CENTRAL NEWS
Led by a reckless pilot, Marina Raskova, and commanded by Major Yevdokia Bershanskaya, 115 women made up the 588th Soviet aviation regiment during World War II. Their suicide attacks during the night, while turning off their old Polikarpov Po-2 planes, caused the Nazi army to label them as “The Night Witches”.
In the book “Defending the Homeland,” the writer Lyuba Vinogradova narrates the outstanding role of the Soviet woman in the combat against fascist Hitler’s army.
Contrary to what Hollywood and almost the completeness of World War II film-making intend to show, one of the bravest regiments during World War II was formed by communist women: “The witches of the night”. Never before has a country mobilized so many women within the ranks of its army in a war context. There were almost a million women within the ranks of the Red Army in all positions: sappers, oil tankers, snipers, machine gun serfs, gaining 92 of them the recognition of heroines from the Soviet Union, 50 of them posthumously.
The Soviets were the only women in the world who, during such a bloody conflict, flew planes on combat missions, confronting on countless occasions Hitler’s own Luftwaffes.
During World War II, the major powers employed female pilot regiments. England created the “Air Transport Auxiliary,” or “ATA,” accepting more than 160 women to move aircraft from factories to bases or ports, transporting cargo or towing targets for target practice. The U.S. Armed Forces includes nearly 1,000 women with similar duties in their ranks. In Germany, it was no different. The pilot Hanna Reistsh became famous for landing and taking off from an improvised runway in Berlin during the siege of the Third Reich. However, it was only the USSR that included women in combat units.
On October 8th, 1941, Stalin decreed that women volunteers would fight in a war in which the Nazis were gaining ground. More than a million women appeared to take positions of marksman, sapper and tanker. But it would not be until 1942 when a pioneering colonel in women’s aviation proposed something unthinkable until then: the creation of three regiments without a male presence. The name of that stubborn female aviator was Marina Raskova.
She was the first female aviator in the Russian army. Her strength led her to the creation of three female regiments of air combat, at her request: Division 586, Division 587, and the most famous of all, the 588th Night Bombing Regiment: “The Night Witches”.
Raskova, trained in chemistry, began in the Soviet Air Force in 1933. She became the first female instructor at the Zhukovskii Air Academy. After accomplishing various feats as a pilot and participating in the Battle of Stalingrad, she was named Heroine of the Soviet Union and Stalin granted her the rank of Major. Her motto was: “We can do anything.”
To be continued…
