588th Night Bomber Regiment

1. Lead

The 588th Night Bomber Regiment was an all-female Soviet bomber regiment of the Second World War, and it became one of the most famous units of the war. Formed in October 1941 on the orders of Joseph Stalin, at the suggestion of the pioneering aviator Marina Raskova, the regiment was staffed entirely by women — pilots, navigators, mechanics, armourers and ground crew, most of them in their late teens and early twenties.

It flew the Polikarpov Po-2, a slow, flimsy, open-cockpit biplane that had been designed as a trainer and a crop-duster, and it flew only at night, in missions that the Germans came to dread. The German soldiers called the women Nachthexen — the “Night Witches” — because of the way their aircraft, with their engines cut to idle, glided silently over the German lines before dropping their bombs, and because of the way they returned, night after night, in weather that grounded every other aircraft.

Between 1942 and 1945 the regiment flew more than 23,000 combat sorties and dropped an estimated 3,000 tons of bombs on German troops, supply columns, bridges and airfields, and twenty-three of its members were awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union.

The regiment’s story is remarkable for what it says about women in war, about the Soviet Union’s mobilisation of its people, and about the gap between propaganda and reality. The women of the 588th were real soldiers — they flew in open cockpits in winter, they were shot at by anti-aircraft guns and by night fighters, and more than thirty of them were killed — but they were also a propaganda asset, and the Soviet press celebrated them as heroines while the Soviet military, for the most part, kept women out of combat.

The regiment was disbanded in October 1945, a few months after the end of the war, and its veterans returned to civilian life, where many of them found that their service was forgotten. In the decades since, the “Night Witches” have become a legend — in books, in films, in songs and in the memory of Russia — and this article tells their story from the records: the formation of the regiment, the aircraft they flew, the campaigns they fought, the women who led them, and the legacy they left behind.

2. Key Facts

Formed	October 1941, at Engels, on the Volga; first combat June 1942
Disbanded	October 1945
Personnel	All-female: about 400 women at full strength (pilots, navigators, mechanics, ground crew)
Aircraft	Polikarpov Po-2 (U-2) biplane, open cockpit, maximum speed about 150 km/h
Combat record	More than 23,000 sorties; about 3,000 tons of bombs dropped (regimental records; figures vary)
Honours	23 members awarded Hero of the Soviet Union; regiment renamed 46th Taman Guards Night Bomber Regiment (1943)
Commanders	Marina Raskova (founder, killed 1943); Yevdokia Bershanskaya (regimental commander, 1942–1945)
Losses	More than 30 aircrew killed (estimates vary between about 30 and 33)

3. Background and Formation

Marina Raskova and the Women’s Regiments

The 588th was the creation of Marina Raskova, one of the Soviet Union’s most famous aviators. Raskova had become a national heroine in 1938, when she and two other women flew the Rodina aircraft on a record-breaking long-distance flight across Siberia, and she had the ear of Stalin.

When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941 — Operation Barbarossa — Raskova received hundreds of letters from young women who wanted to fly for their country, and she used her influence to persuade Stalin to authorise three all-female aviation regiments: a fighter regiment, a dive-bomber regiment, and a night-bomber regiment.

The order was signed in October 1941, and Raskova was given the task of forming the regiments at Engels, on the Volga, where the women were trained in a matter of months — a training that, for the men, took years.

The night-bomber regiment, the 588th, was the only one of the three to remain all-female for the whole of the war, and it was the only one to fly combat missions from 1942 to 1945 without interruption.

Training at Engels

The women who joined the 588th were, for the most part, very young: the average age of the pilots was about twenty, and many of them had been students, teachers, factory workers and students of flying clubs before the war.

They were trained at Engels in the winter of 1941–1942, in conditions of extreme hardship: there were no heated barracks, there was not enough food, and the women had to cut their hair short and to wear men’s uniforms, which were far too large for them.

