The war gathered at the front not only the male population of the Soviet Union, but also its beautiful part. The weak half of the country's citizens had to change their skirts to trousers, take up arms and become strong. A striking example is the 46th Guards Women's Taman Aviation Regiment, known as the Night Witches. The regiment was created at the very beginning of the war, namely in 1941, by order of the People's Commissariat of Defense. The commander of the witches was Evdokia Bocharova.
The 46th Women's Flight Regiment instilled such horror in the enemy that the Germans called it "Night Witches", while Soviet male pilots called the regiment "Dunkin", thus alluding to the name of the commander. The training of the pilots took place in Arkhangelsk. The women's regiment of 115 girls arrived at the front at the end of May 1942.
If the Germans called the girls "witches" for their tactics of fighting, then they became "night", since the regiment flew out at night.
The first combat missions began two weeks after arriving at the front. The effectiveness of sorties and the number of enemies destroyed brought the regiment the rank of "Guards".
During the war, the Women's Regiment took part in air battles throughout the Soviet Union, starting from the Salsk steppes, then moving to Stavropol, fighting in Vladikavkaz in 1942, and then fighting on the Taman Peninsula, liberating Novorossiysk. They fought for the Kuban, and for the Crimea, and for Belarus. Crossing the border line together with the Red Army, the pilots entered into combat with the enemy over the lands of Poland. In the first half of 1945, the women's regiment was already in Prussia. He took part in the famous Vistula-Oder operation.
"Night witches" fought on Polikarpov's biplanes, which are also known as Po-2. These vehicles, initially, were conceived not as combat, but as training. They were completely unsuitable for an air attack, since they did not even have a bomb bay. War shells were attached under the bottom of the vehicle on special bomb racks. The maximum speed of the aircraft was 120 km / h.
Despite the imperfection of the weapons, the girls demonstrated real miracles of piloting. This is taking into account the fact that the planes were attached to 200 kg. combat equipment. During the night, they had to make several flights. At the same time, there were no parachutes on board their cars, and in the event of an enemy shell hit, they were doomed.
Where the parachutes were supposed to be, an additional 20 kg were loaded. shells. Until 1944, there were no machine guns on board the Po-2. Since the planes were training, they had two control wheels, so if one pilot was injured, the co-pilot could land the plane at base.
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In one night, each plane made more than a dozen sorties, the intervals between which were no more than five minutes. During the battle for the Caucasus, the women's regiment made about three thousand sorties, during the battles for Kuban, Novorossiysk and Taman, the girls made more than four and a half lifts into the air, in the battles for the Crimea, Belarus and Poland they flew more than six thousand, four hundred and five and a half thousand times, respectively. The total number of hours was about twenty-nine thousand.
The efforts of the "night witches" destroyed about two dozen crossings, more than eighty bunkers, a little less than a dozen trains and two railway stations. More than three thousand bombs were dropped on the enemy's heads. The regiment lost 32 brave heroines.
The aviation regiment suffered the greatest losses in 1943. A surprise attack by enemy fighters took them by surprise and three planes exploded right in the air.
Participation in the battle for the Taman Peninsula brought the “night witches” another name - “Taman”.
More than two hundred and fifty female pilots received awards, and twenty-three of them were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
Anna Ponomareva
