Russia’s Night Witches: As Deadly as Men

Lyuba Vinogradova brings to light the amazing story behind Russia’s Night Witches — the first and only all-women aviation corps in the world which came to being during World War Two.
The Birth of the Night Witches

The Night Witches was the brainchild of the well-known Soviet navigator Marina Raskova. She became driven to assemble three regiments made entirely of women in 1941 as the German troops were advancing towards Moscow. These three regiments were long-distance bombers, night bombers and fighters.
Raskova was a USSR heroine, a celebrated aviatrix after her record-breaking flight which ended up in her crashing into the Siberian taiga resulting to her surviving on a bar of chocolate for ten days. However, in a harsh Soviet twist, Raskova turned out to be a member of the Secret Police and she sent many to their deaths just months before the outbreak of the Second World War. Countless members of the Soviet Air Force as well as the other armed units were quashed in 1940. This was one of the reasons why the German Wehrmacht made fast progress in their advancement.



http://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/russias-night-witches-as-deadly-as-men.html