Night Witches Research Paper

If they happened to be hit by tracer bullets their wooden planes would burst into flames. They also could only carry two bombs at a time, so they had to fly between 8-18 missions a night to make an impact. Is also forced them to fly at lower altitudes, making them easier targets, hence the night only missions.
There was some upside to the Polikarpov Po-2. Their maximum speed was slower than the stall speed of the Nazi planes, which left them vulnerable to straight out attacks but made them extremely maneuverable. This made them perfect to surprise harassment bombings, targeting encampments, supply depots, rear base areas, etc. Their constant raids made rest for the troops difficult and left them feeling very insecure. However, the introduction

The Nazi’s would arrange flak guns and searchlights in circles around targets. Planes flying across the perimeter were often ripped to shreds by the flak guns. So the Night Witches of the 588th developed their own technique to deal with the problem. They flew in groups of three. The first two planes would go in and deliberately attract the attention of the German's spotlights, then suddenly separate and maneuver wildly to shake off the searchlight operators who were trying to follow them. In the meantime, the third pilot would fly in through a dark path cleared by her two teammates in their signature stealth mode. This meant turning off the loud engines of their planes and freefalling to drop their bombs, then restarting the planes mid-fall and rejoining the other two planes to switch places until all three had delivered their loads. Nadya Popova noted, it took nerves of

Women desired to defend their state as much as men but struggled to obtain combat roles on the front lines or get any equal treatment at all within their units. In mixed gender units, male officers often undermined the authority of the few female officers. When female officers failed to maintain command over their subordinates, male officers blamed it on their inadequate gender. In some cases, issues escalated to sexual harassment and assault. In a society that had such polarized gender roles, they struggled to have a synchronized mixed-gender unit, which may be why the 588th battalion reported different experiences than the ones experienced by the majority of other female soldiers. The 588th faced discrimination, largely with supplies and recognition, but did not suffer as much from their male counterpart, probably due to their all-female base and leaders. However, it seems that for all female soldiers, the after war recognition was nonexistent. In several interviews in the bibliography of the Night Witches, the women were prevented or filtered from speaking about their experiences to the journalist by their husbands, as if they had never happened. Most were willing and proud to report their experiences, but this was not reflected in the media. Once the war was over female soldiers stopped appearing in the media and the state prevented female soldiers from marching in the Moscow Victory Parade,