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"Night Witches" (Female Bomber Pilots—WWII/Russia)

3113

3113

Hello Summer!
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I'm sure there's much of WWII I don't know, especially from the Russian side. This certainly makes me want to learn more. Full, fascinating story here:
The Nazis called them “Night Witches” because the whooshing noise their plywood and canvas airplanes made reminded the Germans of the sound of a witch’s broomstick.

The Russian women who piloted those planes, onetime crop dusters, took it as a compliment. In 30,000 missions over four years, they dumped 23,000 tons of bombs on the German invaders, ultimately helping to chase them back to Berlin. Any German pilot who downed a “witch” was awarded an Iron Cross.

These young heroines, all volunteers and most in their teens and early 20s, became legends of World War II but are now largely forgotten. Flying only in the dark, they had no parachutes, guns, radios or radar, only maps and compasses. If hit by tracer bullets, their planes would burn like sheets of paper.
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Oh, the plot bunnies for this one. Historical (Natasha helps a wounded American get past German lines in her plane...), Fantasy ("Night witches" are real witches and they can do more than fly...), etc.
 
I saw something about this on a Facebook post the other night. I had very similar thoughts.

Good story ideas in the dozens just pop up.
 
Yeah you're all late on the scene. I posted 'Nawch Vyead' - The Night Fairy, although I shouldn't really draw attention to it, frankly. Anyway too bad. ...Apparently the NSA does NOT monitor EVERYTHING.

I could even have named names... Mr. Yates.

Couldn't I have?

(Not you, though, Mike.)

Disclaimer: I am not now, nor have I ever been et cetera et cetera.

P.S. I'm not really intending to sound 'reactive' to the OP at all; it is afterall an excellent story hook - it's just that for the entire whole last two years at least the media's reporting of what has been going on pre-Sochi and in The Ukraine has been so far removed from reality that I can't believe NO ONE AT ALL who goes to these places hasn't said something. Or, been ALLOWED to say something in the press I suppose.
 
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Seems like feel good bulls shit to appease the ladies. Every war has its Bed check Charlies to harass and annoy ground troops. They do little damage and the troops ignore them until a bomb falls close enough to arouse their attention.

Slow motion targets are easy to hit, and any aircraft backlighted by the Moon would be in peril, from the ground or air. I wonder what their forward air speed was flying into high winds? American bombers often clocked 25mph ground speed flying into high winds.
 
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JAMESBJOHNSON said:
Seems like feel good bulls shit to appease the ladies. Every war has its Bed check Charlies to harass and annoy ground troops. They do little damage and the troops ignore them until a bomb falls close enough to arouse their attention.

Slow motion targets are easy to hit, and any aircraft backlighted by the Moon would be in peril, from the ground or air. I wonder what their forward air speed was flying into high winds? American bombers often clocked 25mph ground speed flying into high winds.
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According to Wikipedia, cruise speed 110 and max 150 km/h, so subtract headwind from that to get your answer.

One of my relatives was training in Tasmania during WW2. He said the pilots used to have fun by finding somebody driving along the road, coming in from behind, and roaring overhead at low altitude. But one day he was trying to do it with a headwind, the driver saw him coming, and took off; the car was powerful enough that he couldn't catch it in his trainer.

The Wikipedia article also mentions that it wasn't just the Germans who had trouble shooting them down; the slow speed actually made it harder for fighters to engage long enough to get a good shot, and although slow they were maneuverable.
 
Bramblethorn said:
According to Wikipedia, cruise speed 110 and max 150 km/h, so subtract headwind from that to get your answer.

One of my relatives was training in Tasmania during WW2. He said the pilots used to have fun by finding somebody driving along the road, coming in from behind, and roaring overhead at low altitude. But one day he was trying to do it with a headwind, the driver saw him coming, and took off; the car was powerful enough that he couldn't catch it in his trainer.

The Wikipedia article also mentions that it wasn't just the Germans who had trouble shooting them down; the slow speed actually made it harder for fighters to engage long enough to get a good shot, and although slow they were maneuverable.
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Then explain the reason for shooting parked aircraft if slow aircraft were a problem.

