A bit of a
history lesson here--Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed a mutual
non-aggression pact in 1939. Consequently, the Soviets conspicuously stayed
out of the invasion of Poland in 1939, receiving a chunk of Polish territory
as a reward. For two years the Soviets put such stock in that treaty that
in 1941 their border armaments ignored more than 500 overflights of German
photo reconnaissance aircraft.
Then, at 3:15
a.m. on June 22, 1941--a date that lives in infamy for the Russian people--the
German blitzkrieg came to Mother Russia in the form of Operation Barbarossa.
The Soviets
were caught completely off-guard. Airports with runways long enough to
serve their new fighter and bomber aircraft were still under construction
on the western and southern borders where the German invasion struck. Fighter
aircraft were limited in number along the border and were uncamouflaged
and vulnerable. The pilots who managed to get into the air usually had
15 or fewer hours of experience, some as few as four hours of training.
German pilots were as well-trained and fierce as their groundling counterparts.
The Soviet Air Force, such as it was and with its rigid, inflexible tactics,
was cut to ribbons.
Much like the
aftermath of Pearl Harbor six months later, tens of thousands of Soviet
youth, fired with patriotism and anger at the invaders, went to recruiting
offices to join the Soviet Armed Forces and refurbish the Soviet Air Force.
The youth who eagerly volunteered to fight for their country were men and
women, most in their teens and many of them holders of newly minted pilot
certificates. In the 1920's and 1930's the Soviet Union had a series of
paramilitary flying clubs called Osoaviakhim. Any Soviet boy or girl could
join and learn to parachute or fly first gliders then powered aircraft
for free. Some of the 17-year old girls who showed up at the recruiting
offices had much more flying experience than their sorely lacking comrades
at the front who had just been bested by the Luftwaffe.
Bruce Myles,
in his book, Night Witches, says, "Harassed officials rejected the young
women without exception. The response to one young woman, who was later
to become a Hero of the Soviet Union, was fairly typical: 'Things may be
bad but we're not so desperate that we're going to put little girls like
you up in the skies. Go home and help your mother.'"
Fortunately,
Soviet girls--like American girls--didn't take too kindly to such advice.
They waited, and, as the full brunt of the initial invasion and its cost
in human resources were realized, they didn't have to wait long. The official
position changed, and the young girls were asked to come help Mother Russia.
The Soviets
planned three women air regiments, each with three squadrons of 10 aircraft.
The mechanics, armament fitters, and other personnel would also be women.
Each regiment would then have approximately 400 women. Thousands of applications
were received and narrowed down to 2,000 to be interviewed.
Like the U.S.
women who ventured to Sweetwater, TX to become WASP's, young Soviet women
came from all over the vast country to Moscow. Many of them, en route by
train, saw the war first hand before they ever began their pilot training--the
Luftwaffe strafed the trains and the young women shared their seats with
fully armed soldiers headed for the front.
The WASPs had
key figures in their organization and implementation--Jacqueline Cochran
and Nancy Love. For the Soviet women pilots, it was Marina Raskova. In
1938 Raskova and two other Soviet women had set a world record for a non-stop
direct flight by women when they flew a Soviet-built, twin-engine aircraft
named Rodina (homeland) 6,000 kilometers across the expanse of the Soviet
Union from Moscow to Komsomolsk-on-Amur in the Far East. With the aircraft
icing up over the Siberian wilderness, the women tossed everything movable
out of the aircraft to try and gain altitude. Finally, Raskova, who had
been the navigator, decided she would have to go as well. She marked the
aircraft's compass heading on a map and bailed out into the darkness. The
two remaining pilots eventually landed safely at their destination, and
a hunter rescued Raskova. The three "Winged Sisters" returned triumphantly
to Moscow. Already a folk heroine, Raskova was the logical choice to recruit,
interview, and oversee the training of the women aviators.
Myles reports
that Raskova, in 1941 a Major in the Soviet Air Force, herself was as nervous
about recruiting these young girls as they were about meeting a famous
Hero of the Soviet Union. Raskova knew she could be sending them to die--a
conundrum faced by any military commander. She asked the young recruits,
"Aren't you frightened to go to the front? Don't you know that these bad
men on the other side will be shooting at you?"
One inspired
young woman replied, "Not if I shoot them first, Major Raskova."
