Are There Female Snipers? 'Lady Death' And Other Female Snipers

The news that a Canadian sniper recently broke the record for the longest kill shot put a spotlight on other successful snipers. Military history includes a handful of successful women snipers as well. The most famous: Soviet sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko, who earned her ominous nickname "Lady Death" during World War II by killing 309 enemy officers and officials, most of whom were Nazis fighting in Ukraine. The high kill count made her the deadliest female sniper of the war, putting her image on stamps, as well as stories and songs in her honor.

Pavlichenko was wounded in the defense of the Ukrainian city of Sevastopol and removed from combat in 1942. She then traveled to the United States and was welcomed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt before touring with first lady Eleanor Roosevelt. During this tour, Pavlichenko tried to persuade the Allies to open up a second front in the European war.

"Gentlemen, I am 25 years old," she said famously to a room full of men in Chicago in 1942. "I have already annihilated 309 fascist invaders. Do you not think, gentlemen, that you have been hiding behind my back for too long?"

Since the time of Pavlichenko, more females have taken up arms as snipers fighting in conflicts on both sides, most recently in the Iraq conflict and the Syrian Civil War.

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In Iraq, a female Libyan sniper who went by the name Maria was reportedly responsible for killing and wounding hundreds of civilians, according to a June 11 report by Sputnik, a Russian state-owned news outlet.

Maria operated in a district in western Mosul in the ranks of Daesh — the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, also known as ISIL — before she was killed by Iraqi forces of 9th Armored Division and the federal police.

"She shot at the residents of this quarter when they tried to leave for safe locations which are now under the control of the Iraqi forces," Sputnik's source said, adding that there are many women snipers in the city who used hijabs to disguise themselves.

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In Syria, Hanna Böhman joined up with the Kurdish female brigade, YPJ, to fight ISIS in the complicated Syrian Civil War that has torn the country apart for the past six years. She was smuggled into Syria in 2015 after working in motorcycle sales and a brief modeling career, according to a report Wednesday by Fox News.

"I just felt like I had to do something greater with my life," Böhman, a 48-year-old Canadian, told Fox News. "I spent my life not doing what I wanted to do, but what I was expected to do. I wanted something different."

During her interview, she said that her height made her susceptible to being shot at by other enemy snipers, and she recounted a harrowing tale of being shot at by ISIS snipers whose bullets came so close that she could feel it part her hair.

"I’m so much taller than most of the Kurdish girls and I was always getting shot at by snipers," said Böhman, who stands at 5-foot-8. "On this one day, the bullet was so close I actually felt it part my hair."

Böhman has no direct ties to Syria, and said that her decision was in part driven by her desire to fight "for women's rights" and her experiences in the Middle East was liberating and life-changing.

"It was inspiring to fight alongside other women," she said.