The Night Witches, the Polikarpov Po-2 Biplanes That Cut Their Engines to Glide Silent Over the German Lines, and the Women Who Flew Eighteen Bombing Runs a Night

The Night Witches were the all-female pilots of the Soviet 588th Night Bomber Regiment (later honored as the 46th Guards), who flew fragile Polikarpov Po-2 biplanes on nighttime bombing raids against German forces on the Eastern Front from 1942 to 1945. To attack undetected, they cut their engines to idle and glided silently over their targets, producing a soft whooshing sound that terrified German sentries. On the busiest nights, the best crews flew as many as 18 bombing runs between dusk and dawn.

Who Were the Night Witches?

When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941, the Soviets were losing men by the hundreds of thousands. One of the country’s most famous aviators, Marina Raskova - a record-setting long-distance flier often described as the Soviet answer to Amelia Earhart - received thousands of letters from young women begging to fly and fight.

Raskova took the idea directly to Stalin and won approval to form flying regiments staffed entirely by women: pilots, navigators, mechanics, and armorers. Most were barely out of their teens. Some had trained at flying clubs; others had never touched an aircraft.

One of these units became the 588th Night Bomber Regiment. The German soldiers who endured their raids gave them the name that stuck: Nachthexen - the Night Witches.

What Aircraft Did the Night Witches Fly?

They flew the Polikarpov Po-2, a small two-seat biplane with open cockpits arranged one behind the other. Built with a wood frame and fabric skin, it was originally designed in the 1920s as a basic trainer and crop duster - a farm airplane.

Its little radial engine produced roughly 110 horsepower. Top speed was about 90 mph in a dive, with a cruise closer to 60 mph. It carried no radio and no armor, and early in the war it had no guns and no parachutes - commanders decided the weight was better spent on another bomb.

Bombs hung on racks beneath the lower wings. Because the aircraft was so light and slow, each crew could carry only a small load - a few hundred kilograms at most, often just a bomb or two per sortie. That limitation shaped their entire method of war: they simply flew again, and again, and again.

Why Did They Fly So Many Missions a Night?

With such a tiny bomb load, volume was the whole strategy. Instead of one or two sorties, crews flew eight, ten, or twelve in a single night. On the worst and busiest nights, the best of them flew 18 missions before sunrise.

Between runs, armorers ran out in the dark to hang fresh bombs by hand with bare, frozen fingers while the fuel was topped off. Then the crew climbed back into the sky. They slept during the day and did it all again the next night.

The conditions were brutal. Flying open cockpits through sub-freezing Eastern Front winters at 60 mph, pilots suffered frostbite, and their hands could freeze to the controls. Many rubbed grease on their faces just to keep their skin from cracking in the wind.

Their entire navigation kit was a map, a pencil, a ruler, a hooded flashlight, and a magnetic compass. They navigated by dead reckoning - by the shape of a river in the moonlight, by roads, and by the stars - timing each leg with a watch.

How Did the Night Witches Attack Silently?

The Po-2’s engine was audible on approach, so the crews developed a signature tactic. They flew in flights of three. Two aircraft went in first as bait, deliberately drawing the searchlights and flak while jinking to keep the German gunners busy.

While the guns chased those two, the third aircraft cut its engine back to idle and glided in silent. The only sound was the wind singing through the biplane’s bracing wires and struts - the soft, sweeping whoosh that gave the regiment its name.

After releasing its bombs, the silent aircraft firewalled its engine and climbed away. Then the three planes rotated roles: the bait became the bomber, the bomber became the bait, and they came around to do it again - hour after hour, all night long. The relentless, sleepless harassment wore German ground troops down as much as the bombs themselves.

Why Couldn’t German Fighters Stop Them?

It seems an aircraft this slow would be easy prey for a Messerschmitt capable of 300 to 400 mph. In practice, the opposite was true.

The Po-2 flew so slowly that it operated near the stall speed of German fighters. A pilot trying to line up a shot had to throttle back so far that his own aircraft was on the edge of falling out of the sky. Meanwhile, the nimble biplane could turn tightly and duck into the trees and folds of the terrain, where a fast fighter couldn’t follow without crashing.

Shooting one down was considered so difficult that the Luftwaffe reportedly offered an automatic Iron Cross to any pilot who managed it - remarkable respect for a 110-horsepower former crop duster.

Who Were the Women Behind the Legend?

Nadezhda Popova flew roughly 850 combat missions. She was once shot down, walked away, and joined a retreating column of soldiers on the ground. After one hard night she counted dozens of bullet holes stitched through her aircraft’s fabric - and kept flying. She met her future husband, a fighter pilot, during the war, and lived until 2013.

Yevdokia Bershanskaya commanded the regiment through the entire war without losing her nerve, leading and looking after her young airwomen all at once.

And they were young - 18, 19, and 20 years old. They braided their hair and cut spare silk into scarves. By some accounts, they used navigation pencils to darken their eyebrows and kept a stub of colored pencil for their lips before a mission, determined to face whatever came looking like themselves.

What Was the Night Witches’ Legacy?

The regiment fought from 1942 through 1945, flying across the Caucasus, the Kuban, Poland, and into Germany itself. Some accounts credit them with more than 20,000 sorties and thousands of tons of bombs, delivered one or two at a time.

Thirty-two of the women died - to flak, to fighters, and to the weather, with no instruments and no parachutes to save them. By the end of the war, more than 20 had been named Hero of the Soviet Union, the nation’s highest honor, Nadezhda Popova among them.

Their story endures as a testament to the least airplane doing the most work: a fabric-and-wood trainer flown into the heart of the largest war in history, at night, in the cold, with the engine off - over and over - when every modern fighter said it couldn’t be done.

Key Takeaways

The Night Witches (588th Night Bomber Regiment, later the 46th Guards) were an all-female Soviet unit that bombed German lines from 1942 to 1945.
They flew the wood-and-fabric Polikarpov Po-2 biplane - ~110 hp, ~60 mph cruise, with no radio, no armor, and early on no parachutes.
Their signature tactic was gliding in with the engine at idle, creating the eerie whooshing sound that earned them their nickname.
On the busiest nights, top crews flew up to 18 sorties, and Nadezhda Popova logged roughly 850 missions.
32 members died in combat and more than 20 were named Hero of the Soviet Union.