The Night Witches
Women who terrorized the Nazi front at night
AN AIR REGIMENT UNLIKE ANY OTHER
In 1941, as Nazi Germany invaded the
Soviet Union, Marina Raskova, one of the
USSR’s most celebrated aviators,
convinced Joseph Stalin to allow women
to fight in combat aviation units.
Three all-female air regiments were
created. Among them was the 588th
Night Bomber Regiment, later renamed
the 46th Guards Night Bomber Aviation
Regiment. Captain Evdokia Bershanskaya,
an aviator with a ten-year experience at the time,
was appointed the commander of the
regiment. Under her command, the regiment
fought until the end of the war. Most of its
pilots were barely out of high school.
Some were only 17 or 18 years old.
FLYING WOODEN PLANES INTO WAR
The women flew slow and fragile Polikarpov
Po-2 biplanes, originally designed for crop
dusting and pilot training. The planes were
made largely of plywood and canvas.
They carried minimal equipment. Yet what
looked obsolete became deadly. The planes
could fly lower than many German fighters
could safely maneuver.
Flights were highly dangerous and exhausting.
Open cockpits exposed crews to winter winds
and anti-aircraft fire. Many navigators drew
routes with pencils on maps resting on their
knees
The aircraft had dual controls, meaning both
the pilot and the navigator could operate it.
Navigators flew the plane back to base in
instances when pilots had been killed.
Until August T943, the airwomen did not carry
parachutes, choosing instead to take an
additional 20 kg of bombs. Machine guns were
only installed on the aircraft in T944.
Before then, the only Weapons available for
self-defense against enemy fighters were the
pilots’ and navigators’ TT pistols.
WHY THE GERMANS CALLED THEM “NIGHT WITCHES”
The regiment specialized in nocturnal
harassment bombing. Pilots flew in
darkness, often cutting their engines
before reaching targets. The aircraft
would glide silently over German
positions before releasing bombs.
Soldiers on the ground heard only a soft
rushing sound in the air. The Germans
compared it to the sweep of a witch's
broomstick.
That is how the “Night Witch was born.
WAR OF EXHAUSTION
German pilots initially mocked the
women pilots. That changed quickly
The regiment became known for
precision bombing, discipline and
psychological pressure Sleep deprivation
became one of their most effective
weapons. German soldiers never knew
when another aircraft would appear
overhead.
The women flew relentless missions
night after night. On some nights,
a single crew would fly 6-8 sorties
in summer and up to 10-12 in winter.
The intervals between missions were
5-8 minutes.
Because the Po-2 carried only small
bomb loads, crews had to return
repeatedly to rearm
COMBAT STATISTICS
During the course of combat operations,
the women of the regiment flew a total
of 23,672 combat sorties. In total, the
aircraft spent 28,676 hours in the air,
equivalent to 1,191 full days.
The regiment destroyed or damaged
17 crossings, 9 railway trains, 2 railway
stations, 26 supply depots, 12 fuel
tankers, 176 vehicles, 86 firing positions,
and 11 searchlights. They triggered
811 fires and 1,092 large explosions, and
delivered 155 sacks of ammunition and
food supplies to encircled Soviet forces.
KAZAKH NIGHT WITCH
Among the regiment’s pilots was Khiuaz
Dospanova. Born in present-day Atyrau ,
in 1922, she joined the regiment at just
20 years old after training as a reserve
pilot before the war. She completed
around 300 combat sorties across the
Caucasus, Ukraine, Belarus, and Poland.
ln 1943, after a severe crash left her with
multiple fractures, doctors advised her to
stop flying. She went back to combat
anyway, only to return home in 1945,
when the war ended. She died
in Almaty in 2008 at the age of 86.
Today, she is remembered as one of Kazakhstan's
most celebrated wartime heroes.
COMBAT LOSSES
The regiment’s irrecoverable combat
losses amounted to 23 personnel and
28 aircraft. Although many of the
airwomen died behind enemy lines,
none of them were ever listed as missing
in action. After the war, the regiment's
commissar Evdokia Rachkevich travelled
to all known crash sites using funds
collected by the unit, and succeeded in
locating the graves of every fallen woman.
WELL-DESERVED RECOGNITION
The Soviet command eventually awarded
the regiment elite Guards status —
one of the military’s highest honors.
Twenty-three members of the regiment
became Heroes of the Soviet Union,
highest wartime honor. 250 women
received various awards and medals.
WOMEN II in WWII
The “Night Witches" were part of a much
larger story. Nearly a million Soviet women
served during the WWII as pilots, snipers,
medics, machine gunners, anti-aircraft
operators, scouts, and partisans.
Millions more sustained the war effort from
the home front, carrying entire industries,
working in factories, hospitals, collective
farms, railways, and evacuation networks as
much of the male population was sent to
the front.
In total, around 34 million people served
in the Soviet armed forces during the war,
while the Soviet Union lost an estimated
27 million lives — soldiers and civilians
combined. The scale of destruction
reshaped entire generations
