What the uniform stands for, they have yet to learn.” It is plain to see that with American women what is important is whether they wear silk underwear under their uniforms. It has been covered with blood in battle. “I wear my uniform with honor,” she told Time magazine. Soon, the Soviet sniper had had enough of the press’s sniping. In Boston, another reporter observed that Pavlichenko “attacked her five-course New England breakfast yesterday. One reporter seemed to criticize the long length of her uniform skirt, implying that it made her look fat. In New York, she was greeted by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and a representative of the International Fur and Leather Workers Union, C.I.O., who presented her with, as one paper reported, a “full-length raccoon coat of beautifully blended skins, which would be resplendent in an opera setting.” The paper lamented that such a garment would likely “go to the wars on Russia’s bloody steppes when Lyudmila Pavlichenko returns to her homeland.”īut as the tour progressed, Pavlichenko began to bristle at the questions, and her clear, dark eyes found focus. The New York Times dubbed her the “Girl Sniper,” and other newspapers observed that she “wore no lip rouge, or makeup of any kind,” and that “there isn’t much style to her olive-green uniform.” “There is no rule against it,” Pavlichenko said, “but who has time to think of her shiny nose when a battle is going on?” Pavlichenko paused just months before, she’d survived fighting on the front line during the Siege of Sevastopol, where Soviet forces suffered considerable casualties and were forced to surrender after eight months of fighting. One wanted to know if Russian women could wear makeup at the front. She graciously fielded questions from reporters. She readily accepted the first lady’s offer. She also happened to be the most successful and feared female sniper in history, with 309 confirmed kills to her credit-the majority German soldiers. Pavlichenko was only 25, but she had been wounded four times in battle. Afterward, Eleanor Roosevelt asked the Ukranian-born officer to accompany her on a tour of the country and tell Americans of her experiences as a woman in combat. She visited with President Franklin Roosevelt, becoming the first Soviet citizen to be welcomed at the White House. Joseph Stalin desperately wanted the Western Allies to invade the continent, forcing the Germans to divide their forces and relieve some of the pressure on Soviet troops. As a battle-tested and highly decorated lieutenant in the Red Army’s 25th Rifle Division, Pavlichenko had come on behalf of the Soviet High Command to drum up American support for a “second front” in Europe. She spoke no English, but her mission was obvious. Lyudmila Pavlichenko arrived in Washington, D.C., in late 1942 as little more than a curiosity to the press, standing awkwardly beside her translator in her Soviet Army uniform.

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