True Stories #416 - The Night Witches

WW2 saw Russian female pilots literally raining terror onto German soldiers, yet the story of the "Night Witches" is often hidden in history.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
I'm Seth Andrews, and what you're about to hear is
a true story. No surprises in today's episode, But I
do want to tell you about something that happened during
the Second World War, another slice of history that you

(00:23):
might not have ever heard before. The story of the
night Witches. And I'm not talking about spell casting sorceervises.
I'm talking about women who did fly the skies, but
not on brooms. Instead, they flew by planes. Female pilots
were very common in the nineteen thirty Soviet Union. Thousands

(00:47):
of women belonged to flying clubs at that time, and
Russia had their own military figure that was kind of
an Amelia Earhart for the Soviet Union, Major Marina Rescoe
so In Germany invaded Russia in nineteen forty one, women
who had been allowed to fight on the front lines
were still, for some reason, not allowed in the Soviet

(01:11):
Air Force. Russian women protested to Major Reskova. They sent
thousands of letters. She took those letters to Joseph Stalin
and convinced him. Thousands of females enlisted for the Air Force.
About four hundred were accepted for each of three regiments.
Most were about twenty five in age. They did a

(01:33):
year of training on flight, navigation and maintenance, and because
there were no women's uniforms for the pilots, they did
their duty wearing men's clothing, ill fitting military uniforms that
were so big and so clunky, with boots that were
so big, sometimes female soldiers would grab stuffing out of

(01:56):
the mattresses, jam it into the boots, feet wouldn't walk
out of them. And there was another problem. Russia did
not have enough military planes to accommodate all of these
new pilots, and so the five hundred eighty eight was
assigned outdated Paula Carvo PO two by planes. Essentially, they

(02:18):
were given crop dusters. These things were so old and
rickety that many called them a coffin with wings. A
single tracer bullet could cause the entire plane to burst
into flames top speed about ninety miles an hour. The
crop duster could carry only two bombs at a time,
one under each wing, and because the bombs were so heavy,

(02:42):
the pilots were forced to fly at a really low altitude.
Well that ruled out parachutes. There were no modern instruments
that meant navigation by map, stopwatch, and flashlight. The cockpit
was open, so the pilots were exposed to the element's rains,
no ice, freezing wind. Each pilot was given a pistol

(03:05):
so that if they were shot down, they could save
the last bullet for themselves to keep from being captured
alive by the Nazis. But those little biplanes did have
their advantages. The lightweight made them more maneuverable than the
enemy aircraft it might try to chase and shoot them down.

(03:25):
The wood and canvas materials made those planes invisible to
German radar. The top speed of the P two was
slower than the stall speed of German fighter planes, which
made engagement very difficult for the enemy. The biplanes could
take off in land from almost any field or road,

(03:46):
and the pilots those night witches. They were skilled and
trained bombers, operating from wooden biplane brooms. Night after night.
The regiment would head out for a bombing run night
after night, so many of those planes returned shredded and
barely able to land. One of history's most famous accounts

(04:10):
is of pilot Nadesda Popova. She returned from one thirty
five minute sortie with no fewer than forty two bullet
holes in her plane and another bullet dent in her helmet.
And yet when those battered by planes did land, ground
crew night witches would repair all damage, refuel the planes,

(04:31):
and load up the next two bombs night after night.
Mission after mission, this battalion of female warriors flew flimsy
wood with charged munitions over terrified Germans. From June nineteen
forty two to October nineteen forty five. The five hundred
eighty eighth flew over twenty three thousand missions and dropped

(04:53):
over three thousand tons of bombs and twenty six thousand
incendiary shells. They damaged, store destroyed seventeen river crossings, nine railways,
two railway stations, twenty six warehouses, twelve fuel depots, one
hundred and seventy six armored cars, eighty six gun sights,

(05:13):
eleven search lights, and they killed who knows how many
German soldiers. They also made one hundred and fifty five
fuel and food drops to serve their own Soviet forces.
All of this these women did under the constant threat
of death and in the unfortunate shadow of sexism and discrimination,

(05:35):
as many male pilots still saw them as inferior unworthy
of their respect, and they would take a long time
before these brave soldiers in the sky would receive their due.
In fact, few people heard about the five hundred eighty
eighth and their companions until authored Kate Quinn published a

(05:56):
novel about them in twenty eighteen, a book called The
Hunt t Risks, and historians and military museums have started
to catch up. Hell hath no fury like a trained
woman with a biplane and a bomb. They had been
unknown and unheralded for so very long, and yet now

(06:17):
you know the remarkable story of brave women who reigned
down terror upon a deadly enemy during World War II.
They did so on a rickety wing and a prayer.
They brought victory and they made history. They were the
Night Witches, And that's a true story. True Stories podcast

(06:46):
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