Galina Dzhunkovskaya

Galina Ivanovna Dzhunkovskaya (Галина Ивановна Джунковская) was a Hero of the Soviet Union recipient and aviator.

Biography
Galina Dzhunkovskaya was born in Yurkovka, Kiev to a peasant family. She wanted to become a nurse so she went to study medicine in Grozny in 1938. She changed her mind when the war started a year later and she went to Moscow to study aviation instead. When the war started she was recruited by Marina Raskova at Engels where she, as a navigator, operated 587th Bombardment Squadron which was made out of Pe-2 bombers. One day, she was almost killed when the German planes intercepted her aircraft at the time when she ran out of ammunition. During the spring of 1944, she and Klavdia Fomicheva from 2nd Squadron joined together to resist German presence in Belorus. Unfortunately their aircraft caught fire in the engine, and they almost crashed. By December 1944 she completed 62 missions and even have five air battles. When the war ended she married Valentin Markov who was her commander at that time, and on August 18, 1945 Dzhunkovskaya was awarded Hero of the Soviet Union badge. Later on, she and her husband served in Far East but because of illnesses she retired in 1950. Despite her retirement she continued to study English at the Kirovgrad Teacher's College and died on September 12, 1985.