So I was reading some random facts the other day and learned, stunned, that there was a group of women air service pilots during WWII. My jaw literally dropped. I had never heard of these brave women, in all the years that I studied and learned about history. Now, as I'm reading about these women, all of my sources say that the "WASP" (Women's Air Service Pilots) are relatively well known. I beg to differ, however, seeing as I am certain that I have never heard of them. Now, the fact that there were woman pilots is not the stunning fact here, but the lack of written history about them is. Even more interesting than that, and the main topic of this article, are the Night Witches.
Called the Nachthexen, a small crew of female air pilots from the Soviet Union, terrorized the German army for much of the war. This crew, made completely of women, flew night missions that were of the deadliest kind. They flew in sub-par planes, planes that the men wouldn't be using, and dropped bombs on army encampments spread all over the soviet union. Their maneuvers bordered the insane- they would fly in low, cut the engines as they approached and coast in, dropping their payload and firing back up their engines mid air. They would also utilize the stall point in their engines to perform daring maneuvers and avoid enemy fire.
and if you weren't surprised enough... almost every woman flew over 1000 missions, and their leader never got caught. They also only had a miniscule number of losses over the 4 years that they flew missions.
