{"id":204571,"date":"2026-04-04T10:21:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T08:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/?p=204571"},"modified":"2026-06-26T10:01:30","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T08:01:30","slug":"night-witches-soviet-women-who-bombed-by-moonlight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/night-witches-soviet-women-who-bombed-by-moonlight\/","title":{"rendered":"Night Witches: Soviet Women Who Bombed by Moonlight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"background:#f0f4f8;border-left:4px solid #1a3a5c;padding:18px 22px;margin:0 0 28px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0;font-size:15px;line-height:1.7\">\n<strong style=\"font-size:16px\">Quick Facts<\/strong><br>\n<strong>Unit<\/strong> 588th Night Bomber Regiment, Soviet Air Forces<br>\n<strong>Nickname<\/strong> Nachthexen (\u201cNight Witches\u201d) \u2014 given by terrified German soldiers<br>\n<strong>Aircraft<\/strong> Polikarpov Po-2 biplane (1920s design, wood and canvas)<br>\n<strong>Personnel<\/strong> All-female \u2014 pilots, navigators, mechanics, commanders<br>\n<strong>Combat Missions<\/strong> 30,000+ night bombing sorties (1942\u20131945)<br>\n<strong>Bombs Dropped<\/strong> ~23,000 tonnes<br>\n<strong>Losses<\/strong> 32 pilots killed in action<br>\n<strong>Honours<\/strong> 23 members awarded Hero of the Soviet Union \u2014 the highest military distinction\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px\"><img data-opt-id=2131380686  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/c\/c8\/Po-2.jpg\/960px-Po-2.jpg\" alt=\"Polikarpov Po-2 biplane used by the Night Witches in World War II\" style=\"display:block;width:100%!important;max-width:100%!important;height:auto!important;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">The Polikarpov Po-2 \u2014 a 1920s crop duster turned night bomber. The Night Witches flew these canvas-and-wood biplanes on 30,000 combat missions against the Wehrmacht. (Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They cut their engines above the target. In the sudden silence, the only sound was wind through canvas wings \u2014 a faint whooshing that German soldiers said sounded like a broomstick sweeping the sky. Then the bombs fell. By the time the explosions lit up the ground, the biplane was already gone, swallowed by darkness. The Germans called them Nachthexen. Night Witches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The 588th Night Bomber Regiment was an all-female Soviet unit that flew over 30,000 combat missions in aircraft that belonged in a museum. Their Polikarpov Po-2 biplanes were designed in 1928 as crop dusters and trainers \u2014 open cockpits, fabric-covered frames, a top speed slower than most cars on the autobahn. They had no armour, no radios, no parachutes (to save weight for one more bomb), and no gun sights. The pilots dropped their ordnance by hand, using a rudimentary wire-and-nail contraption to aim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And they were devastating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" style=\"padding-top:22px\">Born Out of Desperation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In October 1941, the Soviet Union was losing the war. The Wehrmacht had reached the outskirts of Moscow. Millions of soldiers were dead, captured, or encircled. In this crisis, Major Marina Raskova \u2014 a famous Soviet aviator known as the \"Soviet Amelia Earhart\" \u2014 petitioned Stalin directly to form three all-female air regiments. Women had been clamouring to fly combat since the invasion began. The men said no. Raskova went over their heads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Stalin approved. Three regiments were formed: a fighter regiment, a dive-bomber regiment, and the 588th Night Bomber Regiment. The 588th was unique even among these: every role was filled by women. Pilots, navigators, ground crew, mechanics, armorers, commanders \u2014 all female, most of them between 17 and 26 years old. Many were university students who had learned to fly in Soviet civilian aviation clubs. Within months, they were flying combat missions against an enemy that had conquered most of continental Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The regiment's commander, Major Yevdokia Bershanskaya, led the unit from its formation in 1942 until the end of the war. Under her command, the 588th would become the most decorated female unit in Soviet military history \u2014 and one of the most effective night harassment squadrons on the Eastern Front.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" style=\"padding-top:22px\">The Art of Silent Bombing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Po-2 was a liability in daylight. Any Luftwaffe fighter could catch it, outrun it, and shred its canvas skin with a single burst. So the 588th flew exclusively at night, in missions that would have been considered suicidal by any conventional military standard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The tactic was elegant in its simplicity. The Po-2s flew in groups of three. Two aircraft would approach the target first, splitting apart to draw searchlights and anti-aircraft fire in opposite directions. While the gunners tracked the decoys, the third aircraft glided in with its engine cut, invisible and inaudible, releasing its bombs in the seconds before the Germans realised the real threat wasn't where they were shooting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Each aircraft carried only two bombs \u2014 