A machine gun would destroy a slow, low flying airplane. In Vietnam gooks with machine guns shot down plenty of fast jets. Simply shoot straight up and let the airplane fly thru the bullets.
 
JAMESBJOHNSON said:
Seems like feel good bulls shit to appease the ladies. Every war has its Bed check Charlies to harass and annoy ground troops. They do little damage and the troops ignore them until a bomb falls close enough to arouse their attention.

Slow motion targets are easy to hit, and any aircraft backlighted by the Moon would be in peril, from the ground or air. I wonder what their forward air speed was flying into high winds? American bombers often clocked 25mph ground speed flying into high winds.
Click to expand...

No, but I am sure not much was made of them at the time because it would have stolen the glory from all the brave Russian men.

History is a man's world. The penis must not be shriveled under any circumstances!
 
JAMESBJOHNSON said:
Then explain the reason for shooting parked aircraft if slow aircraft were a problem.

A machine gun would destroy a slow, low flying airplane. In Vietnam gooks with machine guns shot down plenty of fast jets. Simply shoot straight up and let the airplane fly thru the bullets.
Click to expand...

Most of the planes shot down in Vietnam that way were shot down with gravel shot into the air at the end of runways with big ass slingshots. The jet engines suck in the gravel or bullets for that matter and down you go. 30 cal rounds have to hit in just the right spot to down a modern aircraft and those old heaps just ignore them.
 
JAMESBJOHNSON said:
Then explain the reason for shooting parked aircraft if slow aircraft were a problem.

A machine gun would destroy a slow, low flying airplane. In Vietnam gooks with machine guns shot down plenty of fast jets. Simply shoot straight up and let the airplane fly thru the bullets.
Click to expand...

Parked aircraft don't do much dodging. And, yeah, if you're flying a straight path, somebody can anticipate where you'regoing to be; the point of maneuverability is not flying a straight path.
 
lovecraft68 said:
No, but I am sure not much was made of them at the time because it would have stolen the glory from all the brave Russian men.

History is a man's world. The penis must not be shriveled under any circumstances!
Click to expand...

Yeah, there's some interesting stuff about how Soviet female soldiers were viewed after the war - "not the sort of girl you'd want your son to marry".
 
A LOT of Soviet snipers in WW2 were female and some racked up huge numbers of kills. Or so I've heard.
 
Neat article. I have to ask Mr. Penn about it, he's an aviation buff.

I have actually read "And Quiet Flows the Don..." Don't remember anything, but I know I read it. May even still have it downstairs.
 
lovecraft68 said:
No, but I am sure not much was made of them at the time because it would have stolen the glory from all the brave Russian men.
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The Soviet Union was really the only major combatant that used women in combat. Their women combatants were made much of in the Soviet Union during and after the Great Patriotic War. (Although downsizing their military after the war did start with de-mobilizing most women from combat and manufactories.)

Outside of the Soviet Union soviet women combatants were pretty much ignored and/or down-played -- except for a couple of women snipers from Stalingrad -- until the mid-80s or so.
 
49greg said:
A LOT of Soviet snipers in WW2 were female and some racked up huge numbers of kills. Or so I've heard.
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Not so according to the memoirs of German snipers. Russian women liked to climb trees to shoot from, and once they fired a shot the whole world knew where they were, and that's fatal for a sniper. Stalin taught them how to shoot but none of the field-craft.
 
Read, "The 900 Days", a riveting account of the seige of Leningrad. Women played key roles in assuring the city's survival for nearly three years. no differential was made wether one was ale or female. Almost all were communist party members.
 
robertreams said:
Read, "The 900 Days", a riveting account of the seige of Leningrad. Women played key roles in assuring the city's survival for nearly three years. no differential was made wether one was ale or female. Almost all were communist party members.
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I'm certain they did but they were never exemplary warriors. Stalin used women the same as he used dogs and peasants and gooks, they did the dangerous shitwork, to spare the men.

I read 900 Days long ago.
 
An ancient fact of women in battle!

Tattooed Scythian Warriors, Descendants of the Amazons?

Part 1 of 4 parts. (short parts.)

scythians4.jpg
 
JAMESBJOHNSON said:
Not so according to the memoirs of German snipers. Russian women liked to climb trees to shoot from, and once they fired a shot the whole world knew where they were, and that's fatal for a sniper. Stalin taught them how to shoot but none of the field-craft.
Click to expand...

