Feature Article: Night Witches

By Kelly J Clark

The night is as silent as it can ever be behind enemy lines. The hushed voices of comrades laugh and joke in an attempt to ignore the barely hidden cocktail of terror and excitement bubbling in their veins. Then in the darkness someone asks, “Do you hear that?” The world goes as cold as the Russian autumn and conversation dies beneath sharp hisses for silence. At first, nothing. And then everyone hears it: a whispering, shuffling sound from above, like the swishing of a broom across a hearth. Eyes reflect like saucers in the dark as someone tries to raise the alarm, but it’s too late. The Night Witches are here.

Aviation history is full of tales of heroism, courage, and bravado from around the world. But few are as inspiring as the Soviet Air Force’s 588th Night Bomber Regiment, better known by the nickname used by their German targets: the “Night Witches.” With Halloween around the corner, it seemed fitting to celebrate the women who terrorized so many Nazis.

When World War II began, Russian women were barred from combat, but when Operation Barbarosa thrust the Nazi war machine into Soviet territory, that swiftly changed. Leningrad was under siege and Moscow was in the cross hairs; to survive, the Soviets needed all the help they could get. They needed women like Major Marina Raskova.

Known by many as the “Soviet Amelia Earhart,” Raskova was the first female navigator of the Soviet Air Force and had set many long-distance flight records. For months, she had received letters from women across the Soviet Union; each wrote of the rage, zeal, and loss caused by the deaths of lovers, family, and friends. They wanted to help. They wanted to fight. Raskova petitioned Joseph Stalin and received permission to form female combat units. On October 8th, 1941, the 558th became one of three female air force units created for the war effort, which made the Soviet Union the first nation to officially allow women to engage in combat.

From 2,000 applicants, Raskova narrowed the pool down to 400 women, most of whom were students in their teens and early twenties. Of these, sources put 261 final members in ranks of the 588th. Their training was compressed, brutal, and diverse. Each recruit needed to be a competent pilot and navigator, and also able to serve as both maintenance and ground crew. On top of the harsh training, the recruits also faced constant harassment from their male counterparts. A mix of sexism and the Soviet military’s lack of supplies further hampered the unit. They were provided illfitting hand-me-down uniforms and boots, poor equipment, and no end of grief. Accounts say that they had to stuff their boots with torn bedding to make them fit; that instead of radios or radar, they were given rulers, pencils, and stopwatches; that guns were considered a luxury reserved for the men. But none of that would come close to what would define the unit in history: their aircraft.

The 588th was equipped with a fleet of Polikarpov U-2 biplanes. These were not wartime aircraft: they were crop dusters and training planes. Already outdated by the 1920s, the Polikarpov was

little more than plywood with canvas stretched over and two seats in an open cockpit. In the chilly Russian sky, the plane’s surface was cold enough to tear off bare skin on contact. The planes were obsolete, slow, and could carry only 350kg of bombs.

But the Polikarpov’s limitations also provided an unexpected advantage: they were so slow that their maximum speed was lower than the stall speed of Nazi aircraft, which allowed incredible maneuverability compared to contemporary planes. However their wooden construction also made them incredibly vulnerable. To avoid enemy fire, the pilots would have to nosedive, lest they be torn apart by bullets or hit by tracer rounds that would ignite their wooden frames.

The Polikarpovs could only carry two bombs at a time—one beneath each wing. This weight kept the planes low enough that a soldier with a sidearm could be a deadly threat, so the 588th was restricted to night operations only. The weight also prevented them from carrying any additional equipment, such as parachutes. And so every night, the 588th deployed forty two-person teams, with each executing between eight and eighteen missions, refueling and restocking their bombs between each one.

The only thing more terrifying than being targeted by the Night Witches was their attack strategy. To keep the element of surprise, the 588th would kill their engines and glide or dive toward their targets and drop their payloads silently in the black of night. However the Polikarpovs’ bomb release mechanisms were hastily installed and often prone to malfunctions that required the crew to climb out onto the wings and release the bombs manually— all while gliding or diving over enemy airspace. When the bombs finally fell, the pilots would restart their engines and flee as quickly as they could manage.

Without engine noise to give away their positions, the only sound these the Polikarpovs made was a soft whooshing caused by air rushing across the canvas. To the soldiers on the ground, the noise was akin to the sound of brooms sweeping and thus the Germans began to fear the Nachthexen, or “Night Witches” who rained down death from the back of their brooms. of the 588th were something at once simpler and far greater than any fantastical story: heroes who possessed impossible courage, skill, and determination.

In darker nights, a lead plane would keep its engines alive to draw enemy fire. The enemy searchlights cut the darkness and granted all the illumination that the silent bombers behind needed to hit their targets. There are stories that besides bombs, the Night Witches would drop anything and everything from leaflets to bricks and railroad ties—all to psychologically terrorize the sleeping Nazis. And terrorize them they did. Their air raids were so successful that the Nazis began to theorize that the Night Witches were master criminals, sent to the front lines as punishment for their crimes, or female super soldiers who had been given special injections that allowed them to see in the dark. In reality, the women In all, the Night Witches flew a combined total of more than 30,000 missions during the war—more than 800 per pilot and navigator pair. Of its 261 members, only 32 died during the war from a combination of crashes and other causes, such as combat deaths and tuberculosis. In all, only 28 aircraft were written off. The 588th was the most highly decorated female air unit in the Soviet Air Forces, one of the most decorated in the war, and three of its members would receive the title Hero of the Soviet Union. But perhaps the greatest honor was that the Night Witches became so feared by the Nazi high command that any soldier able to shoot one down was automatically awarded an Iron Cross.

So this Halloween, when you look up to the dark, autumnal skies think of the death-defying heroines who rained down terror from their flying coffins. And be glad that you can’t hear the sound of approaching brooms.

Photos courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons.