Tactics

"One girl managed to fly seven times to the front line and back in her plane. She would return, shaking, and they would hang new bombs, refuel her plane, and she’d go off to bomb the target again. This is how we worked, can you imagine?"
~ Irina Rakobolkaya, Night Witches Chief of Staff

The Night Witches tactics were unique, unprecedented, and broke barriers. Years of training was condensed into six months. The Night Witch’s Po-2 planes flew low and slow and couldn’t be detected on radar because of the canvas and plywood, but the low altitudes made them easy targets for the Germans. The Night Witches outsmarted them with surprise attacks in the night with 220-pound bombs. “The Germans acknowledged the Witches were precise, merciless, and came from nowhere.” Because the planes were so light, only two bombs could be attached at once forcing 5-18 runs per night depending on the season. The Night Witches would “cut their engines, glide down silently, drop the bombs, restart the engines, pull up sharply, return to base, rearm, and fly to the next mission. When the small planes glided to their targets, a soft whooshing sound could be heard as the air passed through the rickety aircraft.” The Germans compared this unique sound to a witch's broomstick which gave the group the nickname “Nachthexen,” or Night Witches. “So what the hell are they attacking us with now...No idea. When they started the engine it sounded like the world’s oldest motorbike. Before that? More like a witch on a broomstick!” The Po-2 planes could glide farther than any other combat plane, make sudden decisive moves quicker than the German planes and could attack with almost no warning. “With their distinctive popping sound, the Po-2’s came to be dreaded by every German soldier.”  ​​​​​​​

Mechanteanemone. “Night Witches: Wrap-up and Mini-Review.” The Reef, 14 Sept. 2016, mechanteanemone.wordpress.com/2016/09/11/night-witches-wrap-up-and-mini-review/.

"What we did have were clever, educated, very talented girls. We had an enemy in front of us, and we had to prove that we were stronger and more prepared."
~ Nadia Popova

The Night Witches denied the Germans sleep. “The Germans found the psychological impact of the night long harassment almost too much to endure.” This had a devastating effect on the German’s morale. “The first missions flown by the 588th created a great deal of German outrage. The Germans were not prepared to be attacked at night and the women took advantage of this. The night-time attacks were known as harassment bombings. This became the signature for attack by the 588th: nighttime surprise attacks of revenge of their Motherland and as a tribute to their beloved Marina Raskova. This inflicted psychological terror among the Germans. When they learned the bombers were women, the Germans were even more demoralized and outraged.” The Germans were convinced that the Soviet government gave the women special vitamins, medicines, or injections to give them “cat-like” night vision.