The inspiring tale of female pilots known as night witches who remain unsung heroes of World War II
The Second World War concluded on September 2, 1945, with the Allied forces winning over the Axis forces, resulting in countless loss of lives. While many were hailed as war heroes for their valiant efforts, an all-female troop of fighter pilots does not get due credit in the pages of history. Dubbed as the "Nachthexen" or “night witches" by the Germans, the team of daring female pilots from the Soviet Union was formed by the Soviet Air Force's first female navigator, Marina Raskova, per History.
At the height of World War II, Raskova petitioned Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin to let her form an all-female fighting squadron. Although deploying female fighter pilots was an idea initially frowned upon by the nation, the Soviet leaders decided to rethink their policy in the wake of Adolf Hitler's Operation Barbarossa. During that time in June 1941, Germany had invaded the Soviet Union and Leningrad was under siege. The desperate leaders of the Soviets ultimately greenlit the all-female 588th Night Bomber Regiment. The squad went on their first mission on June 28, 1942, and aimed at the Nazi headquarters.
The female bombers flew their plywood biplanes, putting themselves at risk of getting killed by the enemies and frostbite in the air, but dropped more than 23,000 tons of bombs on Nazi targets. the Germans called them the "night witches" because of the "whooshing noise their wooden planes made that resembled sweeping broom." The German troops also feared them because their planes were too small to get detected on radar and since they never used radios, their plane's position was not detected on radio locators either. Steve Prowse, the author of the screenplay "The Night Witches" said that the female troops were basically "like ghosts."
Commanding the Night Witches, Raskova found 400 women from more than 2,000 applicants and divided them into three units. Most of the women in the troop were aged 17 to 26 and they further trained at Engels School of Aviation, located in the north of Stalingrad. Each of the women had to learn how to pilot their planes, navigate, work on the maintenance, and also as a ground crew. However, the women had to face a lot of skepticism and hurdles from the male military personnel. Not only they had to endure long days and nights of training under terrible conditions but they also faced sexual harassment.
The female pilots were not given adequate resources either and had to fill in their oversized boots with torn-up beddings and had to wear hand-me-down uniforms from the male soldiers. The troops were provided with an outdated biplane model called Polikarpov Po-2 which was used as crop-dusters and training vehicles by then. These planes were not built for combat and provided no protection to the pilots who had to endure freezing temperatures in harsh Soviet winters. Due to the dwindling military funds, the female troops had to rely on rudimentary tools like rulers, stopwatches, flashlights, pencils, maps, and compasses to navigate.
Their small planes could only carry two bombs at a time and they had to carry out 18 missions per night while flying back and forth to re-arm themselves. The weight of the bombs forced them to fly at lower altitudes and hence they could only carry out missions at night.
Raskova, died on January 4, 1943, after she was deployed to the front line. She was given the very first state funeral of World War II and her ashes were buried in Kremlin. Despite their accomplishments in the war, the regiment was disbanded six months after the war ended and they weren't even included in their victory-day parade in Moscow.