Irina Dryagina

Dryagina was born in Saratov on 31 March 1921. Her father was a Volga sailor, then a captain of his own vessel. During her childhood, Dryagina and her family regularly sailed on a barge from Saratov to Astrakhan; her brother Viktor died when he was just 37 years old. She learned to fly at the Saratov aeroclub before entering the military in 1941. Having been a member of the Communist Party since 1940, she was initially made a squadron commissar. In May 1942 she was deployed to the Southern Front with the women's 588th Night Bomber Aviation Regiment (later renamed as the 46th Guards Night Bomber Aviation Aviation Regiment), and she participated in her first combat sortie later that month. While part of the night bomber regiment she participated in the battles for the Caucasus, Kuban, and Crimea, totaling 105 sorties on the Po-2. After the position of squadron commissar was officially abolished in 1943 she transferred to the 9th Guards Fighter Aviation Division as an assistant chief of the political department for the Komsomol.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6]}