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However! I read about Lilya Litvyak the other day. A girl smaller than me (I'm 5'5"), 13 victory ace at 23, pretty as a day (and not only by russian measures), shot down and killed during the war but not found again until the seventies. Conclusion - I just have to build her Yak, and in an Ace campaign would be the best spot!
Problem is though, that she might have painted small lilys on her engine cowling, one for each victory, or perhaps inside the cockpit wall, but that seems to be hard to confirm. I cant find any pics 
Does anybody know more? Does anybody have pics or links? Or is it a lost cause 
I thought about doing one of Lilya's (full name: Lidiya Vladimirovna Litviak, Litvak, Litvyak, or Litvjak) planes as well (but probably won't for this campaign). Accurate Miniatures did her Yak-1, "yellow 44" once upon a time. Her Yak-1b, "white 23", what what I was thinking of doing.
Don't know about lilies painted in the cockpit, but I was under the impression that her planes were devoid of exterior kill marks.
here is a quote about her individual markings and what not:
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On each side of her YaK-1's cockpit she painted a white lily, often confused for a rose—hence the nickname {white rose of Leningrad}. She was so fond of flowers, that she often picked wildflowers and carried them aloft on her missions. According to her mechanic, Inna Pasportnikova, she had a postcard with yellow roses in her instrument panel. The white rose on the fuselage became famous among the Germans, who knew better than to try to dogfight the familiar YaK-1, and usually tried to make good their escape before Litvyak got too close.
I have never been able to make out that white lily in any picture I have seen of any of her aircraft though.
I suspect that bit about Germans not engaging in a dogfight with an aircraft with a white lily is just so much legend though - as if you can identify a small white lily painted under a cockpit from engagement range and position... really, come on. The statement that as many as 9 Me-109s ganged up and concentrated their fire on the aircraft marked "white 23" when she was shot down and killed is more believable.
I have my doubts as to whether or not those under-cockpit lilies actually existed (some sources say it was on the cowl), or if they did, if they were on more than a single one of the several aircraft she flew. Like I said, I have not seen a single bit of photographic evidence for them, not a single profile of any of her aircraft I have ever seen show such markings (which means they were not evident in the reference photos the artist worked from either, as they look hard for such interesting things to include on a graphic profile), and WWII contemporary propaganda biographies and the long after the fact remembrances of old comrades are hardly reliable sources.
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Her remains were found at last in 1979, buried under her fallen YaK-1's wing, near the village of Dmitriyevka. Ten years later her body was recovered for an official burial; and in May 5, 1990 she was posthumously conferred the title of Hero of the Soviet Union by then Premier Mikhail Gorbachov.
As an aside, some Russian researchers have apparently questioned her ace status, saying that she only can be credited with 4 personal kills and 3 shared.
but as that old Klingon saying goes (something like); "Do you believe in the man or the legend? If you do not believe the legend, then he was only a man and it does not matter what he did." (substitute "woman" for "man" in this case, obviously).