In October
of 1941, the young women reported to the town of Engels on the River Volga
north of Stalingrad. Their first order of business was to break out needle
and thread to alter the uniforms provided them, hand-me-downs from their
male compatriots--oversized tunics and vests, baggy pants, and huge greatcoats
whose belts wrapped twice or more around their frames and boots whose toes
had to be stuffed with newspaper in order to fit their small feet. In spite
of the ill-fitting uniforms, the uncertainty of their success, and the
prospect that those who did succeed could die in combat, the women were
reportedly relaxed upon their arrival. On the trip south from Moscow, says
Myles, "They laughed and joked and speculated on what the boys would be
like tomorrow in Engels."
Training in
Engels was intense. Twelve to 14-hour days of flying and ground school
were necessary to cram what should have been two years' worth of training
in peace time into a war time necessity of six months. The Soviet Air Force
needed to get pilots into the air because, in the interim, the Germans
had free run of Soviet skies, striking far into the heart of the country
and regularly bombing Moscow in spite of massive attempts to camouflage
the capital.
Initial training
was in Polikarpov PO-2 wood and fabric biplanes. The women practiced bombing
from different altitudes as well as night flying, dual then solo, "learning
to navigate with only the most rudimentary of instruments and without any
radio communication with the ground," says Myles. Navigation was accomplished
with stopwatches, flight computers, and regular maps--not aeronautical
charts. There was a pilot and navigator in each aircraft after the instructors
moved out, and the pilots and navigators rotated flying with each other
so that Raskova could evaluate which teams flew best together.
Although the
PO-2's had no guns, instructors attempted to teach dogfighting through
simulation--on the ground and in the air--of cannon fire in air-to-air
combat. (One can almost imagine them making machine guns sounds over the
radios.) The women took turns in the air being Soviets and Germans, dogfighting
with each other and their instructors. The women took delight in making
up combat aerobatics on the spot and also took great pride in "killing"
their instructors and some of the highly experienced male pilots--including
some who had had combat experience against the Luftwaffe--brought in to
be worthy adversaries.
After six months
of training at Engels, Major Raskova posted the regimental assignments.
All the women had, of course, wanted to be fighter pilots, but they all
knew that only a few would make it to fighters. The fact that their homeland
was now entrusting them with its defense and salvation only slightly eased
the deep disappointment for many who would be flying the less "glamorous"
aircraft--like their well-travelled trainers, the PO-2's, which had been
refitted as bombers for the 588th Night Bomber Regiment. Because they were
now soldiers, the disappointments were quickly put aside, and the women
were ready for the front.
Well, almost.
The male commandant of the training base decided the women did not look
soldierly enough and ordered them to cut their hair. They could cut it
themselves or a military barber would do it for them; either way, their
long tresses had to go; hair could be no longer than two inches all over
their heads. Depending on where she was from, the Soviet woman's pride
was her long hair, usually never cut in her lifetime, bound up in braids
or allowed to swing freely below her waist. This order was a severe blow
to the women who had wanted to be pilots but who had wanted also to retain
their femininity. Faced with the order, the women opted to cut each others'
hair, rather than subject it to the zeal of a military barber. There were
many tears and much sadness, but they all reported the next day, cropped
and coifed, ready to fight. (Ironically, a high-ranking general came to
inspect the new pilots and was dismayed at the short haircuts of the other
women, lamenting they all "looked like boys.")
The women began
advanced training in the aircraft they would fly in combat. The 587th Women's
Day Bomber Regiment would fly the Petylakov PE-2, which carried a three-woman
crew--a pilot, navigator, and radio operator/gunner. Two fixed guns fired
forward, and a swiveling machine gun in an acrylic bubble was positioned
behind the navigator. Two more guns operated by the radio operator were
in the middle of the fuselage. One fired from the floor out the underside
of the aircraft, and the other fired through a hatch above the radio operator's
head. The radio operator was surrounded by her radio equipment and boxes
of spare ammunition belts for her guns.
There was one
piece of non-standard equipment almost every woman had to use--cushions
for the seats. Most of the women were small, several inches shorter than
male pilots, and cushions were needed to boost them up so they could see
over the instrument panel and reach the rudder pedals.
To teach the
idiosyncrasies of the PE-2's takeoff, the instructors employed an unusual
training configuration. The women pilots stood in the cockpits beside the
instructor (there were no jump seats) watching how he operated the aircraft
and listening to a continuous lecture on the performance of the aircraft.
After several takeoffs this way, the instructor would stabilize the aircraft
at altitude, then slide out of the seat, allowing the women to assume the
pilot's seat and take control--an extreme act of faith for a pilot's first
landing in an unfamiliar aircraft. The women later complained in their
reminiscences that the controls of the PE-2 were so stiff that the trainees
had to stand by the pilot on takeoff to help haul the stick back.
