Review:The White Rose of Stalingrad

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Title: The White Rose of Stalingrad
Authour: Billy Yenne
Publisher: Osprey
ISBN: 978 1 84908 8107
Stars: 3 (out of 5)

This book is about the highest scoring Soviet FEMALE ace, Lidiya Vladimirovna Litvyak, in WWII. As I do not have many books on Soviet aces let alone female ones, I thought this book would be interesting. Well, it is interesting in that the first half of the book talks about how the Soviet female pilots came to be. Their training, the key figures in female aviation and then their ultimate acceptance into combat formations. Lidiya, the person this book is about, is talked about, though ever so briefly. At one point, so many new people were being discussed on who was training, who was friends, whose parents had been taken away, I found myself going back a few pages just to figure out who was who.
The second half of the book does talk more about Lidiya after her training and posting to a combat unit. There is talk about her victories, and then victories of other female pilots. There are some good descriptions of when she arrived around Stalingrad and of some of her early sorties. There is some talk about dog fights but I never did get the feel of her being "The White Rose of Stalingrad". I felt that the book would be going along on a theme and all of a sudden someone remembered this was a biography and Lidiya would be tied into it....or her friends.....or a superior etc.
There is some good research in that the authour talks about certain German pilots that Lidiya met in the skies on the Eastern Front and the ultimate outcome. Names and fates of the German pilots are described.
I do recommend the book if someone is looking for the history of Soviet female pilots in WWII. This book, if just written on Lidiya, could of been a lot more shorter.