On the Eastern Front, quiet could be deceiving. A faint buzz would rise out of the vast darkness, growing louder until it seemed to sit directly overhead. The source stayed hidden until explosions and gunfire broke the night, the ground shook, buildings collapsed, and men screamed. Then two aircraft would appear for a split second before vanishing as quickly as they had come.
The attackers were the Night Witches, an all-female aviation unit that terrified the Nazis throughout World War II. Their story begins with the German invasion of the Soviet Union.
On Sunday, June 22, 1941, Germany and the Axis powers launched Operation Barbarossa. The vast land war that followed became known as the Eastern Front, still considered the largest and deadliest military conflict in human history. The Soviets and their allies won, and the fighting ended on May 8, 1945.
That victory would not have been possible without the bravery of thousands of soldiers, and the lesser-known help of a select group of female pilots and navigators. The first among them was Marina Raskova, regarded then and now as the Russian Amelia Earhart.
Raskova was already an accomplished pilot when her homeland was attacked in 1941. During the 1930s, flying clubs grew popular in the Soviet Union, and although women faced heavy social criticism, they were not technically barred from joining. They were also not barred from volunteering for the Russian military in support roles. Raskova did both.
She was part of Russia's first all-female flight crew, broke numerous long-distance aviation records, and in 1938 became one of the first three women awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union, the country's highest honor. She was widely respected, especially among her peers.
When fighting broke out and Germany threatened to take Moscow, Raskova found herself flooded with letters from Russian women asking how they could help the war effort. These women were not looking for support roles. Anger, grief, and fierce patriotism had hardened their resolve. They wanted to fight.
Using her reputation and established military connections, Raskova reached Joseph Stalin himself. She petitioned the Soviet leader to create a series of all-female combat aviation squadrons, and he agreed.
It would be a mistake to read this as enthusiasm for women's rights. Stalin and the Soviet Union were not eager champions of empowering Russian women in wartime. The arrangement was driven by pure political interest. The first months of the war had been merciless for the Soviets. They had been caught completely off guard and needed every possible form of help.
Stalin was interested mainly in the enormous international propaganda value of these potential pilots. Raskova had already proven she could inspire people with her prewar achievements, and there was no telling what she could do on a larger stage on the battlefield.
On October 8, 1941, Raskova received permission to form the 122nd Composite Air Group. It consisted of three all-female aviation units: the 586th Fighter Regiment, the 587th Bomber Regiment, and the 588th Night Bomber Regiment.
Raskova personally selected roughly 400 women for each unit from more than 2,000 applications, inviting them to join her at the Engels Military Aviation School, where their training would begin. The volunteers were mostly students between 17 and 26 years old, though a few were already skilled pilots.
One of those was Major Yevdokiya Bershanskaya, who had 10 years of experience when Raskova appointed her to command the 588th Regiment. Bershanskaya was the exception, not the rule. The least experienced women were assigned to the night bomber regiment, likely because night bombing demanded less precision and was considered less dangerous due to poor enemy visibility.
Ironically, it was these inexperienced women who earned the most terrifying reputation. In May 1942, about eight months after training began, members of the 588th Regiment were sent to the Southern Front.
They received meager food rations and used military uniforms that were not designed to fit women. Some stuffed their boots with pieces of bed covers to make them fit, but they did not abandon their feminine touch. Some of the women used colored pencils to line their eyes and color their lips, and some painted flowers and designs on their aircraft, which was all they could do to improve their planes.
The aircraft assigned to the 588th Regiment did not exactly meet modern military standards. They were Polikarpov Po-2 biplanes made of plywood and fabric, originally designed in 1928 for training purposes. Later described as a coffin with wings, the Po-2 was extremely small, fitting only a pilot and a navigator, who had to rely on maps and conventional compasses to find their way.
The technology on board was obsolete and of limited use. The planes had no radar, no radio, and not even parachutes. If a Po-2 went down, there was no hope of survival. Because of their construction materials, the aircraft were highly flammable. A single accurate shot from an anti-aircraft weapon meant a Po-2 would catch fire and burn up in the air like a matchstick before reaching the ground, according to an article on the National World War II Museum website.
Making matters worse, the 588th Regiment was highly vulnerable to those anti-aircraft weapons. The weight of the bombs they carried forced them to fly at a maximum altitude of 3,937 feet, or as low as 1,968 feet. Altitude was not the only issue. The Po-2 also had limited range, meaning the pilots had to operate near the front lines.
The women flying in the 588th Regiment knew they were putting their lives at extreme risk. But many preferred the idea of dying while performing their duty. Being taken prisoner by the Nazis was considered high treason in the Soviet Union. If a soldier survived and was rescued, they could face a military tribunal and be exiled to a remote punishment camp or even executed.
Staying in the air carried its own set of risks. If a Po-2 pilot survived burning to death or crashing and capture, she still had to face the elements. As the seasons changed, the open nature of the Po-2 made flying difficult. Flying on cold Russian winter nights meant the pilots suffered severe frostbite just trying to carry out their missions.
