Aviation for Women is the flagship member publication of Women in Aviation International. Articles feature women who have made aviation history, professional development ideas, and current-topic articles.
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J A N U A R Y / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 6 Aviation forWomen 31 a woman." the war, the 588th was one of two fe- male regiments designated a Guards regiment—a Soviet military honor. And out of 34 female aviators honored as heroes of the Soviet Union, 30 were members of the 588th. In the 1930s around 150 aeronau- tic schools and clubs opened all over the Soviet Union. Women were huge participants of these aeronautic clubs, and it was many of these women who eventually became pilots and navi- gators in the female aeronautic regi- ments. Many of the navigators were also university-educated women who had studied mathematics or physics, allowing them to quickly learn the skills of their new position. When the war broke out, female pilots began petitioning the govern- ment to allow them to use their skills in the war effort. They were not im- mediately allowed. Many women then began petitioning Marina Raskova, a well-known pilot and an offcer of the NKVD—the precursor of the KGB— for assistance. She was eventually able to exert enough infuence to es- tablish three female regiments. The Sov iet a r my was so u npre- pared for female participation in the war that the women of the 588th orig- inally had to wear men's uniforms. It wasn't until the winter of 1942 that it was even decided to make wom- en's uniforms. It was only the 588th that remained an all-female regiment throughout the war. The 588th regiment flew the Po-2 training aircraft designed by Niko- lai Polikarpov. The open-cockpit airplane had only the most necessary and rudimentary instruments. The women few at night, their faces exposed to the elements. Their planes were not equipped with parachutes, radar, or even brakes. As for communication, there were no radios, and the pilot and nav- igator spoke to each other through a small tube inserted be- tween the pilot and navigator's seats. The landing gear of the Po-2 was spaced notoriously close together, making it all the more diffcult to land. After their training at Engels Aviation School—a two-year course that the women completed in four months—the regiment was stationed along the front with the Germans. Through to the end of the war, they pushed forward along with the front, eventually making it all the way to an airfeld northwest of Berlin in 1945. Their mission was to disrupt and disturb the German army at night, keep them from sleep- ing so they would be broken down mentally by morning. In the sum- mer months, each crew would fy fve to eight missions every night. In the winter, when the nights were longer, they few as many as 17 missions ev- ery night. As they approached Ger- man occupied areas, the 588th would cut their engines, glide down noise- lessly, a nd d rop t he bombs t hei r planes carried. Gliding down to low altitudes above enemy occupied ar- eas, at night without any power— while giving these women the advan- tage of surprise, this also meant they had little room to maneuver if their planes were hit with German anti- aircraft artillery. And they performed these missions over and over, night after night, for years. The 588th regiment was successful in its mission. The women managed to unnerve the German army to the extent that the Germans nicknamed them the Nachthexen. I fnd this nick- name, and that the German army be- lieved the women of the 588th were given special injections to give them cat-like vision at night, extremely re- vealing. The fact that the German army needed to ascribe a combina- tion of supernatural power and med- ical enhancement to these women shows just how terrifed they were. The nickname creates the illusion that the women were fgments of the soldiers' imagination. The 588th ac- cepted this nickname as a badge of honor; they knew it meant the Ger- man soldiers were scared of them. They succeeded in disrupting the German army, and they did so under extraordinary circumstances. In a speech after the end of the World War II in 1945, Pres- ident Kalinin of the USSR commended the Nachthexen for having won women in the Soviet Union the right to defend their country in military affairs. He also ended his commen- dation by saying, "Do not speak of the services you rendered; let others do it for you. That will be better." The Nachthexen had 12 commandments specifc to their regiment. The frst was, "Be proud you're a woman." I think we can all take this commandment to heart. Be proud we are women. And further, be proud that we are women who fy. ✈ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ksenia Weisz, WAI 52530, is a recent graduate of Brown Uni- versity living in New York. She holds a German private pilot license and a foreign-based American private pilot certifcate. Read more: To learn more about the 588th regiment and the women known as the Nachthexen check out these books. Red Sky, Black Death: A Soviet Woman Pilot's Memoir of the Eastern Front By Anna Timofeyeva-Yegorova Wings, Women, and War: Soviet Airwomen in World War II Combat By Reina Pennington Flying for Her Country: The American and Soviet Women Military Pilots of World War II By Amy Goodpaster Strebe PHOTOS HTTP://UNIFORMFAN.BLOGSPOT.COM/