The fledgling
fighter pilots were experiencing their own learning curve in the YAK-l's.
Compared to the PO-2 training aircraft, the YAK-1 was quick and powerful,
unforgiving of mistakes and adventurousness. But the woman built confidence
in the aircraft as their experience grew. They learned formation flying
standard for the Soviet Air Force fighter units. Once again, they practiced
dogfighting with each other and with their instructors. Target drogues
were hauled out, and they practiced gunnery skills.
Their advanced
training complete, they prepared for their transition to combat with a
final party and dance at Engels. The male pilots at Engels were invited,
and they were entranced by the women. One of the male pilots was overheard
begging one of the women pilots not to write anyone except him when she
left Engels. Her response, "Let's get the fighting over first, darling,
then maybe we can talk about love."
The next morning,
the women were issued their sidearms, and the YAK-l's were rolled out for
the fighter pilots. As Myles puts it, amid wild cheering, the women pulled
their leather flying helmets on, walked to their aircraft, "strapped themselves
in, pulled the canopies shut, and took off....The last formation waggled
its wings in salute....They were ordered to test their guns en route, and
the short bursts smashed through the new fabric pasted over the gun ports.
The women had gone to war."
The 586th Women's
Fighter Regiment was stationed at Saratov, on the Volga River north of
Stalingrad, to protect railways and munitions factories. Their second night
there, they got their first call to combat. More than 20 German bombers
were on their way to Saratov, and the women donned their parachutes and
ran out to their planes. Each one of them was nervous; whether the Luftwaffe
was or not is not known. Indeed, it is not certain that the German pilots
knew at that time they would be facing women in fighter aircraft as they
approached Saratov that night.
With no moon
to define a horizon the women concentrated flying on instruments and leveled
out a 1,000 feet above the enemy's expected position. The flight leader
began S-turns looking for the enemy's aircraft. Ground controllers updated
the women on the enemy's position, but the aircraft's radios were receive
only; the women had to trust what information they were given since they
couldn't call back with questions or requests.
The squadron
leader, Galia Boordina, believed her calculations and the radio reports
meant that German bombers were two minutes from Saratov, and she also believed
that she had to be on top of the bombers. She dived into the night, her
guns firing, and charged through the middle of the bombers' formation.
She pulled up then dived for them again. The German bombers apparently
thought this onslaught came from more than one fighter. They jettisoned
their bombs short of the target and broke up, heading away from Saratov.
The Women's
Fighter Regiment had been through its baptism of fire and had come out
the other side.
The 588th Women's
Bomber Regiment didn't fare quite so dramatically. On their first sortie,
their base commander decided to test their mettle. He instructed the YAK
fighters sent to escort them to "attack" them. Nervous and anxious about
their first mission, the women mistook their own aircraft for Messerschmidts
and panicked, breaking formation and scattering. This is what every fighter
pilot hopes for--single targets away from the pack and easy pickings. Many
of the women immediately headed back to base, some soon realizing from
radio chatter what had happened. Others demonstrated some serious nap of
the earth flying, scudding low enough to be hidden behind hedgerows! When
they all returned to base they were embarrassed and humiliated at their
behavior. Despite the praise for their flying skills, they were determined
to do better the next time. The very next night they scored big hits on
the German positions they were sent to bomb, flying through flak and trusting
their fighter escorts to dispense with the Messerschmidts.
The women of
the 588th also came up with a unique strategy to deal with the German "flak
circuses." In an area they controlled or were protecting, the Germans would
assemble as many as two dozen 37mm antiaircraft guns in concentric circles
around a target. The gunners would be supported by a searchlight platoon.
Many Soviet bomber pilots, true to their unyielding strategy, flew straight
in, alit by searchlights and pounded by ring after ring of antiaircraft
fire; they seldom made it to the target. After several casualties among
the women bomber pilots, the survivors decided to break out of the Soviet
strategy mold. The women decided to fly in groups of three instead of two;
two would fly headlong toward the target while one held back. When the
front two were first hit by the searchlights, they would go into wild evasive
action, and the searchlight operators would try to follow them. The third
plane would slip in under their cover and deliver her load. The women would
later describe the tension of waiting for the searchlight to hit them,
how they ignored the sound of flak tearing through the wings and fuselage,
and their worry about their friends who had been sent in to draw the Germans'
fire. But, in the end, they seemed to shrug the tactic off in a pragmatic
military manner. "It worked," they said.
