Latest / Ridiculous History / The Night Witches: How an All-female Soviet Bomb Squad Terrorized Nazi Germany

Transcript

The Night Witches: How an All-female Soviet Bomb Squad Terrorized Nazi Germany · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you so much for
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: tuning in. My name is Ben, my name is Nol
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: And today we are joined as always with our super producer,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Casey La Bouche Pegram. Give it up for in, folks,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: I did it a weird thing, Ben, I said my
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: name the way I say it on our other show stuff.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: They don't want you to know because you didn't start
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: off with a pithy little scene like you usually do.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: That's right through me. Yes, well, it's a it's a
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: different recording time for us. You know, we've been doing
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: a lot out a weird scheduling shuffling and like I'm
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: I'm not in my uh, I'm not in my afternoon
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Bin yet in your history zone? Not not not quite,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: not quite, but we're in a bit of a spooky zone,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: and we're talking about an adventure. I do have something
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: that does relate slightly. Today's show concerns a pivotal role
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: of women in aviation. And I don't know if I
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: ever mentioned this to you, but my grandmother, one of
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: my grandmothers, was actually a pilot or trained as one
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: in World War Two. I did not know that. It's
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: a true story. All. It's a true story. She was
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: a teacher and in the part of the world where
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: she resided, one of the local programs that the government
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: was supporting was to train teachers, some teachers to be pilots.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: From World War Two. I don't think she ever shot
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: anyone out of the sky. No, that's that's okay. I
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: mean she's you can still be a badass and not
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: have any kills under your bell. I mean, being a
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: pilot in any kind of war, so situation is got
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: to be absolutely harrowing. Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean even
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: comparing World War Two to the modern day, the planes
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: are just so much more dangerous, and a dog fight,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: it's kind of like a knife fight, you know. I
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: don't know if you guys have ever, Casey, if you
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: ever been in a knife fight that you'd be willing
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: to talk about on air? Uh, None, that I'm willing
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: to disclose on air. That's yeah, not even in your
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: private life, is La Bouche? Well, like I said that
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: that I'm willing to disclose on air. So you can
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: think what you want to think, you know, you know
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: what they say though you guys. They say never bring
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: a knife to a dog fight, that is true, or
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: a dog to a knife fight, because that would just
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: be cruel. Yeah, that's that's no good. Now, it's definitely
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: no good. Casey on the Case, Speaking of which I
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: am absolutely thrilled to be wearing one of our patented
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Casey on the Case t shirts right now, featuring a
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: delightful photo of young Casey Pegram in his Macy's catalog
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: modeling days. Yeah, MI like Macy's or J. C. Penny
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: one of those. You can get one for yourself by
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: going to t public dot com slash ridiculous, his sorry,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: where we have an assortment of fine garments or mouse
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: pads or what have you available, Perhaps an Upton's ad
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: if anybody remembers Upton's. I remember Upton the department store
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: similar to Dillard's or Macy's. Yeah, it's just another one
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: of those anchor stores at the mall, but I think
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: they went away. Also, also for anyone who's thinking, oh man,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: I would love a shirt like that, why don't I
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: have one right now? Don't worry, folks, I'm thinking the
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: same thing. I I got a little snake, so I'm
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: gonna have to find one for myself. I'm right there
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: with you. Today's story. The protagonist of today's story deserve
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: T shirts all their own. At the very least, our
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: story does take place in World War Two. It does
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: not take place in the US. It takes place in
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: the Nazi occupied Soviet Union, where German soldiers had a
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: very real and very profound fear of witches. But maybe
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: not the kind of witches you might automatically imagine, right, Well, no,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: maybe not, but it certainly was maybe tying in to
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: kind of a cultural fear, uh you know, which is
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: loom large in German culture, right, Hansel and Gretel, surely others,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: you know, Germans are notoriously afraid of, which is everybody
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: knows that. But you're right. They were afraid of a
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: very particular type of witches who were members of the
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: all female Night Bomber Regiment, which was part of the
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Soviet Air Forces. And these women um flew over thirty
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: thousand missions over the course of three years, dropped twenty
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: three thousand tons of bombs on the Nazis um and
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: they did all of their flights under the cover of night,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: earning them the nickname the Night witches. And this name
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: did not arrive entirely because of the time during which
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: they chose to to make these bomb runs. It also
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: came about because of their approach. They were very difficult
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: to detect because they used a very dangerous strategy. Their
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: planes were made of plywood in envis and the best
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: way that the German soldiers could know there was a
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: night which in the area or scouting them out, was
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: they would hear the soft whoosh of ap plywood and
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: canvas plane. So it's it's literally like someone silently flying
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: and then hearing a whoosh followed by a cavalcade of explosions.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: So each of these planes had a pilot and a navigator,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: all female. Let's let's talk a little bit about how
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: they came to be. So June of nine marks the
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: seventy seven anniversary of the beginning of the night, which
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: is and there's a lot of context that pours into
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: this because in June of one, access Powers pushed into
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: the USSR, using the largest invading force in the history
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: of war, not the history of Russian war, not the
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: history of European war, the history of human war. It's
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: like saying the history of the world exactly exactly. For example,
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: the infamous Operation Barbarossa saw about four million troops invade
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Russia from the west, and because of this operation, Russian
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: leaders began to worry that Moscow itself might be overtaken. Yeah,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: it's true. And this was in fact one of the
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: most bloody and violent, terrible military actions considered atrocities, known
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: for its atrocities in World War two. Um, these atrocities
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: were perpetrated against the Russians by the Nazis and the soldiers,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: the male soldiers of the Soviet Union were heading up
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: the front lines when the forces from the Axis Powers
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: invaded and overtook the capital of Russia. Right. World War
