#how cool is it to have an all female regiment in the soviet air force ?????

[demonbloodenthusiast]

91 whiskey actually ruined my life because it got me into not one but TWO fandoms of hbo war shows and now my dad thinks i'm interested in ww2

[wiccan-succulento]

Night Witches: The Soviet Union’s Women’s Night Bomber Regiment

Now this really has nothing to do with my usual content: witchcraft, witches, or Wicca. However, I have an essay I wrote 2 years ago for an English class on WWII which I still, to this day, love the content. I am all for strong and independent female roles, and the Night Witches of the Soviet Union are definitely strong and independent. They weren’t actually witches (though how cool would that have been!) but these ladies are badass, though I have only found a handful of people who actually realize the Night Witch Bombers ever existed. Hope you enjoy! Don’t mind any terrible writing, I was only 13 when I wrote it (: 

During World War II, many civilians reached out and offered their strength in their country’s war effort. Men -and although it proved difficult, women- joined in the war.  In Russia, thousands of women volunteered in hopes of lending a hand to their country. A regiment of female pilots was the 588th Women’s Night Bomber regiment. They were lethally talented pilots who were  feared greatly by the Germans. These women spent six months training and preparing, flew deadly missions in which they bombed German army bases, and were put at the head of a new regiment -the 46th Taman Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment -after the war for their skill.

Marina Raskova, who was well known  as the “Soviet Amelia Earhart”, received thousands of letters from women all over Russia offering their services for the war effort. With Operation Barbarossa, which was a mission where Adolf Hitler and the German forces invaded and bombed the Soviet Union, many Russian soldiers were sent to fight the Germans, taking all of their attention away from the main missions (Holland). Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Premier, on October 8, 1941, gave orders to Marina Raskova to create three regiments of female air force units (The Vintage News). Women were requested to send in a letter as soon as possible if they wished to join one of the three regiments. More than two thousand letters came in. Marina met and interviewed with all of the women, choosing pilots, navigators, maintenance crews, and refueling teams for the entire force (Myles 22).

After having been chosen to join the Soviet air force, the women moved to a small town called Engels to begin the training and preparation of the soon-to-be fighter pilots and bombers. During their training in Engels, these women were treated like soldiers; they woke up early each morning and trained until they became exhausted. What took soldiers years to learn was crammed into their education in six months. Pilots were shown how to use the planes assigned to each regiment; Yak-1s were to be used in the 586th Women’s Fighter regiment, PE-2s were to be used in the 587th Women’s Bomber regiment, and Po-2s were to be used in the 588th Women’s Night Bomber regiment. Each woman was handed a uniform, a hand-me-down from male soldiers, and had to cut their hair short. “We didn’t recognize ourselves in the mirror—we saw boys there,” stated a pilot during an interview (Grundhauser). Many of the female pilots often were victim to sexual harassment and skepticism from a majority of the male pilots (Holland). 

Although three regiments were created, only the 588th Women’s Night Bomber regiment remained exclusively female; "From mechanics to navigators, pilots and officers, the 588th regiment was composed entirely of women." (Grundhauser). Each night, around forty planes, each with two pilots inside, would fly from eight to eighteen missions (Garber). Each Po-2 could only carry two bombs, one under each wing, since the plane was made of plywood with a layer of canvas stretched over it (Grundhauser). With the bombs weighing so much, the 588th could not carry radios, radar, guns, or parachutes. Though inconvenient, this enabled the women to go undetected in each mission until they were right upon the German army. When they were ready to drop each bomb, "The pilot would gear up.. go to a high altitude and then cut the engines and glide over their target as they dropped their bombs." (“Five Minutes of History”). The plane made a “whooshing” sound at this time, which was what the Germans heard, but by then, it was too late. This course of events gave way to the 588th’s pilots’ nickname: Night Witches. The German armies learned to fear them and their skill. If a German soldier shot down a Night Witch, they were automatically awarded an Iron Cross medal (Garber). 

When the Germans began using searchlights to try to spot Night Witches during their missions, the 588th came up with a plan that involved two planes distracting the lights while a third dropped their bombs unexpectedly.  “Rumors began to spread among the Germans that the Soviets were giving the women pills and treatments that gave them the night vision of a cat.”. With planes not made for fighting and the lack of equipment, many believed that the 588th was at a great disadvantage; however, this was false. With the Po-2s top speed being lower than the stall speed of German fighter planes, the plane proved to be very maneuverable. The Night Witches were able to quickly dodge and avoid being chased by German pilots due to the ability to quickly turn and change direction (Grundhauser).

Night Witches are believed to have been a large part of how  the Soviet Union was able to stand against Germany and it’s armies. At the end of the World War, the 588th Women’s Night Bomber regiment was fully accepted as an official regiment in Russia’s air force. The name of the new regiment was the 46th Taman Guards Night Bombers Aviation Regiment. Around thirty thousand missions were flown and almost twenty-three thousand tons of bombs were dropped on invading German armies by the end of World War II (Garber). 

Although the women were fierce bombers, it is known they had “Twelve Commandments” within the force. “There were 12 commandments the Night Witches followed. The first was ‘be proud you are a woman.’ Killing Germans was their job, but in their downtime the heroic flyers still did needlework, patchwork, decorated their planes and danced. They even put the pencils they used for navigation into double duty as eyeliner.”. 

In the total four years they fought, only thirty Night Witches lost their lives, one of those female pilots being Marina Raskova. The “Soviet Amelia Earhart” died on January 4, 1943, when her plane did not make it back from the front lines after being assigned there for the first time. Her funeral was the first state funeral of WWII. Twenty-three women in the 588th were awarded the title “Hero of the Soviet Union” Even though they gave the war all their strength, wit, and time, the Night Witches were denied the ability to participate in the victory- day parade for their planes were deemed “too slow” (Holland).

Germans pushed their forces in World War II, leaving no option for other countries to end the situation with peaceful talk. Many civilians joined their country’s war effort- including the Russian women known as Night Witches. These courageous women braved the cold, skepticism, and stared failure and loss in the face while continuously bombing German forces under the cover of darkness. No radios, radars, or parachutes guided these women on their missions. Hand-me-downs and planes used for training were the only items they could use in their effort. The women went through training, learning everything they needed in six months while it took soldiers years. Going on missions knowing it was a possibility they wouldn’t return. Giving four years of their lives to their country’s war effort and, in the end, being excluded from a celebration for soldiers’ bravery.