Nadia Russo

Nadia (Nadejda) Russo-Bossie (17 June 1901 – 22 January 1988) was a Russian White émigré and Romanian military aviator during World War II. She was a member of the White Squadron, a team of female aviators who flew medical aircraft during World War II. Romania was the only country in the world to allow women to pilot medical missions during the War.

Biography She was born Nadejda Brjozovska in Tver, Russia, near Moscow, in 1901. Her father was cavalry general Evgheni Vasilievici Brjozovski (1857–1915) and her mother came from an old aristocratic family. She was to become an orphan as a teenager.

After the Bolshevik revolution broke out in 1917, she and her sister were able to escape from a revolution-ridden Russia with the help of her father's former compatriots and took refuge in Bessarabia, which then became part of the Kingdom of Romania.

Russo flew extensively during the Stalingrad campaign. In 1943, she retired from the White Squadron, before the end of the war, due to ill health. Over the course of the war, the pilots of the "White Squad" saved the lives of more than 1,500 soldiers injured on the front lines.

Imprisonment After the War, despite her wartime heroics, Nadia Russo was prosecuted with other aviation officers, who allegedly had contacts with the English military. In 1951 she was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison and spent the next six years in prisons at Mislea and Miercurea Ciuc, Romania. In 1957, she was part of the Bărăgan deportations. In the camp there she found a new love and married Gheorghe Bossie, a man ten years younger.

Death She died in Bucharest in 1988 at 86 years of age and was buried in the Resurrection Cemetery in Bucharest.

Selected awards Gold Cross of the Order of Aeronautical Virtue with Swords (12 September 1941) Order of the German Eagle, 3rd class (Germany, 1942) Order of the Queen Marie Cross, 3rd class (1943)