Until 1939 she worked as a sewing machine maintenance worker and later as shift foreman at a cardboard factory that made postal boxes.

[1][2] After the German invasion of the Soviet Union and the subsequent recruiting of pilots for the frontlines by Raskova, Sebrova joined the military in October 1941.

Sebrova soon distinguished herself as a skilled pilot after a mission over Mozdok in which she was tasked with distracting enemy forces so that other aircrews could bomb targets in the area unimpeded; despite the poor weather and dangerous task, she carried out the mission successfully and made a safe landing after it was over.

By October 1944 she accumulated 825 combat sorties, dropping 92 tons of bombs, taking out three artillery batteries, four searchlights, a locomotive, eight vehicles, over two platoons worth of enemy infantrymen, among other targets, for which she was nominated for the title Hero of the Soviet Union.

While trekking through the forest they found the bodies of two dead German soldiers before eventually encountering a Soviet vehicle; they then spoke to the driver, who explained he could not give them a ride to their airfield because he had to finish an urgent task, but he did give them directions to a village where Soviet tank troops were staying.

The two made their way to the village and spent the night in a resident's house; that day, the driver returned to bring them to their airfield, where they arrived in the evening to learn that the regiment thought they had been killed in action.

Previously she had experienced several other close calls that resulted in her having to make emergency landings, but none were as dramatic as the one over Grudziądz.