The Tale of the Nachthexen (The Night Witches)

The Second World War (1939-1945) is regarded as one of the worst periods in history. With over 60 million fatal casualties and even more deaths because of organized famines, genocides. However, despite the stories of gloom and death, there were instances of great acts of humanity, nationalism, empowerment, and even some miracles. This article seeks to highlight the silver linings that explore once such legend which was accomplished by women.

As the Second World War progressed, on the Western Soviet Front; there was a dire need for fighters in the Soviet Air Force. The Germans, with their highly successful strafing attacks and carpet bombing campaigns needed to lose their air superiority for the Soviet victory. Hence, an all-new all-female regiment of fighter pilots was created. This was the 588th Night Bomber Regiment and from 1943 came to be the 46th Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment. Known to the Nazis as the Nachthexen (English: Night Witches) for the whistling noise caused by their planes, imitating the sound of brooms sweeping, were founded by Major Marina Raskova who convinced Stalin to give the go-ahead for the creation of the regiment. The brave members of this regiment mainly participated in night-time precision bombing missions and strafing attacks and dropped approximately 20,000 tons of bombs on Nazi territory and thus made them much feared by the Wehrmacht. Due to the lack of funding, the regiment was given Polikarpov U2 biplanes which were very basic aircraft designed for the intention of training personnel. The main setbacks for the Nachthexen were that the planes could carry not more than 2 bombs at a time and hence required the carrying out of multiple visions and also the relatively slow pace compared to the Luftwaffe’s Messerschmitt series fighter planes. Apart from the planes, the regiment also had to suffer from the lack of radios, radars, etc. because of the shortage of funds. However, some of these “setbacks” actually helped the pilots in some ways. The lack of radios gave them an edge over the Germans as they could not be intercepted and the small size of their planes also meant more maneuverability and less radar inception. Coming now to the specifics of their operations, the Night Witches carried out more than 23,000 sorties in all (a sortie is an individual flight of an aircraft in aerial warfare) and flew for 30,000 hours. Other than participating in bombing missions, the regiment also took part in over 150 supply drops for food, ammunition, etc. There were 261 serving members (32 of whom died in combat) in the regiment under the leadership of the Regiment Commander Yevdokia Bershanskaya. About 23 fighters were awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union title, 2 the Hero of the Russian Federation, and one of them was awarded the Hero of Kazakhstan. Six months after WWII ended, the regiment was disbanded and was also not allowed to participate in the Victory Day Parade of the USSR because of the ‘slow pace of the planes’. However, despite its unfortunate ending, the Nachthexen became global icons for women. These brave women have a film dedicated to them called the Night Witches In The Sky which was a Soviet film directed by one of the members of the regiment.