Economist, July 20, 2013 (VI)

choi

(6) Obituary | Nadezhda (Nadia) Popova, night bomber pilot, died on July 8th, aged 91.
http://www.economist.com/news/ob ... ged-91-nadia-popova
("The aircraft were old two-seater biplanes, PO-2s, originally training planes, made of canvas and plywood with open cockpits. When it rained, water ran over the instruments; when the planes were shot at, shrapnel tore the wings to shreds. There was no radio and, to save weight, she never wore a parachute. If you were hit, that was it")

Note:
(a)
(i) Nadia (given name)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadia_(given_name)
(In Bulgarian and Russian, on the other hand, Nadia or Nadya (accent on first syllable) is the diminutive form of the full name Nadyezhda, which also means 'hope' and derives from Old Church Slavonic, it in turn, being a translation of the Greek word Elpis, with the same meaning)
(ii) The Russian and Bulgarian surname Popov is "from pop ‘priest’, from Greek pappas (compare English Pope). The name may sometimes derive from a nickname, but celibacy was not enjoined on priests of the Orthodox Church and so the name can indeed mean ‘son of the priest’. In many cases, however, the Russian name means no more than ‘of the priest’ and designates a servant of a priest."
Patrick Hanks (ed), Dictionary of American Family Names. Oxford University Press, 2003.
(iii) Nadezhda Popova
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadezhda_Popova
(1921-2013; brother Leonid had been killed at the front in 1941)

Quote:

“Popova volunteered to be a military pilot, but the government initially barred women from combat and turned her away. But in October 1941, Joseph Stalin issued orders for three regiments of female pilots to be deployed.

“Popova was shot down several times in the three years she spent fighting, but was never badly wounded. On 2 August 1942, she was on a day reconnaissance mission when she was attacked by Luftwaffe fighters and forced to make an emergency landing near Cherkessk. Trying to return to her unit, she joined a motorized column, and among the wounded met her future husband, fighter pilot Semyon Kharlamov, who was reading And Quiet Flows the Don.

(iv) For Semyon, see Simeon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simeon
(or Shimon or Simon; In Greek, it is written Συμεών, hence the Latinized spelling Symeon)

Simeon is pronounced the same as “simian.”

(b) "Somehow she managed, with a cinched waist here and a few darts there, to look like a Hollywood star."
(i) dart (n): "something with a slender pointed shaft or outline; specifically : a stitched tapering fold in a garment"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dart
(ii) dart (sewing)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dart_(sewing)

The photo displays the seamy side of the clothes, showing the fabric was not cut off to make the dart (as I thought).
(iii) Caitlin, Tutorial: How to Sew Darts. Coletterie.com, July 28, 2011.
http://www.coletterie.com/tutori ... torial-sewing-darts

a Q & A:

Samantha asked, "How do you measure for them or know where to place them? Im very much a beginner but I have an idea in mind for a top that i would like to put darts in. Thanks!!

Sarai answered, "Hi Samantha… this tutorial is assuming you have a pattern that already has darts.  If you are adding darts, you basically want to make sure that the dart points toward the apex (high point) of any curve. So a bust dart would point to your nipple, basically. It should end at least 1 inch from that point."
(iv) 10ashus, Crepe bust dart position. Aug 16, 2012.
http://forum.colettepatterns.com/topic/1360/

The photo in this Web page marks two vertical darts and one bust dust (pointing obliquely to the nipple).

(c) A "tortoiseshell mirror" is a mirror whose frame is crafted of tortoiseshell. See, eg,

Tortoiseshell & Parcel-gilt Overmantel Mirror- Item No. 29-3935. MS Rau Antiques LLC, undated
http://www.rauantiques.com/item/ ... Mirror.29-3935.html

(d) Popova "could turn her aircraft over and dive full-throttle through raking German searchlights, swerving and dancing"
(i) rake (v):
“2 [transitive] rake something (with something)   to point a camera, light, gun, etc. at somebody/something and move it slowly from one side to the other <They raked the streets with machine-gun fire.> <Searchlights raked the grounds.>
3 [intransitive] + adverb/preposition   to search a place carefully for something <She raked around in her bag for her keys.>”
Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, undated.
http://oald8.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/dictionary/rake_2
(ii) rake (tool)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rake_(tool)

(e) "Its swishing glide sounded, to the sleepless Germans, like a witch’s broomstick passing: so to them she was one of the Nachthexen, or Night Witches. To the Russian marines trapped on the beach at Malaya Zemlya, to whom she dropped food and medicine late in 1942, she sounded more like an angel."
(i) German English dictionary
* nacht (noun feminine): “night”
* hexe (noun feminine; plural: hexen): “witch”
(ii) Malaya Zemlya
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaya_Zemlya

(f) “The moment the German invasion was announced, in June 1941, she abandoned the dance-dress she was ironing and ran to the airfield. She was one of the first to enlist in her regiment, demanding to be a fighter pilot. * * * In August 1942, having crash-landed her plane in the North Caucasus, she saw Stukas bombing the desperate columns of refugees on the road. The worst, though, was to lose friends. Eight died in a single sortie once when she was lead pilot, as hulking Messerschmitts attacked them in the dazzle of the searchlights. To right and left each tiny PO-2 went down like a falling torch.”
(i) Operation Barbarossa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa
(June 22-Dec 5, 1941)
(ii) Junkers Ju 87
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Ju_87
(or Stuka (from Sturzkampfflugzeug, "dive bomber;" Introduction 1936; easily recognisable by its inverted gull wings)
(iii) Messerschmitt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt
(iv) Polikarpov Po-2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polikarpov_Po-2
(Manufacturer  Polikarpov; Introduction 1929)

She never cried as much as when she returned to base and saw the girls’ bunks, still strewn with letters they had never finished writing. She was tough (“No time for fear”) and surprised at her increasing toughness as the war went on. But she was a woman, too.

The military men never let them forget it, mocking “the skirt regiment” even when its members had become heroines in the press. The women expected it, and did just fine without them. It was fun, though, to organise dances with the men; many of them fell in love; and so did Nadia Popova, with a blue-eyed heavily bandaged pilot she spotted under a tree, another god fallen to earth. He warned her not to make him laugh, as she clearly wanted to, because his wounds hurt. She read him poetry instead, and when she found her Semyon again for good it was at the Reichstag in Berlin in 1945, where they wrote their names in victorious pencil on the walls.

Instead of her beetle brooch she eventually wore on her smart dark suit the medal of a Hero of the Soviet Union, the Order of Friendship, the Order of Lenin and three Orders of the Patriotic War. With enormous pride she sported them, a beaming blonde among the men. She admitted she stood gazing at the night sky sometimes, wondering how she had ever managed to perform such feats up there. Well, came her down-to-earth answer, because you had to; and so you did.