They learned to fly the Po-2, to navigate by the stars, to drop bombs by hand, and to maintain their own aircraft — because there were no male mechanics, the women did everything themselves, from changing the oil to repairing the engines. The training was compressed into a few months, and in May 1942 the regiment was declared ready for combat.

It was sent to the Southern Front, in the Caucasus, where it flew its first combat mission on the night of 12 June 1942, bombing German positions on the Don. Raskova herself did not fly with the regiment: she commanded the dive-bomber regiment, and she was killed in January 1943, when her aircraft crashed in bad weather on the way to the front.

Her death was a blow to the women of the 588th, who had regarded her as their patron and their protector.

4. The Aircraft: The Polikarpov Po-2

A Trainer Turned Bomber

The Po-2 — originally called the U-2 — was one of the most remarkable aircraft of the war, and one of the least impressive on paper. It was a two-seat biplane made of wood and fabric, with an open cockpit, a top speed of about 150 kilometres per hour, and a maximum bomb load of about 250 kilograms, carried on racks under the wings.

It had no radio, no armour, no guns for self-defence, and it was so slow that a German fighter could overtake it in seconds. But the Po-2 had qualities that made it ideal for night bombing: it was almost silent when its engine was throttled back, it could fly very slowly and very low, it could take off and land on almost any flat field, and it was so simple that the women could maintain it themselves, in the open, in winter, with basic tools.

The regiment’s pilots learned to use the aircraft’s weaknesses as strengths: they flew at treetop height, they cut their engines and glided over the target, and they dropped their bombs before the Germans could hear them coming.

Flying at Night

Night flying in an open cockpit, in a Russian winter, was a test of endurance that few men could have passed. The women flew in temperatures of minus twenty or thirty degrees, in flying suits that were too large and in boots that were too big, and they flew with their faces exposed to the wind, their hands freezing on the controls.

They navigated by the stars and by the rivers, and they found their targets by the fires and the lights of the German camps. A typical night’s work was eight to ten sorties per crew, each lasting about an hour, with the aircraft returning to the airfield, being refuelled and rearmed by the ground crew — all women — and taking off again within minutes.

The work was relentless, and it was dangerous: the Germans fired anti-aircraft guns at the sound of the engines, and they sent up night fighters, and the Po-2, with no armour and no speed, was an easy target. The women flew, in the words of one of them, “because there was no one else to do it, and because the Germans had to be stopped”.

5. The Campaigns, 1942–1945

The Caucasus and the Kuban

The regiment’s first campaign was in the Caucasus, in the summer and autumn of 1942, when the German army was advancing towards the oilfields of Grozny and Baku. The 588th flew from airfields in the foothills of the Caucasus, bombing German troops, supply columns and river crossings, and it flew in support of the Soviet armies that were holding the passes.

The fighting was fierce, and the regiment suffered its first losses: in August 1942, two crews were shot down, and the women learned, for the first time, what it was like to lose friends in combat. In February 1943, after the German defeat at Stalingrad, the regiment was awarded the title of Guards — a mark of distinction for units that had fought with particular courage — and it was renamed the 46th Taman Guards Night Bomber Regiment, after the Taman Peninsula, where it had fought.

The “Guards” title was a great honour, and it was also a sign that the regiment, which had begun as an experiment, was now regarded as one of the best bomber units in the Soviet air force.

Crimea, Belarus and the Advance to Germany

In 1943 and 1944 the regiment fought in the Crimea, in the Ukraine and in Belarus, in support of the great Soviet offensives that drove the Germans back towards Germany. It bombed German positions during the liberation of the Crimea in the spring of 1944, it flew in support of Operation Bagration — the great Soviet offensive of June 1944 that destroyed the German Army Group Centre — and it followed the Soviet armies into Poland in the winter of 1944–1945.

By then the regiment was flying from airfields in Poland, and it was bombing German troops in East Prussia and in the defence of Berlin. Its last combat missions were flown in the spring of 1945, in support of the Soviet assault on Berlin, and the regiment’s final tally — more than 23,000 sorties, about 3,000 tons of bombs, and, according to the regimental records, the destruction of dozens of German supply dumps, bridges and artillery positions — was, for a unit flying an obsolete trainer, an extraordinary achievement.

