In 1942 Washington, D.C., American reporters asked a Soviet combat veteran whether she wore makeup on the front lines and criticized her uniform skirt for making her look fat. What they failed to grasp was that they were insulting Lyudmila Pavlichenko, the deadliest female sniper in history, with 309 confirmed kills. This episode follows her path from a history student and amateur sharpshooter at Kyiv University to a senior sergeant and lieutenant fighting in the brutal sieges of Odessa and Sevastopol.

Pavlichenko's tally included 36 enemy snipers, won through patient and lethal counter-sniper duels. After taking shrapnel to the face and losing her sniper husband to a mortar shell, she was evacuated by submarine because the Soviet state deemed her symbolic value too great to lose. Sent on a publicity tour to pressure the Allies into opening ...