Raspopova joined the military in October 1941 after the
German invasion of the Soviet Union. After completing training in Engels she was deployed to the Eastern front in May 1942 as part of the 588th Night Bomber Regiment, which was later awarded the Guards designation and renamed the 46th Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment. On one mission in 1942 after a standard bombing attack, the
Polikarpov Po-2 she was flying was hit by anti-aircraft fire from Axis forces. To avoid more fire, she maneuvered the plane into a steep dive leading Axis forces into thinking they had been shot down; when she began to increase altitude over a lake, her navigator noticed that the oil tank had been punctured from the fire. Despite the damage to the plane, both aviators survived the incident after dropping their bombs and landing at their designated airfield. On another mission that same year her Po-2 was again hit by anti-aircraft fire, this time causing more damage to the aircraft. The fuel tank exploded and sprayed fuel over the cabin, damaged the engines, and seriously injured her navigator Larissa Radchikova. The plane landed on a minefield but all crew members were rescued by an artillery unit commissioner sent to search for them. Having sustained several injuries requiring surgery, Raspopova received surgery and returned to active duty in less than two months. During the battle for Crimea she survived another close call after being shot down again; after making an emergency landing, she almost taxied into a trench and hit an anti-tank mine, yet still managed to survive. She participated in the bombing campaigns over the Caucasus, Belorussia, Ukraine, Crimea, Germany, and Poland. In total she completed 805 sorties, sometimes making as many as eight sorties in one night. In doing so, she dropped a total of 110 tons of bombs on her targets, which included destroying three ferries, one segment of railroad, a searchlight, an ammunition depot, six military vehicles, and repulsing three artillery battalions. == Later life ==