The Night Witches and the Soviet women who bombed the Eastern Front in plywood biplanes

The 588th Night Bomber Aviation Regiment, known to the Germans as the Nachthexen — the Night Witches — was an all-female Soviet combat unit that flew more than 23,000 bombing sorties during World War II. Operating obsolete open-cockpit biplanes made of plywood and canvas, these women pioneered a terrifyingly effective tactic: cutting their engines and gliding silently over German positions to deliver their bombs before anyone on the ground could react. Most of the pilots were between 18 and 26 years old.

How Did an All-Female Combat Regiment Come to Exist?

In October 1941, the German army was driving deep into the Soviet Union. Moscow was under direct threat. Marina Raskova, already famous as a record-setting navigator, personally lobbied Stalin to authorize three all-female aviation regiments — not support or ferry units, but frontline combat formations.

Raskova had the credibility to make the request. In 1938, she and two other women flew a Tupolev ANT-37 on a nonstop record flight from Moscow to the Soviet far east, covering nearly 6,000 kilometers. When her navigator’s compartment ran out of heater fuel and the radio failed, she bailed out over the Siberian taiga and survived alone for ten days before rescue arrived.

Three regiments were formed: the 586th Fighter Aviation Regiment, the 587th Bomber Aviation Regiment, and the 588th Night Bomber Aviation Regiment. Every position in each unit was filled by women — pilots, navigators, mechanics, ground crew, armorers, and runway builders.

What Aircraft Did the Night Witches Fly?

While the 586th and 587th received capable fighters and dive bombers, the 588th was assigned the Polikarpov Po-2 — a 1928-design open-cockpit biplane originally built as a trainer. Its frame was wood, covered in fabric and plywood. Its maximum speed was approximately 94 miles per hour.

To put that in perspective, the stall speed of a German Messerschmitt Bf 109 was higher than the Po-2’s top speed. A German fighter attempting to engage a Po-2 would overshoot before the pilot could line up a shot. That absurd slowness accidentally became a survival advantage.

The Po-2 carried roughly 350 kilograms of bombs strapped to racks under the lower wings. There was no bomb bay, no radar, and for most of the war, no radio or parachutes. When forced to choose between carrying two extra bombs or two parachutes, the crews chose the bombs.

Navigation relied on a stopwatch, a compass, a map on the navigator’s knee, and visual observation from an open cockpit — in winter temperatures reaching minus 30 to minus 40 degrees Celsius. Leather jackets froze rigid. Goggles iced over. Some crew members suffered frostbite on their faces that never fully healed.

How Did the Night Witches Carry Out Their Attacks?

The regiment developed an elegantly simple and extraordinarily dangerous tactic. A formation of three aircraft would approach a target. The first two flew with navigation lights on, deliberately drawing searchlight beams and antiaircraft fire. They were bait.

While every gun on the ground tracked those two illuminated biplanes, the third aircraft cut its engine completely. Dead silent, it glided toward the target at an altitude of 500 to 800 meters. The only sound was wind passing over fabric wings. German soldiers on the ground said it sounded like a broomstick sweeping across the sky — which gave rise to the name Nachthexen, Night Witches.

The navigator would lean over the side of the cockpit, judge the target by moonlight, fires, or the flash of antiaircraft guns, and release the bombs manually. The pilot then restarted the engine, pushed to full power to climb away, and flew back to a grass strip to reload and repeat.

Crews flew as many as 15 to 18 sorties per night, with some accounts recording up to 30 sorties during peak operations. A typical mission cycle lasted about 45 minutes. After landing, the ground crew — also women — had roughly five minutes to hang fresh bombs and refuel before the aircraft went back up. This continued from dusk to dawn, night after night.

Who Were the Key Figures of the 588th?

Nadezhda Popova was among the regiment’s most accomplished pilots. She flew 852 combat sorties over the course of the war, was shot down multiple times, and once returned with 42 bullet holes in her plywood aircraft. After the war, she became a flying instructor.

Yevdokia Bershanskaya commanded the regiment for most of the war and is one of the few Soviet regimental commanders who led the same unit from formation through to the end of the war in Berlin — never replaced, never reassigned. Under her discipline, the regiment maintained loss rates well below what the mission profile would suggest.

How Did the Germans Respond?

The German military treated the Night Witches as a genuine tactical problem. They positioned extra antiaircraft batteries along likely approach routes and assigned dedicated night fighter squadrons to counter the low-flying biplanes. A German pilot who managed to shoot down a Po-2 was awarded the Iron Cross — a clear indication of how seriously the high command took the threat.

What Was the Regiment’s Legacy?

Twenty-three members of the 588th were awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union, the country’s highest military decoration. The regiment earned the honorary designation “Taman” after the Taman Peninsula campaign and flew all the way to the gates of Berlin.

The 588th was never disbanded or reorganized during the entire war, making it one of the most decorated units in the Soviet Air Force. After the conflict ended, most of its members returned to civilian life as teachers, engineers, and doctors.

The ground crews deserve particular recognition. They performed maintenance and rearming in total darkness — no hangars, no electric lights — to avoid attracting strafing runs. They hung 50-kilogram bombs by hand in pitch blackness and freezing cold, sleeping two to three hours a night during peak operations, and kept a fleet of fabric biplanes airworthy under conditions that would ground a modern maintenance facility.

Popova once described the experience of cutting the engine on approach: the silence was so complete she could hear her own heartbeat. With flak rising and searchlights probing, she had to fly with absolute precision. No engine meant no go-around. Glide in, drop, restart, climb — or don’t come home.

Key Takeaways

The 588th Night Bomber Aviation Regiment was an all-female Soviet combat unit that flew over 23,000 sorties in World War II using obsolete 1928-design biplanes
Their signature tactic — cutting engines to glide silently over targets — earned them the German nickname Nachthexen (Night Witches) and proved devastatingly effective
Crews flew up to 18 sorties per night in open cockpits with no parachutes, no radar, and temperatures reaching minus 40 degrees
23 members received the Hero of the Soviet Union, and the regiment fought from 1942 through to Berlin without ever being disbanded or reorganized
The Po-2’s extreme slowness, a seeming liability, made it nearly impossible for faster German fighters to engage effectively