In the middle of the night, a faint whooshing sound is heard. It’s almost like a broom is
sweeping across the dark sky. As the German Nazis turn on their spotlights to investigate,
an incendiary bomb falls from the sky and explodes on the structure below.
It’s the Night Witches, and they’re dropping BOMBS. Today on Nutty History, we’re covering the
underrated underdogs of World War II: the Night Witches. This all female Soviet bombing squad
took down the Nazis in epic fashion, even when their own team wasn’t backing them.
Prior to the Night Witches, women in the Soviet Union were barred from combat. But
in 1941 Operation Barbarossa put the Soviet Union in dire straits. The Axis Powers pushed their way
into Russia with four million troops, the largest invading force in history, nearly taking Moscow.
Later that year, Stalin decided that desperate times called for desperate measures, and perhaps
women enlisting was not the worst thing in the world. The Night Witches effectively became the
first women in combat. Previously, women had only assisted in transferring planes and ammunition.
After that, it was a man’s job. We’ll see about that.
But we can’t give Joe Stalin all, or even most of the credit for creating the Night Witches.
That honor goes to Marina Raskova,
a long distance pilot and air force navigator known as the “Soviet Amelia Earhart.”
Raskova received countless letters from women eager to help with the war effort. Many had
lost loved ones and wanted to get in on the real action, rather than supporting from the sidelines.
After petitioning Stalin, Raskova got the okay and began training her all-female recruits for
the 588th Night Bomber Regiment: AKA the Night Witches. Still, all was not fair in love and war…
The Night Witches achieved success pretty immediately. Their first mission in June of 1942
successfully bombed the Nazi invasion headquarters. But winning the respect of
their male peers wouldn’t come so easily. As the first Soviet women in combat, they faced sexism
and sexual harassment from men on their own team, who believed fighting in the war to be exclusively
a man’s job. The military as a whole demonstrated their expectations for the all-female squad by
giving them outdated supplies, shoddy equipment, and hand-me-down uniforms.
Instead of guns and radios, they got stopwatches and pencils. Those...aren’t the same thing.
Their boots were so big, they had to stuff strips of bedding in the toes just to make them wearable.
And as for their planes, which became their unique identifier, they were given outdated biplanes that
had been used for crop dusting in the 1920’s. As Night Witch writer Steve Prowse put it,
it was essentially “a coffin with wings.” What, did you guys want real supplies or something?
Despite their gross underestimation, the Night Witches made do with what they had. What they had
were crappy planes that ultimately had a few key pros and a whole lot of cons. Let’s talk
about those cons first. When we say “plane” we’re hardly referring to a United Business Class cabin.
Even Spirit was better than this. These very basic planes were made of plywood with a canvas cloth
pulled over the open cockpit. And that was pretty much it. Whipping around in the cold wind, pilots
could expect regular frostbite as a side effect of their mission. And in winter, the plane’s exterior
would get so cold that just touching it could rip off skin. The planes were slow, which sounds
like a not ideal feature, but their maximum speed was actually slower than a Nazi plane’s stalling
speed. This made it incredibly difficult for Nazi planes to aim or shoot at the Night Witches. The
little plywood planes could also take off and land easily from most locations, and were too small
to show up on enemy radar, also contributing to their stealthy and ghost-like reputation. If they
were spotted, though, the Night Witches had little defense. The planes had no armor, and because they
had such a limited carrying capacity, the women had no ammunition on board to defend themselves.
Also not on the list due to weight restrictions? Parachutes. If they did come across enemy fire,
the pilots had to dive the planes down. If that enemy fire happened to be pyrotechnic tracer
bullets, the wooden planes would explode into flames. Houston, we have a problem.
One night as a Night Witch was a long and grueling ordeal. Since the planes could only
carry two bombs at a time, each two person crew would make between 8 and 18 missions per night,
flying back to pick up more bombs each time. Because the bombs were so heavy on the very light
planes, they had to fly closer to the ground, which made them more vulnerable. It was because
of this vulnerability that the “witches” only flew at night. Each two person plane crew had a pilot
and a navigator. The group would work as a pack, with the first plane flying in as bait. This plane
would cause the Germans to put up spotlights, which the group needed to see in the dark. The
first plane also released a flare to illuminate the bombing target. The last plane would idle
its engine and glide across the darkness to drop the bombs. Then, it was back for seconds.
Despite giving them their badass nickname, the Germans were not big fans of the Night Witches,
or “Natchthexen.” Their namesake came from the whooshing noise the small planes would make,
similar to a broom. This noise was often the only warning that the planes were near,
since they were too small to show up on radar, and the women didn’t have radios.
Calling them “witches'' added an element of supernatural lore, but surely the Germans knew
that these were ordinary human women, right? Apparently that wasn’t necessarily clear.
One German-held theory was that the Night Witches were criminal masterminds who’d been sent to the
front lines as punishment for crimes of theft - making them professionally stealthy. Their
second theory was that the women had been given special injections that gave them night vision.
Yeah I’m not joking. Superhuman abilities were more plausible to them than the idea that regular
women could be successful combat pilots. The Night Witches ended up being so feared by the Nazis
that any German airman who managed to take one down was automatically given an Iron Cross medal.
The brave and daring women of the 588th Night Regiment put themselves at incredible risk to
take down the Nazis. As for the damage report, the Night Witches dropped over
23,000 tons of bombs on the Nazi side, so we’re thinking
mission accomplished. They also dropped food and ammunition to Soviet forces, so their true impact
to the war effort is probably more than we even know. Of the 261 women who served in the regiment,
32 lost their lives. 23 were awarded the title “Hero of the Soviet Union.” Still, they weren’t
asked to fly in the Victory Day Parade. The reason? Those damn planes were too slow.
Would you brave the freezing winds and enemy fire to help bring down the Nazis as a Night Witch?
Let us know in the comments as well as what other unsung heroes you’d like to hear about next.