the Po-2 couldn't lift more. So the pilots flew multiple sorties per night: eight, ten, sometimes eighteen round trips between their airfield and the target. They would land, have their mechanics reload the bombs in five minutes, and take off again. By dawn, a single pilot might have dropped over a tonne of explosives on German positions \u2014 delivered two bombs at a time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The psychological effect was immense. German soldiers never knew when the next silent attack would come. Sleep was impossible. Every night brought the whooshing sound of canvas wings and the crack of explosions in the darkness. The harassment was relentless, and it ground down German morale in a way that conventional bombing couldn't match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" style=\"padding-top:22px\">The Cost of Courage<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thirty-two Night Witches were killed in action over three years of continuous combat. The Po-2 offered no protection. A single tracer round could ignite the fabric-covered airframe, turning it into a flying torch. There were no ejection seats, no self-sealing fuel tanks, no armour plating. The only defence was darkness, skill, and nerve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Twenty-three members of the regiment received the Hero of the Soviet Union medal \u2014 the highest military honour in the Soviet Armed Forces. For perspective, entire divisions of male soldiers on the Eastern Front produced fewer Heroes. The women of the 588th earned their recognition in the most dangerous aircraft, flying the most hazardous missions, night after night, for three years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They flew their last missions in May 1945, bombing German positions during the Battle of Berlin. When the war ended, the Soviet military disbanded the regiment and told its members to go home. Most returned to civilian life without fanfare. Their story, suppressed during the Cold War and overlooked in Western histories, has only gained the recognition it deserves in recent decades. The Night Witches flew biplanes made of canvas and courage into the teeth of the most powerful military machine in history \u2014 and they never stopped coming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Sources: \u201cNight Witches: The Untold Story of Soviet Women in Combat\u201d by Bruce Myles, Russian Aviation Museum archives, Smithsonian Air & Space Magazine<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n<!-- mf-faq -->\n\n<div class=\"mf-faq-block\"><style>.mf-faq-block{margin:34px 0}.mf-faq-item:not([open]) .mf-faq-answer{display:none !important}.mf-faq-block h2.mf-faq-h{padding-top:22px;margin-bottom:14px}.mf-faq-item{border:1px solid #e2e8f5;border-radius:8px;margin:0 0 10px;background:#fff}.mf-faq-item summary{list-style:none;cursor:pointer;padding:15px 50px 15px 18px;font-weight:600;color:#1a1a1a;position:relative;line-height:1.45;user-select:none}.mf-faq-item summary::-webkit-details-marker{display:none}.mf-faq-item summary::after{content:\"+\";position:absolute;right:18px;top:50%;transform:translateY(-50%);font-size:1.5em;font-weight:400;color:#5C91FF;line-height:1}.mf-faq-item[open] summary::after{content:\"\\2013\"}.mf-faq-item[open] summary{border-bottom:1px solid #eef1f8}.mf-faq-item summary:hover{background:#f5f8ff}.mf-faq-answer{padding:14px 18px;color:#333;line-height:1.6}.mf-faq-answer p{margin:0}.mf-faq-answer a{color:#5C91FF}<\/style><h2 class=\"mf-faq-h\">Related Questions<\/h2><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>Who were the Night Witches?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>The Night Witches were the 588th Night Bomber Regiment, an all-female unit of the Soviet Air Forces that flew night bombing raids against Nazi Germany from 1942 to 1945. Pilots, navigators and mechanics were all women. German soldiers gave them the name \"Nachthexen,\" or Night Witches, after the eerie whoosh of their gliding biplanes.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>What aircraft did the Night Witches fly?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>The Night Witches flew the Polikarpov Po-2, a wood-and-canvas biplane designed in 1928 as a crop duster and trainer. It had open cockpits, no armour, no radios and no parachutes, weight saved for one more bomb. Pilots aimed by hand with a crude wire-and-nail sight, yet flew more than 30,000 combat missions in these obsolete machines.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>Why were they called the Night Witches?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>German soldiers named them \"Nachthexen,\" or Night Witches, because of how they attacked. The pilots cut their engines near the target and glided silently; the only sound was wind through the canvas wings, which troops said resembled a broomstick sweeping the sky. By the time the bombs exploded, the biplane had already vanished into the darkness.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>How many missions did the Night Witches fly?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>The 588th Night Bomber Regiment flew over 30,000 night bombing sorties between 1942 and 1945, dropping roughly 23,000 tonnes of bombs. Thirty-two pilots were killed in action, and 23 members were awarded Hero of the Soviet Union, the highest military honour. They became one of the most decorated units in the Soviet Air Forces.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>Who was Marina Raskova?