37. The Night Witches Take Flight
The women of the 588th Night Bomber Regiment flew in slow – and by the standards of WWII, antiquated – plywood and canvass Polikarpov Po-2 biplanes, originally designed in the 1920s for flight training and crop dusting. Flying such old and unmilitary machines into combat during the daytime was suicide, but if flown at night under the cover of darkness, it was possible for the obsolescent Po-2s to sting the enemy and survive.
On the night of June 28th, 1942, the 588th flew its first combat sortie, a strike against a German headquarters facility. The flimsy Po-2s could not carry much – only two light bombs, over a short distance. However, their airfields were close to the front lines, so there was enough time to fly, bomb, return to base, reload, and repeat. Sometimes, pilots of the 588th flew up to eighteen bombing missions during a single night.