As the bomber
regiments delivered their ordinance, the women fighter pilots began to
rack up their kills along with their male counterparts. In September of
1942, the Junkers Ju-88 became the first German bomber to be shot down
by a woman pilot. The most skillful women fighter pilots were eventually
integrated into male units and became wingmen for each other. The sexism
was still rampant, however. Some male pilots refused to fly in aircraft
the women mechanics maintained. One base commander refused to allow any
women fighter pilots in his group until one male pilot, enamored of one
of the women, convinced him.
The object
of the male pilot's affections, Lily Litvak, became legendary as the "White
Rose of Stalingrad." Said to be strikingly beautiful, Lily was impatient
with anyone who couldn't see beyond her physical endowments but proved
herself over and over again in the air as a flight leader and wingman for
the besotted pilot, with whom she eventually fell in love. On each side
of her cockpit she painted a white rose--hence the nickname--and so fond
was she of flowers, she often picked wildflowers and carried them aloft
on her missions. The Germans quickly learned who she was as well, and when
her familiar YAK with the white rose incongruously emblazoned on its sides
came into view, they alerted each other and stayed out of her way. (One
captured German pilot refused to believe he'd been shot down by a woman
until Lily gave him a blow by blow account of their dogfight.) She shunned
publicity and put off a Soviet propagandist who came to her base to do
a film on her; she simply wanted to fight Germans and free her country.
Lily was well
on her way to becoming an ace. After a year of air combat and surviving
at least three shoot-downs herself, she had scored 12 kills. But her notoriety
was to be her downfall. On one mission in July 1943 eight Messerschmidts
concentrated solely on Lily, and it took all eight of them to bring down
the "White Rose of Stalingrad." Her body and aircraft were never found,
but a marble monument, with 12 gold stars--one for each enemy plane she
shot down--was erected in her memory. She was a 22-year-old combat-hardened
veteran when she died.
The examples
of bravery and determination given here are but a few of the many stories
and adventures experienced by the Nachthexen. Valerie Moolman, author of
Women Aloft, says, "Examples of extreme courage were almost the rule."
The Soviet women bomber pilots earned 23 Hero of the Soviet Union medals
and dozens of Orders of the Red Banner. Two women bomber pilots--Katya
Ryabova (who flew 890 sorties) and Nadya Popova--in one night raided the
Germans 18 times. The bomber pilots flew more than 24,000 sorties and delivered
23,000 tons of bombs--pretty remarkable considering the poor old PO-2 could
only carry two bombs totaling less than a ton per sortie. The fighter pilots
of the 586th participated in more than 125 separate air battles. Most of
the women bomber pilots who survived until the end of the war in 1945 had
nearly 1,000 missions each. They had served so exemplary throughout the
war that they participated in the final onslauqht on Berlin--in fact. weren't
going to be kept away.
They had helped
to achieve their beloved country's pobyeda--victory. And when the war ended,
like veterans all over the world, they "returned to their factories and
farms," says Moolman. They married the soldiers and pilots they had told
to wait until after the war to think about love. In spite of the danger
and their heavy losses, most of the women later described their combat
as the most exciting times of their lives. These women left hearth and
home to fight for their country as men have done for millennia. They endured
loss of family and homes in their absence, met and lost lovers and husbands,
and were wounded and killed in action. Their path to glory and martyrdom
was not easy (it never is). Soviet military officials then, as U.S. military
officials now, questioned whether it was strategically or morally appropriate
to send women into combat. But the Night Witches proved to themselves and
a skeptical country that their gender made no difference in the defense
of one's home.
Their names
came to be spoken with awe in their homeland as we speak of similarly of
Yeager and Mitchell. Over the years we would see them and not quite understand
who they were--aged, uniformed veterans, their chests heavy with metals,
marching in May Day parades through the streets of Moscow. Like the WASP's
in America, it was nearly 30 years after their exploits before we here
in the U.S. learned of their sacrifice and heroism.
Time has taken
its inevitable toll on the Nachthexen, though several still live today
on their meager pensions. Like the WASP's they can be and are an inspiration
to the young women, who could be their granddaughters, who are now learning
to fly the world's most sophisticated combat aircraft.
Their grateful
nation said to the Night Witches, "Even if we were to place at your feet
all the flowers of the earth, they would not be a big enough tribute to
your valor."
Flowers for
the valor of the Night Witches. Flowers for the White Rose of Stalingrad,
who fought for her country until her last breath and died inhaling the
scent of wildflowers carried aloft. |
