The Night Witches, the Polikarpov Po Two Biplane, and the Women Who Cut Their Engines to Glide Onto a Target in the Dark

The Night Witches were an all-female Soviet air regiment that flew thousands of night bombing raids against German forces during World War II in obsolete Polikarpov Po-2 biplanes. Their signature tactic was to cut the engine near the target and glide in silently, so the only warning defenders heard was a soft, broom-like whisper of wind over the wings - which is how German troops came to call them Nachthexen, or “Night Witches.” Over the course of the war they flew roughly 23,000 sorties in a wood-and-fabric trainer that a modern student pilot would consider underpowered.

Who Were the Night Witches?

By 1941, the German army had launched the largest invasion in history across the border into the Soviet Union. The Soviets were losing ground, men, and aircraft by the thousands.

Into that crisis stepped Marina Raskova, one of the most celebrated aviators in the country. A famous navigator who had flown record long-distance flights across Siberia, she was to Soviet girls of the 1930s what Amelia Earhart was to Americans - a household name and a face on the newsreels.

When war came, thousands of young women wrote letters asking to fly and fight. The answer was consistently no: go home, roll bandages, work in a factory. But Raskova had the ear of Stalin himself, and she used it. In October 1941, she won permission to form three all-female air regiments - pilots, navigators, mechanics, armorers, and commanders, every job done by women. That had never happened anywhere in the world.

The most famous of these became the 588th Night Bomber Regiment.

What Aircraft Did the Night Witches Fly?

They were not handed sleek fighters or modern bombers. They flew the Polikarpov Po-2, a small two-seat biplane with a wood frame, fabric skin, and two open cockpits, one behind the other.

Designed back in 1928 as a basic trainer, the Po-2 was the aircraft the Soviets used to teach farm kids to fly - essentially the Piper Cub of the Soviet Union. It was slow, forgiving, and cheap.

Its top speed was only about 80 to 90 mph, and its engine produced roughly 100 horsepower. A modern Cessna 172 would outrun it easily. It carried no armor and, at least at first, no meaningful guns.

And these women turned that little trainer into a weapon that terrified an entire army.

Why Was the Slow Po-2 So Hard to Shoot Down?

The Po-2’s greatest weakness - its low speed - became its greatest defense.

German night fighters were fast monoplanes whose stall speed was higher than the Po-2’s top speed. To line up a shot, a German pilot had to fly so slowly that his own aircraft was on the verge of falling out of the sky. The very quality that made the Po-2 look like a joke made it extraordinarily difficult to kill.

Its wood-and-fabric construction added a second advantage. Early radar systems, designed to detect metal bombers, barely registered the Po-2 at all.

How Did the Night Witches Attack in the Dark?

Each mission carried two women: a pilot in front and a navigator behind. They usually flew without radios, and in the early days without parachutes - commanders decided the weight of extra bombs mattered more than a way out of a burning airplane.

They took off in darkness and droned low and slow toward the German lines. As they neared the target - close enough that searchlights clawed the sky and antiaircraft guns opened up - the pilot would throttle back and cut the engine.

The biplane became a glider. Silent, with only the wind sighing through the wires and struts, the crew coasted down toward the target. That soft, swishing whisper - like a broom sweeping the sky - is the sound that named them.

The navigator sighted the target by eye in total blackness and released the bombs. The pilot then restarted the engine, clawed for altitude, and turned for home before the guns could find them. Flying a dead-stick biplane at night over enemy territory demanded that a pilot hold speed entirely by feel - pure airmanship.

How Many Missions Did They Fly in a Single Night?

Because the Po-2 was so light and simple, mechanics could rearm and turn it around in minutes. A crew might fly 8 or 10 sorties in one night - and on the busiest nights over the toughest targets, some flew as many as 18.

Land, rearm, take off. Again and again, until the eastern sky began to gray and it was too dangerous to continue. Then the crews would stumble out of their open cockpits, frozen half to death in the Russian winter, sleep, and do it all again the next night - for years.

Who Was Nadezhda Popova?

Nadezhda “Nadya” Popova flew roughly 852 combat missions over the course of the war.

One night her airplane came home with more than 40 bullet holes in it - in the wings, in the fabric, right beside where she sat. Her map had a hole in it. Her helmet had a hole in it. She later recalled the moment simply: “a wonder I remained alive.”

Popova survived the war. She also lived through watching a friend’s aircraft go down in flames off her wing - no parachute, nothing anyone could do - then landing, rearming, and flying back into the same sky. That was the job.

The Cost and the Honors

Thirty-two women of the regiment did not come home, lost to guns, to fighters, and to the brutal reality of flying fabric biplanes at night with no instruments and no way out.

Marina Raskova herself was killed in 1943, leading her bomber regiment through bad weather. She became the first woman in the Soviet Union to receive a state funeral, and her ashes were placed in the Kremlin wall.

Yet these were also young women - some teenagers of 19 or 20 - who remained themselves amid the cold and fear. They reportedly used soft navigation pencils as eyeliner and, when they could, drew flowers on the sides of their airplanes. They fought the most terrible war in history in a canvas trainer and still found a way to be who they were.

By war’s end the 588th had earned a new name: the 46th Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment. The title “Guards” was an honor given only to units proven in the worst fighting. Twenty-three of the women were named Heroes of the Soviet Union, the country’s highest honor. Altogether the regiment flew on the order of 23,000 sorties and dropped thousands of tons of bombs.

Why the Night Witches Still Matter to Pilots

The Po-2 was obsolete before the war even started - a joke on paper. What made it deadly was not the machine but the two women sitting in it: skill, nerve, and the willingness to cut the engine and glide silently into the guns because that was the only way to do the job.

The lesson carries straight into any cockpit today. The airplane is just metal, or in their case wood and cloth and wire - the pilot is the weapon. Know your aircraft well enough that you could fly it with the engine quiet and your eyes half closed. Those women did exactly that, night after night, with their lives on the line.

Key Takeaways

The Night Witches were the all-female Soviet 588th Night Bomber Regiment, later honored as the 46th Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment.
They flew the Polikarpov Po-2, a 1928-era wood-and-fabric trainer with roughly 100 horsepower and an 80–90 mph top speed.
Their signature tactic was cutting the engine and gliding silently onto targets - the source of the “broomstick” whisper that named them.
Crews flew up to 18 sorties in a single night; Nadezhda Popova alone flew about 852 missions, and 32 women of the regiment died in combat.
Founder Marina Raskova died in 1943 and received the first Soviet state funeral for a woman; 23 members became Heroes of the Soviet Union, and the regiment flew some 23,000 sorties in all.