I would imagine a macho German soldier would be very dismissive of any woman who went to war, especially those who were good at their jobs. And I'm sure that some of the women snipers, just as some of the men, had inadequate training and were just plain stupid. Every army has them in both sexes. Those are the ones that get remembered. The good ones just killed anyone who could have seen them.

I know it's just wiki, but their article on women in the USSR's military is quite interesting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_women_in_World_War_II

Here's a few items I cut and pasted. - You don't get 300 enemy soldiers without knowing fieldcraft.

There were 800,000 women who served in the Soviet Armed Forces during the war.[1] Nearly 200,000 were decorated and 89 eventually received the Soviet Union’s highest award, the Hero of the Soviet Union. Some served as pilots,[2] snipers, machine gunners, tank crew members and partisans, as well as in auxiliary roles.[3]


Land forces[edit]

The Soviet Union deployed women snipers extensively, and to great effect, including Nina Alexeyevna Lobkovskaya and Ukrainian Lyudmila Pavlichenko (who killed over 300 German soldiers). The Soviets found that sniper duties fit women well, since good snipers are patient, deliberate, have a high level of aerobic conditioning, and normally avoid hand-to-hand combat.
 
49greg said:
I would imagine a macho German soldier would be very dismissive of any woman who went to war, especially those who were good at their jobs. And I'm sure that some of the women snipers, just as some of the men, had inadequate training and were just plain stupid. Every army has them in both sexes. Those are the ones that get remembered. The good ones just killed anyone who could have seen them.

I know it's just wiki, but their article on women in the USSR's military is quite interesting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_women_in_World_War_II

Here's a few items I cut and pasted. - You don't get 300 enemy soldiers without knowing fieldcraft.

There were 800,000 women who served in the Soviet Armed Forces during the war.[1] Nearly 200,000 were decorated and 89 eventually received the Soviet Union’s highest award, the Hero of the Soviet Union. Some served as pilots,[2] snipers, machine gunners, tank crew members and partisans, as well as in auxiliary roles.[3]


Land forces[edit]

The Soviet Union deployed women snipers extensively, and to great effect, including Nina Alexeyevna Lobkovskaya and Ukrainian Lyudmila Pavlichenko (who killed over 300 German soldiers). The Soviets found that sniper duties fit women well, since good snipers are patient, deliberate, have a high level of aerobic conditioning, and normally avoid hand-to-hand combat.
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I say we organize an all female infantry regiment, and let them show their stuff in combat, to see how good they are.

The primary reason Truman integrated blacks with white troops was the chronic inferiority of black combat troops since the Civil War. So I say put the gals on the stage, to see how good they are.
 
JAMESBJOHNSON said:
I say we organize an all female infantry regiment, and let them show their stuff in combat, to see how good they are.

The primary reason Truman integrated blacks with white troops was the chronic inferiority of black combat troops since the Civil War. So I say put the gals on the stage, to see how good they are.
Click to expand...

Ah yes, and we'll put you out there as their first target at the rifle range. You can be a prime example of an idiot with their head up their ass. Just the right size for long range target practice.
 
49greg said:
You don't get 300 enemy soldiers without knowing fieldcraft.
Click to expand...

Including 36 enemy snipers, who presumably didn't go home to write memoirs...

And, yeah, just about everything the Soviets did with male or female soldiers had a propaganda angle, a lot of soldiers of both sexes went out as poorly-trained cannon-fodder, and those kill counts have to be taken with a grain of salt, given their fondness for manufacturing heroes.

But that goes the other way too; plenty of people had reason to downplay the competency of women soldiers, who'd like to think that women like Nancy Wake couldn't exist. I love this bit:

"On the night of 29–30 April 1944, Wake was parachuted into the Auvergne, becoming a liaison between London and the local maquis group headed by Captain Henri Tardivat in the Forest of Tronçais. Upon discovering her tangled in a tree, Captain Tardivat greeted her remarking, "I hope that all the trees in France bear such beautiful fruit this year," to which she replied, "Don't give me that French shit.""
 
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