Thread by @kakasloi

Meet the Night Witches, the communist female fighter pilots who bombed Nazis at night.⁠

The all-female Soviet 588th Night Bomber Regiment, consisting of 80 women, flew over 23,000 missions in combat and dropped 3,000 tons of bombs on Nazi invaders in a span of four years, becoming a crucial asset in winning World War II.

They were seen as one of the greatest threats for Nazi soldiers and they were hated and feared so much that any Nazi airman who downed one was awarded the prestigious Iron Cross medal.⁠

⁠Consisting of mostly teenagers and early 20-year-old volunteers, they were nicknamed the Nachthexen or "night witches" by the Nazis, because the whooshing noise their wooden planes made resembled that of a witch's sweeping broomstick...

...when they would fly over enemy territories and then shut off their engines, allowing their planes to glide over their targets and drop their bombs silently.⁣ This sound was the only warning the Germans had. The women took the Night Witches insult as a compliment.⁠

The pilots operated in the dead of night in freezing temperatures. Their wooden planes were so small they couldn’t be picked up on radars and so light they had to lie down on the wings in order to keep from blowing over during winter storms.

The planes could only hold two women and two bombs and not much else. They didn’t use radios, so radio locators couldn’t find them. They were basically ghosts.⁠

The Night Witches were unique in the world as female fighter pilots, because the Soviet Union was the first nation to allow women to fly combat missions.

Other countries, including the United States, may have allowed women to fly as members of their early air forces, but only in support and transport roles.⁠

The 588th Night Bomber Regiment has mostly been forgotten today, but their legacy as women prevailing over an abominable enemy despite all obstacles, serves as an inspiration to anti-fascists and women today.⁠
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(Photos colorized by Klimbim)