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>Marina Raskova was a famous Soviet aviator, often called the \"Soviet Amelia Earhart,\" who founded the all-female air regiments including the Night Witches in October 1941, as the Wehrmacht neared Moscow. Other Soviet women became fighter aces in the same era, such as <a href='https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/lydia-litvyak-the-white-rose-of-stalingrad-and-historys-greatest-female-fighter-ace\/'>Lydia Litvyak<\/a>, the White Rose of Stalingrad.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>Were the Night Witches effective in combat?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>Yes. Despite flying obsolete biplanes with no guns, armour or parachutes, the Night Witches were devastatingly effective. Their slow Po-2s could throttle back below the stall speed of German fighters, making them hard to intercept, while relentless nightly raids robbed German troops of sleep. Fellow Soviet airwomen like <a href='https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/yekaterina-budanova-the-forgotten-soviet-fighter-ace-who-flew-alongside-a-legend\/'>Yekaterina Budanova<\/a> also distinguished themselves in the air war.<\/p><\/div><\/details><\/div>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"FAQPage\",\"mainEntity\":[{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Who were the Night Witches?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"The Night Witches were the 588th Night Bomber Regiment, an all-female unit of the Soviet Air Forces that flew night bombing raids against Nazi Germany from 1942 to 1945. Pilots, navigators and mechanics were all women. German soldiers gave them the name \\\"Nachthexen,\\\" or Night Witches, after the eerie whoosh of their gliding biplanes.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What aircraft did the Night Witches fly?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"The Night Witches flew the Polikarpov Po-2, a wood-and-canvas biplane designed in 1928 as a crop duster and trainer. It had open cockpits, no armour, no radios and no parachutes, weight saved for one more bomb. Pilots aimed by hand with a crude wire-and-nail sight, yet flew more than 30,000 combat missions in these obsolete machines.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Why were they called the Night Witches?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"German soldiers named them \\\"Nachthexen,\\\" or Night Witches, because of how they attacked. The pilots cut their engines near the target and glided silently; the only sound was wind through the canvas wings, which troops said resembled a broomstick sweeping the sky. By the time the bombs exploded, the biplane had already vanished into the darkness.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"How many missions did the Night Witches fly?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"The 588th Night Bomber Regiment flew over 30,000 night bombing sorties between 1942 and 1945, dropping roughly 23,000 tonnes of bombs. Thirty-two pilots were killed in action, and 23 members were awarded Hero of the Soviet Union, the highest military honour. They became one of the most decorated units in the Soviet Air Forces.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Who was Marina Raskova?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Marina Raskova was a famous Soviet aviator, often called the \\\"Soviet Amelia Earhart,\\\" who founded the all-female air regiments including the Night Witches in October 1941, as the Wehrmacht neared Moscow. Other Soviet women became fighter aces in the same era, such as <a href='https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/lydia-litvyak-the-white-rose-of-stalingrad-and-historys-greatest-female-fighter-ace\/'>Lydia Litvyak<\/a>, the White Rose of Stalingrad.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Were the Night Witches effective in combat?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Yes. Despite flying obsolete biplanes with no guns, armour or parachutes, the Night Witches were devastatingly effective. Their slow Po-2s could throttle back below the stall speed of German fighters, making them hard to intercept, while relentless nightly raids robbed German troops of sleep. Fellow Soviet airwomen like <a href='https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/yekaterina-budanova-the-forgotten-soviet-fighter-ace-who-flew-alongside-a-legend\/'>Yekaterina Budanova<\/a> also distinguished themselves in the air war.\"}}]}<\/script><!-- \/mf-faq -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Quick Facts Unit 588th Night Bomber Regiment, Soviet Air Forces Nickname Nachthexen (\u201cNight Witches\u201d) \u2014 given by terrified German soldiers Aircraft Polikarpov Po-2 biplane (1920s design, wood and canvas) Personnel All-female \u2014 pilots, navigators, mechanics, commanders Combat Missions 30,000+ night bombing sorties (1942\u20131945) Bombs Dropped ~23,000 tonnes Losses 32 pilots killed in action Honours 23 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":204574,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[666,664],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-204571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history-and-legends","category-military-aviation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Night Witches: Soviet Women Who Bombed by Moonlight | Afterburner - MiGFlug&#039;s Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Polikarpov Po-2 \u2014 a 1920s crop duster turned night bomber. 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