The following is a repost of a post I made on another thread here some time back...
Ripsnort just alerted me to this thread...
Thanks Ripsnort!
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A well kept secret of the Allies during WWII was... almost one thousand women flew combat missions in WWII against the Axis.
They had their share of Fighter Aces among them.
Also, some of the bravest women combat pilots were found with the all-female 588th Night Bomber Air Regiment, known as the “Night Witches.” Despite being equipped with slow, obsolete PO-2 biplanes, during the course of the War, they conducted an incredible 24,000 missions behind enemy lines, and delivered 23,000 tons of bombs from their fragile wood-and-fabric aircraft. Though their casualty rate was high, so was their recognition by a grateful nation. A total of 30 citations for “Hero of the Soviet Union”, Russia’s highest honor (The USSR's equivalent of the USA's Medal of Honor), were given to women in the Soviet Air Force, 23 of which were earned by the 588th “Night Witches.”
An image of Night Witches' Polikarpov Po-2/U-2 stealth Bomber flown by
the Night Witches who were known to the Germans as "Das Nachthexen"
Most of their Po-2s were unarmed except for their ordnance, but some carried a 7.62mm machine gun on a swivel-mount in the observer's position in the rear.
BTW, the Po-2 was a WWII stealth bomber... The Po-2 would pass often undetected by the night fighters' radar, because of the mildly radar absorbing nature of the canvas surfaces, and the fact that mostly they flew near the ground. German planes equipped with infrared seekers would not see the little heat generated by the small, 110 horsepower engine.
Searchlights, however, were another story. The Germans at Stalingrad developed what the Russians called a "flak circus". They would bring out the flak guns that had been hidden during the day, and lay them in concentric circles around probable targets, and the same with the searchlights. Po-2s crossing the perimeter in pairs in the straight line flight path typical of untrained but determined Russian flyers were usually ripped to pieces by the Flak 37 guns. The 588th, however, developed another tactic. They flew in formations of three. Two would go in first, attract the attention of the searchlights, and when all of them pointed to them in the sky, separate suddenly in opposite directions and maneuver wildly to try to shake them off. The German searchlight operators would follow them, while the third bomber who was farther back snuck in through the darkened path made by her 2 comrades and hit the target unopposed. She would then get out, rejoin with the other two, and they would switch places until all three had delivered their payloads. It took nerves of steel to be a decoy and willingly attract enemy fire, but as Nadya Popova said: "It worked."
They had served so exemplarily throughout the whole war that they participated in the final onslauqht on Berlin.
I, for one, would like to have such a stealth bomber in the MA with no little red dots following them around on the enemies radar!
From what I have read, the 109s and 190s stall speed was faster than the Po-2's top speed, which made shooting down the agile Po-2 very difficult.
Question: Now, why was the role of women pilots kept such a secret during the war? hahahahahaha...
Answer: Some men's egos can't handle being bested, or defended, by a woman...
A real man can give credit where credit is due.
HWELTE, a book by Roy McShane about The White Rose and the Night Witches
CheckSix
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