Even in this day of information and easy access to knowledge, there are so many female accomplishments that few people know about. One example of this is the Night Witches.
If you don’t know who they are, that’s okay, not many people do. They are the women military aviators of the 588th Night Bomber Regiment of the Soviet Air Forces. The regiment was made up entirely of women volunteers in their late teens and early twenties and by the end of the war, it was the most highly decorated all-women unit in the Soviet Air Force, each pilot having flown over 800 missions.
They performed bombing missions against the German military. The Witches flew only in the dark and they carried no parachutes due to the weight of the bombs they carried and the low altitudes at which they flew. In addition, they only used maps and compasses to navigate their paths through the night skies. The women’s uniforms were hand-me-downs from male pilots and their planes had open cockpits, leaving the women’s faces to freeze in the chilly night air. In order to remain hidden, the pilots would also kill their engines when they got near their target, and simply glide over it, deploying their bomb.
The German began referring to them as “Nachthexen,” or “Night Witches,” because when the bombers flew overhead they made a light “whooshing” sound. The German soldiers quickly became so scared of the regiment because it was so hard to hear them coming or to catch the girls when they flew their plane so close to the ground that any German pilot who downed a “witch” was automatically awarded an Iron Cross.
The Night Witches were exceptional because they not only fought for their country in the sky but also had to fight the misogyny of their male counterparts. They were able to drop over 30,000 bombs and scare the living crap out of German men all while decorating their planes with flowers and using their navigation pencils as lip color.
The Night Witches taught me that any Women, girly or tomboyish, can overcome obstacles and work harder than a guy and still be forgotten by history, which is dominantly male. Even the heroes of this regiment, which worked against all odds, are barely heard of around the world today. This shows us that our society needs to change. It needs to spread and heighten the accomplishments of females AS WELL AS their male counterparts.
As a female, I’m tired of my gender’s achievement being written out of history so let’s take this history month and all the ones after to inform others that women can do and have done just as much as, if not more than, men.
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