The figures are regimental figures, and they should be treated with the caution that applies to all wartime claims, but the scale of the regiment’s effort — night after night, for three years — is not in doubt.

The Worst Night: 31 July 1943

The regiment’s worst night came on 31 July 1943, during the fighting in the Kuban, when German night fighters — flying the Messerschmitt Bf 110 — intercepted the Po-2s as they returned from a mission. Four aircraft were shot down in a single night, and eight women were killed, including the regimental navigator and two of the most experienced pilots.

It was the heaviest loss the regiment ever suffered in one night, and it showed the vulnerability of the Po-2: slow, unarmed and without a radio, it could not defend itself against a fighter, and the women could only hope that the darkness would hide them. The regiment mourned its dead, buried them with military honours, and flew again the next night.

The loss was, in the end, a measure of the regiment’s courage: it kept flying, in the same aircraft, on the same missions, knowing what the risks were, and it did so for two more years.

6. The Women: Commanders and Heroes

Yevdokia Bershanskaya / Yevdokia Bershanskaya

The regiment’s commander for most of the war was Yevdokia Bershanskaya, a professional pilot who had been a flying instructor before the war and who took command of the 588th in 1942, after Raskova’s departure. Bershanskaya was, by all accounts, a strict and demanding commander: she insisted on discipline, she flew combat missions herself, and she was, in the words of one of her pilots, “a mother and a general at the same time”.

She commanded the regiment through its hardest campaigns, and she was the only woman to receive the Order of Suvorov — a decoration normally given to generals — for her leadership. After the war she remained in the air force, and she died in Moscow in 1982, at the age of sixty-nine.

Her pilots remembered her with affection and with respect: she had held the regiment together, she had kept its standards, and she had brought most of its women home alive.

Nadezhda Popova and the Heroes of the Soviet Union

Twenty-three members of the regiment were awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union, the highest Soviet decoration, and among the best known was Nadezhda Popova, who flew 852 combat sorties — one of the highest totals of any pilot in the war — and who was awarded the title in February 1945.

Popova had joined the regiment as a pilot at the age of nineteen, and she flew throughout the war, in the Caucasus, in the Crimea and in Poland, and she was, after the war, one of the regiment’s most active veterans, telling its story in books and in interviews until her death in 2013, at the age of ninety-one.

Other Heroes included Yekaterina Ryabova, the regimental navigator, who flew 890 sorties; Yevdokiya Nosal, the first woman pilot to be awarded the title, who was killed in action in April 1943; and Irina Sebrova, who flew more than 1,000 sorties — the highest total in the regiment, and one of the highest of any Soviet pilot.

The number of Heroes — twenty-three from a single regiment — is a measure of the regiment’s reputation, and of the Soviet state’s desire to celebrate it. It is also a measure of the cost: more than thirty of the regiment’s women were killed, and many more were wounded.

7. Life on the Ground

The Mechanics and Ground Crew

The regiment’s ground crew — the mechanics, the armourers, the radio operators and the cooks — were all women, and they worked in conditions as hard as those of the pilots. They maintained the Po-2s in the open, in winter, with their bare hands on frozen metal, and they rearmed and refuelled the aircraft between sorties, often in darkness and under fire.

The work was done at night, because the aircraft flew at night, and the women slept during the day, in tents and in dugouts, and they ate what the army provided — which was often very little. The regiment’s discipline was strict, but its spirit was, by all accounts, remarkable: the women sang, they danced, they sewed their own uniforms, and they kept a sense of humour that, in the words of one veteran, “was the only thing that kept us alive”.

The regiment was, in effect, a small, self-contained world of women, in an army that was, for the most part, a world of men — and it worked.