Despite limited rations, decades-old technology, and the risk of losing life and limb, the 588th Night Bomber Regiment kept operating. On June 12, 1942, they successfully completed their first mission, bombing several roads and river crossings used by German soldiers at night.
As it turned out, while the Po-2 had major drawbacks, its maneuverability, light weight, and slow gliding speed made it perfectly suited to the task. Its small size kept it from being detected by radar or infrared, and its lack of technology meant it could not be tracked by radio positioning devices either. In the words of author Steve Broz, they were essentially like ghosts.
But ghosts were not the entity that would become historically linked to the 588th Regiment. As they continued their attacks through the 1940s, the Nazis came to know and fear the night bomber regiment, calling them Nachthexen, which translates to Night Witches.
You do not earn a name like Night Witches without good reason, and the 588th Regiment certainly earned its reputation through terrifying tactics. Along with dropping supplies and food for Soviet forces, the Night Witches targeted German ground troops, supply lines, and vehicles. But while supporting soldiers and destroying enemies was an important part of their night tactics, their main goal was actually psychological warfare.
They flew in pairs under cover of darkness. One aircraft would draw attention by circling enemy searchlights and illuminating the target area, while the other cut its engine and glided silently overhead to drop its payload unseen. The Germans compared the sound of the plane to a witch's broom, and they soon realized that once they heard that sound, it was already too late.
After a successful drop, the aircraft returned to base to reload for another sortie, completing between 8 and 18 missions per night, each lasting 30 to 50 minutes. With those numbers, the attacks were practically nonstop. German soldiers were allowed no moment of rest or relaxation, staying awake all night because of nearby explosions. The Nazis could not predict where the next strike would come, but they knew an attack would always be preceded by the ominous sound of brooms. The effect was profound.
The Night Witches were so feared and caused such severe damage that the German army began rewarding any pilot who managed to shoot down one of their planes. They were given the prestigious Iron Cross, but no Iron Cross could protect them from the attacks once darkness fell.
As the war progressed, the Night Witches focused their efforts mainly on the Eastern Front. They were present at many major defensive positions, including the battles of Stavropol and beyond the Caucasus, as well as the liberation of Novorossiysk and Gdansk. They also helped in the Crimean and Belarusian offensive campaigns and played a vital role in Stalingrad, perhaps the most decisive battle that ultimately gave the Soviets victory.
Talking about witches may sound like fantasy, but the hard truth is that the 588th Night Bomber Regiment helped the Allies win the war against Germany and the Axis powers. At the height of its operations, the 588th Night Bomber Regiment consisted of 42 female crews, who carried out more than 23,000 sorties. Together, the Night Witches dropped nearly 3,000 tons of bombs and 26,000 incendiary shells on the Nazis.
They damaged or destroyed dozens of river crossings, railway stations, warehouses, and armored vehicles, and completed 155 supply and ammunition drops for the Soviets. They were also the only regiment in the 122nd Composite Air Group to remain entirely female throughout the war, a fact its members were very proud of, given that one of the twelve commandments they lived by was be proud that you are a woman.
In February 1943, two years before they were disbanded, the regiment was honored with a renaming for its achievements during the Novorossiysk-Taman operations on the Taman Peninsula. They received the title 46th Guards Taman Night Bomber Aviation Regiment, granting them a new level of elite status.
The Night Witches became the most decorated female unit in the history of the Soviet Air Force, with 23 of its members formally receiving the title Hero of the Soviet Union. But despite their countless successes, they did not come out of the war without losses. By the time the Night Witches were disbanded in 1945, 32 women had been killed. Among them was the group's founder, Marina Raskova.
After the war, these loyal patriotic fighters were pushed away from the army and prevented from continuing their service. Many of their most impressive achievements were downplayed or omitted entirely from most Soviet history books. Instead, the Night Witches sought work as commercial pilots, factory workers, teachers, and in other civilian jobs.
For years, their contributions to the war were forgotten by many, but not by other women. The Soviets were not the only ones who deployed female combat units during World War II. The Americans had the WASP, the Women Airforce Service Pilots. Although the flight paths of the WASP and the Night Witches never crossed during the war, they crossed later.
In 1990, on the 45th anniversary of the end of the war, some of the original American WASP pilots traveled to the Soviet Union to meet some of the surviving Night Witches. Their arrival was celebrated with an official military parade, and the two groups of women wrote letters together to then-U.S. President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.
In the letters, the WASP and the Night Witches referred to themselves as sisters in the sky and expressed hope that they could work together for a common cause. They called for a lasting peaceful future for their grandchildren and drew the world's attention once again.
Today, key figures such as Raskova and Major Yevdokiya Bershanskaya have found a lasting legacy through the work of those who came after them. Streets and city squares bearing Raskova's name can be found in Moscow and Kazan. Two memorials have been built to honor Bershanskaya's name.
It is fair to say that although history tried to erase the impact of the Night Witches in the war, they will never be forgotten. Not by the generations that came after them, and certainly not by those who experienced them up close.