Night Witch Tactics

Mostly, the Night Witches made surprise raids on German supply depots and army camps. They flew by night, and the pilots often shut off their engines when approaching the enemy position so that the planes glided in silently. They restarted the engines just before the attack, dropped their bombs, and disap­peared into the darkness before German troops could open fire.

О A group of female Soviet combat pilots make their flight plans somewhere in the Soviet Union in 1942.

Подпись: О Stalingrad in Russia was destroyed as German and Soviet forces fought in the skies and on the ground during the Battle of Stalingrad.

The slow Po-2 biplane appeared to be an easy target for a fast German fighter, such as an Me-109. The top speed of the Soviet biplane, however, was actually less than the minimum (stall) speed of the German fighter. This difference in speed meant that a German fighter chasing a Po-2 often sped past its slow – moving target and had to fly around in a circle for another attack. The skillful Night Witch pilots, meanwhile, flew close to the ground, twisting and turning and even disappearing behind trees. The German fighter pilots did not find it easy to shoot down a Night Witch.

The Russian planes were so small and flew so low that they barely showed up on German radar. In key battles, such as the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942-1943, the Germans mustered searchlights and used heavy antiaircraft guns to blast the Night Witches out of the sky. The pilots of the 588th Regiment flew in threes to outwit this tactic. Two planes flew straight and level, to attract the search­lights, and then they began a series of
aerobatic moves. While the German searchlight crews struggled to hold their light beams on the gyrating biplanes, the third Night Witch moved in to attack. The pilots then regrouped and repeated the attack until all three aircraft had dropped their bombs.

Twenty-three Night Witch pilots received their country’s highest honor in the form of Hero of the Soviet Union medals. Two pilots, Katya Ryabova and Nadya Popova, carried out eighteen raids in one night. In total, the Night Witches flew more than 24,000 missions. Most of the women pilots who survived the war flew hundreds of missions.

SEE ALSO:

• Aerobatics • Biplane • Bomber

• Pilot • World War II

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