The “Night Witches” Name

The name “Night Witches” was given to the regiment by the Germans, and it was, at first, a term of fear and of respect. The German soldiers, who heard the Po-2s gliding silently over their positions, said that the sound was like the sweeping of a witch’s broom, and they believed — or so the story goes — that the women had been given special powers, and that they could not be shot down.

The Germans offered the Iron Cross to any pilot who shot down a “Night Witch”, and they sent their best night fighters against them. The women themselves adopted the name with pride, and it became, after the war, the name by which the regiment is known in the West.

In Russia, the regiment is known by its official name — the 46th Taman Guards — and by the name its veterans gave it: the “girls of the 588th”. Both names are true, and both capture something of the regiment: the fear it inspired in its enemies, and the affection it inspired in its own members.

8. Disbandment and Aftermath

The End of the Regiment

The regiment was disbanded in October 1945, a few months after the end of the war in Europe. The decision was part of the general demobilisation of the Soviet armed forces, and it was also part of a deliberate policy: the Soviet state, which had mobilised women for the war, now wanted them to return to their traditional roles as wives and mothers, and it did not want women in the peacetime armed forces.

The women of the 588th returned to civilian life — to universities, to factories, to teaching and to medicine — and many of them found that their service was not recognised: they were not given the pensions and the privileges of male veterans, and their wartime service was, for many years, forgotten by the Soviet state.

Some of them, like Nadezhda Popova, remained active in veterans’ organisations and told the regiment’s story; others never spoke of the war again. The regiment’s banner was deposited in the Central Museum of the Armed Forces in Moscow, where it remains.

The Veterans’ Long Silence

For decades after the war, the “Night Witches” were little known outside the Soviet Union, and even inside it their story was told in the language of propaganda rather than of history. The Soviet press celebrated them as heroines, but it did not tell the full story of their losses, of their hardships, or of the difficulties they faced after the war.

It was not until the 1980s and 1990s, when the Soviet archives were opened and when the veterans themselves began to publish their memoirs, that a fuller picture emerged — a picture of young women who had flown in open cockpits in winter, who had lost friends, and who had returned to a society that did not know what to do with them.

The veterans’ reunions, held in Moscow and in the towns where the regiment had been based, became, in the words of one veteran, “the only place where we could be ourselves” — the only place where the women who had flown together could remember what they had done.

9. Legacy of the 588th

A Symbol of Women in War

The regiment’s legacy is that of the most famous women’s unit of the Second World War, and of a symbol of women’s part in the war. In a war in which women were, for the most part, excluded from combat, the women of the 588th flew combat missions for three years, they were decorated as soldiers, and they were, in the end, recognised as one of the best bomber units in the Soviet air force.

Their story has been told in books, in films, in songs and in television dramas, and it has inspired a generation of women to see the war, and military service, as their history too. In Russia, the regiment is remembered in museums, in monuments and in the names of streets, and its veterans are honoured each year on Victory Day, 9 May.

In the West, the “Night Witches” have become a byword for courage and for ingenuity — for the women who turned an obsolete trainer into a weapon of war, and who flew it, night after night, against an enemy that feared them.

Propaganda and Reality

The regiment’s legacy is also a reminder of the difference between propaganda and reality. The Soviet press celebrated the “Night Witches” as heroines, and the regiment’s record — 23,000 sorties, 3,000 tons of bombs — was used to show that Soviet women were equal to men in war.

The reality was more complex: the women flew an obsolete aircraft, they suffered heavy losses, and they were, after the war, forgotten by the state that had celebrated them. The regiment’s story is, in the end, a story about what women can do when they are given the chance — and about what happens when the chance is taken away.

The women of the 588th did not fly for propaganda, and they did not fly for medals: they flew because their country was invaded, because their friends were dying, and because, in the words of one of them, “someone had to do it”. That, more than the statistics, is their legacy.

10. Assessment by Historians

What the Records Show

Historians who have studied the regiment’s records — in the Russian military archives and in the veterans’ memoirs — confirm the essential facts: the formation in October 1941, the first combat in June 1942, the award of the Guards title in February 1943, the campaigns in the Caucasus, the Crimea, Belarus and Poland, and the disbandment in October 1945.

