ Dharmayddha yudhhachreyo nyat kshatriya na vidyate BG II: 31. Given one8217;s duty as a warrior, one should not falter. There is nothing more blessed for a warrior than a righteous war.