1943, a lone German encampment in the dead of Russian winter. Except for the strained sounds of merriment as both sides take a respite from fighting, all is silent. A drunk German soldier, moving from one tent to another, takes a long sip from his bottle, and pauses to listen. And that’s when he hears it: what sounds like the wooshing of a witches broomstick, or at least that’s what his wine-addled mind thinks it sounds like. Minutes pass, and the sound gets gradually louder, a soft whistle that breaks the silent night. Then, boom, the truth hits him as a one hundred kilo bomb falls to the mud nearby and the full force of a rocking explosion hits him. Boom, another explosion rocks the camp, and another, and another. This German encampment was just struck by the feared all female bombing regiment known as the 588th night bomber regiment, nicknamed Nachthexen, or Night witches, by the German army.
The legendary career of the 588th began with navigator and pilot Marina Raskova. She was born Marina Malinina on March 28th, 1912, to Mikhail Malinin and Anna Lyubatovich. Unlike most female aviators of the time, she did not want to be a pilot, instead, she wanted to be an opera singer. Unfortunately, when she was seven, her father, Mikhail, died in a motorcycle accident. This left the remaining family not much in the way of money, so when she contracted an ear infection, her family could not afford treatment, and she gave up on her dreams of opera. Instead, to help support her family, she devoted herself to chemistry and engineering. She decided to go to college, and when she graduated, got a job at a dye factory. This is where she met Sergey Raskov, an engineer who also worked for the dye factory. After getting married in 1930, she had a child and changed her name to Marina Raskova. The following year, she first started her career in aviation, working as a draftswoman at the Aero Navigation Laboratory of the Air Force Academy.
From here, Marina began her training as an aviator. In 1932, she began to teach at the academy. In 1933, she became the first Russian woman to ever graduate as an aviation navigator. In 1934, she became the first female aviation instructor, and in 1935, she finally got her aviation license. After obtaining her license, Marina decided to break some records. In 1937, Marina, aided with the help of Valentina Grizodubova, flew 1,445 kilometers, setting the female world record for long distance non-stop flight. In 1938, she would break that record three more times.
At the time the second world war began, it was forbidden for a woman to fly for the air force. Most female aviators compensated for this by joining flight clubs. Flight clubs were groups pilots could join to show off their aerial prowess, or just talk about aviation. Some women, however, were not satisfied with joining a flight club, they wanted to fight for their country. At this point, the name Marina Raskova was known to practically every female pilot. Some women started sending letters to her, asking her to intervene and let them fight. Marina’s solution was to exploit the fact that Stalin admired her and to show him the letters, managing to convince him to let the women fight. And finally, on October 8th, 1941, just a few months after the Germans initiated operation Barbarossa, Stalin issued the order to form three separate all female fighter aviation regiments, those being the 586th Fighter Aviation regiment, the 587th Bomber Aviation regiment, and the 588th Night Bomber regiment. These regiments would be the first all female aviation regiments in history, to quote Stalin, it would be of “tremendous international propaganda value”.
Thousands of women enlisted, but only around 400 were accepted for each regiment. Most of the women that signed up were in their late teens to mid twenties; some were even still in college. Starting in October of 1941, the women began an intensive training program. They were taught to fly, navigate, and maintain their aircraft. The uniforms they were given were often too baggy, being meant for men instead of women. They were not supplied with radios, radars, navigation equipment, or weapons. Yet they still made the most of it, they filled their boots with torn bedding to make sure they fit, they cut their hair short, they painted flowers on the side of their planes, they even used navigation pencils as makeup. The women proved to be persistent, a normal all male training program usually took 18 months, but the women graduated in six.
Raskova decided she would pick the final post for each graduate, and put the most qualified on the 586th, the second most qualified in the 587th, and the least qualified in the 588th. Raskova herself decided to join the 587th, however, the regiment only had out-of-date Sukhoi Su-2 bombers, so it took a while before they could acquire brand new Petlyakov Pe-2 dive bombers. Because of that, the 587th joined the war a bit late. And, on the 4th of January, 1943, the first real assignment for the 587th, a mighty blizzard caused the death of Raskova after she crashed into the high bank wall of the Volga river.
Led by Yevdokia Bershanskaya, the 588th consisted of 260 women, including navigators, ground crew, and support staff. The planes they flew were outdated Polikarpov Po-2s. These were rickety training biplanes that had canvas wings, plywood frames, and an open fuselage. Because of this open fuselage, they were exposed to the elements, and were often at risk of frostbite, and, even more grisly, their skin could come off if they rested it on the plane, a far more extreme version of getting your tongue stuck to a powerline. The planes themselves had a top speed of 90 miles per hour, which was much slower than the German Messerschmitt Bf 109 (330 mph) and Focke-Wulf Fw 190 (405 mph). However, the women once again proved that they were resourceful, since the German planes were faster, they took longer to turn, which means the slow Po-2s could outmaneuver them. Still, some returned with bullet holes in their wings. One woman, Nadezhda Popova, once returned with 42 total bullet holes in her map, helmet, and wings, and yet she was unscathed. 32 didn’t come back at all.
Each night a sortie of around 40 pilots would fly from their temporary base on a bombing run; they had no advanced navigating system, so they used maps, compasses, stopwatches, pencils, and flashlights to guide them to their target. The bombs themselves were quite heavy, nearly too heavy for the planes to handle, so they had to fly low to the ground, sometimes at the height of a hedge maze, making them easy to see during the day. And, for this reason, they also did not carry parachutes.
As mentioned before, the Po-2s were made of mainly plywood, which, yes, made them flying coffins, but it also meant that they did not show up on radar, and again the women would take advantage of this. German camps were set up so the most likely target to be attacked was surrounded by circles of spotlights and flak guns, making it difficult to properly bomb and get away. The 588th flew in groups of three, and once they were spotted, the outer two would split off to distract the Germans, leaving the inner one to drop its payload. Then, they would circle back and repeat this process until all bombs were dropped. Then they would fly back to their temporary base, refuel and rearm, and do it all again on another target. They would perform eight to eighteen bombing runs per night. Because of this, they slept during the day, and even then they did not get much sleep. Their attacks also prevented the Germans from sleeping, lowering morale and spreading disorder and chaos.
By October of 1945, they had flown approximately 23,672 combat sorties, collectively logged 28,676 flight hours, and dropped 3,000 tons of bombs and 26,000 incendiary shells. Damaging or destroying 17 river crossings, 9 railways, 2 railway stations, 26 warehouses, 12 fuel depots, 176 armored cars, 86 prepared firing positions, and 11 searchlights, as well as making 155 supply drops to soviet forces and partisans.
Even after the war, the 588th still faced discrimination, many men viewed them as inferior, and they weren’t shown much respect. At the Soviet victory parade, the 588th were not allowed to fly their planes because they were too slow. But because of that discrimination, they had more determination to succeed, they worked harder, and because of that hard work, some grew to show respect and admiration, and now they are remembered by those who care.
Sources:
The Wikipedia page for Marina Raskova
The Wikipedia Page for the Night Witches
Marina Raskova and The Night Witches
The wikipedia pages for the Messerschmitt Bf 109 and Focke-Wulf Fw 190