The figures for sorties and for bombs dropped — more than 23,000 sorties, about 3,000 tons — come from the regimental records, and they should be treated with the caution that applies to all wartime claims: Soviet regimental records, like those of every army, were subject to exaggeration, and the number of German targets destroyed cannot be independently verified.

What is not in doubt is the scale of the regiment’s effort: it flew combat missions for more than three years, it flew in weather that grounded other aircraft, and it suffered losses — more than thirty women killed — that show that its missions were real and dangerous.

The Regiment’s Place in History

The regiment’s place in history is secure, and it rests on more than the statistics. The 588th was the only all-female regiment to fly combat missions for the whole of the war, and it was one of the few women’s units in any army to be decorated as a combat unit.

Its pilots were, by the standards of the war, exceptionally brave: they flew in open cockpits, in winter, in an unarmed aircraft, against an enemy that had air superiority, and they did so night after night, for three years. The most balanced assessments present the regiment as it was: a unit of young women, many of them teenagers, who were given an obsolete aircraft and a dangerous mission, and who carried it out with a courage and a professionalism that earned them the respect of their comrades and the fear of their enemies.

They were not, as the propaganda claimed, superhuman, and they were not, as some have suggested, a publicity stunt: they were soldiers, and they did a soldier’s job, and they paid a soldier’s price. That is their place in history, and it is enough.

Frequently Asked Questions

What was the 588th Night Bomber Regiment?
The 588th Night Bomber Regiment was an all-female Soviet bomber regiment of the Second World War, formed in October 1941. It flew the Polikarpov Po-2 biplane on night bombing missions from 1942 to 1945, and it was known to the Germans as the “Night Witches”.

Why were they called the “Night Witches”?
The Germans called them Nachthexen — “Night Witches” — because their Po-2 aircraft glided silently over the German lines with their engines cut to idle, and because they returned night after night. The name was a mark of the fear they inspired.

How many sorties did the regiment fly?
According to the regimental records, the regiment flew more than 23,000 combat sorties and dropped about 3,000 tons of bombs between 1942 and 1945. The figures are regimental claims and should be treated with the caution that applies to all wartime statistics.

Who was Marina Raskova?
Marina Raskova was the pioneering Soviet aviator who proposed the formation of the women’s aviation regiments and who formed the 588th at Engels in 1941. She commanded the women’s dive-bomber regiment and was killed in a flying accident in January 1943.

How many of the regiment were awarded Hero of the Soviet Union?
Twenty-three members of the regiment were awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union, the highest Soviet decoration, including Nadezhda Popova, who flew 852 sorties, and Irina Sebrova, who flew more than 1,000.

When was the regiment disbanded?
The regiment was disbanded in October 1945, a few months after the end of the war in Europe, as part of the general demobilisation of the Soviet armed forces.

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Sources

1. Wikipedia, “588th Night Bomber Regiment” — formation, combat record, commanders and Heroes of the Soviet Union.
2. Anne Noggle, A Dance With Death: Soviet Airwomen in World War II (Texas A&M University Press, 1994) — interviews with veterans of the regiment.
3. Reina Pennington, Wings, Women, and War: Soviet Airwomen in World War II Combat (University Press of Kansas, 2001) — the standard scholarly history of the women’s regiments.
4. Nadezhda Popova, memoirs and interviews — the account of a pilot who flew 852 sorties with the regiment.
5. Bruce Myles, Night Witches: The Untold Story of Soviet Women in Combat (Academy Chicago, 1981) — an early English-language history of the regiment.
6. Russian State Archive of Military History, regimental records of the 46th Taman Guards Night Bomber Regiment — sorties, losses and honours.
7. The National Archives (UK), Air Historical Branch, Soviet Air Force records — the Po-2 and night bombing operations on the Eastern Front.