"Night Witches" The female fighter pilots of WW2

[Hannah Bell]

The Nachthexen

In spite of the rich history of American women in military aviation personified by the Women's Air Service Pilots (WASP's)) in World War II, the U.S. Armed Forces didn't begin training women for air combat service until 1993.

Yet, in 1942 the Soviet Union formed three regiments of women combat pilots who flew night combat missions and were so successful and deadly the Germans feared them, calling them "Nachthexen" - night witches.



Audio slideshow: Night witches

Russia's three all-female air regiments flew more than 30,000 missions along the Eastern Front in WWII.

At home they were known as Stalin's Falcons, but terrified German troops called them the Night Witches.

Here - with the help of archive images - Radio 4's Lucy Ash tells their story, and discovers that their extraordinary exploits have inspired others decades later.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/8329676.stm



Marina Raskova (1912-1943)


The Women's Air Service Pilots (WASP's) had key figures in their organization and implementation--Jacqueline Cochran and Nancy Love. For the Soviet women pilots, it was Marina Raskova.

In 1938 Raskova and two other Soviet women had set a world record for a non-stop direct flight by women when they flew a Soviet-built, twin-engine aircraft named Rodina (homeland) 6,000 kilometers across the expanse of the Soviet Union from Moscow to Komsomolsk-on-Amur in the Far East.

With the aircraft icing up over the Siberian wilderness, the women tossed everything movable out of the aircraft to try and gain altitude. Finally, Raskova, who had been the navigator, decided she would have to go as well. She marked the aircraft's compass heading on a map and bailed out into the darkness.

The two remaining pilots eventually landed safely at their destination, and a hunter rescued Raskova. The three "Winged Sisters" returned triumphantly to Moscow.

On June 22, 1941, Hitler's Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union, and Operation Barbarossa was under way.

By November, the German army was just 19 miles from Moscow. Leningrad was under siege, three million Russians had been taken prisoner, a large part of the Red Army was wiped out and the air force was grounded. The situation looked hopeless.

In the summer of 1941, Marina Raskova, a record-breaking aviatrix, organized the 588th night bomber squadron - composed entirely of women, from the mechanics to the navigators, pilot and officers.

Most of them were around 20 years old. The 588th began training in Engels, a small town north of Stalingrad. In a few months, the women were taught what it takes most people four years to learn.

One June 8, 1942, three planes took off on the first mission. The target: the headquarters of a German division. The raid was successful, but one aircraft was lost. The 588th fought non-stop for months, flying 15 to 18 missions a night. "It was a miracle we didn't lose more aircraft", recalls Nadia Popova. "Our planes were the slowest in the air force. They often came back riddled with bullets, but they kept flying."



http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/soviet_women_pilots.html

http://airsports.fai.org/dec98/dec9824.html

http://mysite.pratt.edu/~rsilva/index.htm