"Night Raiders". Female pilots of the Great Patriotic War

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

War chronicles are full of stories about the heroic deeds of Soviet soldiers who gave their lives to save their homeland. But there were many women among the heroes of the war. For several years, the 46th Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment instilled fear in enemy pilots. And it consisted of girls aged 15 to 27 years. The Germans called them "night witches".

Women join the fight

The idea of creating a female aviation regiment belonged to Marina Raskova. Raskova is known not only as the first female pilot of the Red Army, but also as the first holder of the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Soon she began to receive telegrams from women from all over the country asking them to fight in her regiment. Many of them lost loved ones and husbands and wanted to avenge their loss. In the summer of 1941, Marina sent a letter to Joseph Stalin asking him to form an air squadron composed entirely of women.

On October 8, 1941, the 46th Aviation Regiment was officially created. Thus, the Soviet Union became the first country in which women began to participate in hostilities. In a short time, Raskova began to form a regiment. From more than two thousand applications, she selected about four hundred candidates. Most of them were young girls with no flying experience, but there were also qualified pilots. The command of the unit was taken over by Evdokia Bershanskaya, a pilot with ten years of experience.

The training of the future "night witches" in a very short time took place in Engels - a small town north of Stalingrad. Within a few months, the girls were supposed to learn what most soldiers took several years to do. Each recruit was required to train and act as a pilot, navigator, and ground support personnel.

In addition to the difficulty in training, the women faced disdain from the military leadership, who believed that such soldiers could not carry any value in the course of the war. “The commanders didn’t like the fact that young girls went to the front lines. War is a man's business,”one of the female pilots later noted.

Military difficulties

The army, unprepared for female pilots, was able to provide them with scarce resources. The pilots received military uniforms from male soldiers. The greatest difficulties women experienced with boots. They had to stuff clothes and other materials in them so that the shoes somehow stayed on their feet.

The military equipment that was issued to the regiment was even worse. The army put at the disposal of the "night witches" outdated biplanes U-2, which in recent years have been used only as training machines. The plywood plane was not suitable for real combat and could not protect against enemy shelling. Flying at night, women suffered from hypothermia and strong winds.

In the harsh Russian winters, planes became so cold that touching them literally ripped bare skin. Instead of radars and radios, they were forced to use tools at hand: rulers, hand compasses, flashlights and pencils.

Long nights

U-2 biplanes could carry only two bombs at a time, so in order to inflict more damage on the German army, from eight to eighteen aircraft were sent into battle every night. The large weight of the shells forced the female pilots to fly at lower altitudes, which made them an easier target - hence their night missions.

The plane's crew consisted of two women: a pilot and a navigator. According to Novate.ru, a group of biplanes always flew on a combat mission. The former attracted the attention of the Germans, who illuminated the intended target with the light of searchlights, and the latter, at idle speed, smoothly flew up to the place of the bombing.

The Nazis feared and hated Soviet female pilots. Any soldier who shot down the plane of the "night witches" automatically received the prestigious medal of the Iron Cross. The nickname "night witches" stuck to the 46th regiment because of the characteristic whistle of wooden biplanes, which resembled the sound of a broomstick. That sound was the only thing that their planes gave out. The biplanes were too small to be visible on radar. They flew like ghosts in the dark sky.

The last flight of the "night witches" took place on May 4, 1945, a few kilometers from Berlin. In total, the aircraft of the 46th Guards Regiment made a total of more than 23 thousand sorties. The pilots dropped more than 3 thousand tons of bombs, 26 thousand incendiary shells. During the years of World War II, 23 members of the regiment were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. This effective participation of women in war is still an unprecedented event in world history.