The regiment in 1942.

"Night Witches" (German: Nachthexen; Russian: Ночные ведьмы, Nochnye Vedmy) was a World War II German nickname for the female military aviators of the 588th Night Bomber Regiment, known later as the 46th "Taman" Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment, of the Soviet Air Forces. Though women were initially barred from combat, Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin issued an order on October 8, 1941 to deploy three women's air force units, including the 588th regiment. The regiment, formed by Major Marina Raskova and led by Major Yevdokiya Bershanskaya, was made up primarily of female volunteers in their late teens and early twenties.[1]

History and tactics [ edit ]

The regiment flew harassment bombing and precision bombing missions against the German military from 1942 until the end of the war.[2] At its largest, it had 40 two-person crews. The regiment flew over 23,000 sorties, dropping over 3,000 tons of bombs and 26,000 incendiary shells.[3][4] It was the most highly decorated female unit in the Soviet Air Force, with many pilots having flown over 800 missions by the end of the war and twenty-three having been awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union title. Thirty-two of its members died in the war.[5]

The regiment flew in wood-and-canvas Polikarpov U-2 biplanes, a 1928 design intended for use as training aircraft (hence its original uchebnyy designation prefix of "U-") and for crop dusting, which also had a special U-2LNB version for the sort of night harassment attack missions flown by the 588th, and to this day remains the most-produced wood-airframed biplane in aviation history. The planes could carry only two bombs at a time, so eight or more missions per night were often necessary.[6] Although the aircraft were obsolete and slow, the pilots made daring use of their exceptional maneuverability; they had the advantage of having a maximum speed that was lower than the stall speed of both the Messerschmitt Bf 109 and the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, as a result, German pilots found them very difficult to shoot down with the exception of one German fighter ace, Josef Kociok, who grounded the regiment for an entire night after shooting down four of its planes in on 31 July 1943.[7]

An attack technique of the night bombers was to idle the engine near the target and glide to the bomb release point, with only wind noise left to reveal their location. German soldiers likened the sound to broomsticks and named the pilots "Night Witches."[1][8] Due to the weight of the bombs and the low altitude of flight, the pilots carried no parachutes until 1944.[9]

When the regiment was deployed to the war-front in June 1942, the 588th Night Bomber Regiment was within the 4th Air Army on the Southern Front. In February 1943, the regiment was honored with the Guards designation and reorganization to the 46th Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment into the 325th Night Bomber Aviation Division, 4th Air Army, 2nd Belorussian Front; in October 1943 it became the 46th "Taman" Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment.[10] "Taman" referred to the unit's involvement in Novorossiysk-Taman operations on the Taman Peninsula during 1943.

Timeline and operations [ edit ]

Members of the regiment were deployed from the Engels Military Aviation School to the Southern Front as part of the 218th Division of the 4th Air Army on 23 May 1942, where they arrived on 27 May.[11][12]

Sorties [ edit ]

Throughout the course of the war the regiment accumulated approximately 23,672 sorties in combat, including in the following battles:[3]

Battle of the Caucasus – 2,920 sorties

Kuban, Taman, Novorossiysk – 4,623 sorties

Crimean Offensive – 6,140 sorties

Belarus Offensive – 400 sorties

Poland Offensive – 5,421 sorties

German Offensive – 2,000 sorties

In total the regiment collectively accumulated 28,676 flight hours, dropped over 3,000 tons of bombs and over 26,000 incendiary shells, damaging or completely destroying 17 river crossings, nine railways, two railway stations, 26 warehouses, 12 fuel depots, 176 armored cars, 86 firing points, and 11 searchlights. In addition to bombings the unit performed 155 supply drops of food and ammunition to Soviet forces.[3]

Service members [ edit ]

Major Yevdokiya Bershanskaya, the commander of the regiment, became the only woman awarded the Order of Suvorov

Irina Sebrova flew 1,008 sorties in the war, more than any other member of the regiment.

In total, 261 people served in the regiment, of which 32 died of various causes including plane crashes, combat deaths and tuberculosis in addition to 28 aircraft written off.[13][14]

Leadership [ edit ]

Arrested personnel [ edit ]

Senior Engineer Sofiya Ozerkova was sentenced to death by a military tribunal in 1942, but she was later acquitted after her sentence was suspended and she was reinstated to her position.[15] Mechanics Raisa Kharitonova and Tamara Frolova were sentenced to ten years of imprisonment for dismantling a flare (used by navigators to see the bombing targets) and using the small silk parachute to sew undergarments. Both of them were retrained as navigators, but Frolova died after being shot down during the storming of the Taman blue line.[16][17]

Heroes of the Soviet Union, Russia, and Kazakhstan [ edit ]

Twenty-three personnel from the regiment were awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union, two were awarded Hero of the Russian Federation, and one was awarded Hero of Kazakhstan.[18]

Heroes of the Soviet Union [ edit ]

Heroes of the Russian Federation [ edit ]

Hero of Kazakhstan [ edit ]

Other women's regiments [ edit ]

On 8 October 1941, Order number 0099 specified the creation of three women's regiments—all personnel from technicians to pilots would be entirely composed of women. The other two regiments were the 586th Fighter Aviation Regiment, which used Yak-1 fighters, and the 587th Bomber Aviation Regiment, which used twin engine Pe-2 dive bombers. Later the unit received the Guards designation and reorganized as the 125th Guards Dive Bomber Regiment.[19] Although all three regiments had been planned to have women exclusively, none would remain an all-female regiment.[20] The 586th and 588th Regiments employed male mechanics,[21][22] the 586th because no women had received training to work on the Yakovlev fighter planes before the war. The 586th's woman commander, Major Tamara Aleksandrovna Kazarinova, was replaced by a man, Major Aleksandr Vasilievich Gridnev, in October 1942. The 587th Regiment was originally under the command of Marina Raskova, but after her death in 1942, a male commanding officer, Major Valentin Vasilievich Markov, replaced her. The 587th's Petlyakov Pe-2 dive bombers also required a tall person to operate the top rear machine gun, but not enough women recruited were tall enough, requiring some men to join the aircrews as radio operator and tail gunner.[5][23] The 588th Regiment's staff driver and searchlight operatives were also male.[24][25]

In media [ edit ]

A 1982 Soviet envelope commemorating the 40th anniversary of the founding of the regiment.

Film and television depictions [ edit ]

In 1974, the Soviet film Only Old Men Are Going to Battle featured two Night Witches as love interests of the main characters.[26]

In 2001, a UK-Russian co-production starring Malcolm McDowell, Sophie Marceau and Anna Friel was due to be made, but failed to get backing from an American studio.[28]

In 2013 two different productions were released. First came a short animation called The Night Witch commemorating Nadezhda Popova — who had died earlier that year — commissioned in collaboration with The New York Times Magazine ' s The Lives They Lived issue, and directed by Alison Klayman.[29] Secondly, a Russian TV series titled Night Swallows, very loosely based on 588 was produced and distributed.[30] There was also an announcement in the same year of a feature film to be written by Gregory Allen Howard and financed by the grandson of Boris Yeltsin, but there have been no updates since the initial announcement.[31]

In 2015 it was announced that Eclectic Pictures had optioned a screenplay by Steven Prowse called The Night Witches which has won over twenty-five screenwriting competitions, more than any other screenplay currently available.[32]

Media references [ edit ]

See also [ edit ]

References [ edit ]

Bibliography [ edit ]