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: two losses of the Soviet Union from all related causes
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: were about twenty seven million people. And that's a that's
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: a ballpark estimate, counting civilian and military. And they were
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: essentially treated like cannon fodder. Right. They were treated as
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: utterly expendable by the Allied forces. Right. Right. So the
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: U s s R. Had several big things going for
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: it in World War Two. One, the terrain is notoriously,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: notoriously dangerous and inhospitable. And second, they had a lot
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: of manpower, So the idea is maybe they could overwhelm
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: opponents through the sheer force of numbers alone. But this, really,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: this is where we get into things like scorched earth strategies,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: the kind of mentality that says, I will I like
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: sort of like what's similar to the people in Fukushima
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: or Chernobyl who killed themselves committed suicide to save the
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: greater population. Because people are fighting for what they see
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: is the greater good. Everyone is involved. No one is
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: not at war in Russia at this time, and from
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: the very beginning of the U. S s r. Involvement
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: in the war, there is already an active female Soviet pilot.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: You may have heard her called the Russian Amelia Earhart.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Her name is Colonel Marina Raskolva. And while she was
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: an active pilot, she started receiving letters from women all
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: across Russia who said, look, I want to join the war.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: I want to help anyway I can. Let's fight these Nazis,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Let's get these Germans off our land. And many of
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: them would say, you know, I work as in a
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: support role, right like I work at a factory making armaments,
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: or I work at a hospital or something but I
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: want to be on the front lines. They didn't end
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: up being quite on the front lines because those male
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Soviets sold as we talked about who were on the
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: front lines, we're getting creamed. So the Red Army UM
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: commanders were absolutely desperate and needed something to help turn
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: the tide of battle. So in October of ninety one,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: Stalin himself UM posted Raskova to head up an all
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: female squadron, air squadron to be specific. And this is
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: a historical thing because this was the only air squadron
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: that was, according to records, all female, and it was
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: the five hundred and eighty eight Night Bomber Regiment. And
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: the pilots weren't the only women in the regiment. Everyone
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: in was female, from the pilots to the commanders to
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: the mechanics. That's right. So this team began to assemble
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: in nineteen forty two. Their ages ranged from seventeen to
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: twenty six years old, and they took up residents in
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: a small village by the name of Ingles, where they
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: started training. Um Raskova personally headed up this training and
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: she did not take any uh any crap from from anybody.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: She was very hard nosed instructor and commander. Yes, there's
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: a gre article about this called The Little Known Story
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: of the Night, which is an all female force in
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: World War Two published in Vanity Fair as well as
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Atlas Obscura by author Eric Grindhauser, and in this he
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: depicts the way that Riskova immediately immersed her trainees into
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: the program. They had to shave their heads right, They
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: had to wear size forty two boots. Supply chain issues
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: were already in full effect at this time in Russia's
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: military history, so they didn't have custom uniforms. They had
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: to wear these bulky, ill fitting uniforms that were made
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: for dude soldiers. And one of the pilots said it
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: was it was kind of a rough landing for on
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: the first stage. She said, we didn't recognize ourselves in
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: the mirror. We saw boys there. And the problems with
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: adjust thing to the pre existing supplies didn't stop with
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: the uniforms, unfortunately, it continued onto the planes they were flying.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: These planes called pull It Carpoff PO two's. These are
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: two seated open cockpit by planes. These are the plywood
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: ones I was mentioning earlier with the canvas stretched over them.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: They have absolutely no armor. They're already obsolete by the forties.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: These are the kind of things that really incentivize you
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: to fly quietly and in a sneaky way, because one
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: shot and boom, you're gone, kind of like my old
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Saturn sc car I had. Yeah, wrapped that one around
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: a tree? Really, yeah? Are you okay? Yeah? Okay, that's fair.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: These are probably unrelated though, right, these are unrelated. This
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: had nothing to do world to World War two, that's
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: fair now. But I remember the Red Baron, Yes, it was,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: it was. He was he exclusively a Peanuts character? Or
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: was that actually a historical fighter pilot guy makes great pizza.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: That's also true. But seriously, I really don't know. Oh of,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's Pepperoni. No, the Red Baron he was.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: He was a Prussian fighter pilot. Um. The idea of
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: a plane being made of wood and canvas is unusual,
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: But it wasn't that unusual, right, because this was like
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: cheap material, It was lightweight. Again, it was quiet, right exactly,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: And in previous conflicts something like this, this style of
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: biplane aircraft would have been fine. It's just so many
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: years had passed and there was already better technology out there.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: These planes were also pretty slow, and because they had
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: a slower stall speed than the standard German fighters at
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: the time, it made it tough for the Axis or
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: the German forces to actually shoot them. It's kind of
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: like when there are two cars racing and one of
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: them maybe let's say, as a truck with a big
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: block engine, and it can pick up speed, but once
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: it gets up to a high speed, it has a
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: tough time slowing down. So what would have ordinarily been
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: a disadvantage for these aircraft actually made them tougher to hit. Also, again,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: these are exposed cockpits and this is Russia. Oh my god,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: I can only imagine that. Again, that's why I picture
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: the red baron. There's also a detail about these planes
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: that did not give them a particularly good advantage. They
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: had to fly pretty low, which would make sense for
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: them to be flying at night. Um, but gosh, during
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: a regular dogfight during the day, it seems very very challenging.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: You'd be kind of like a sitting duck. Um. But
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: here's a question to ben these open cockpits, like they
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: wore some kind of like protection over their faces right
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: to keep them from sure, God, googles and probably the
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: probably the whole nine the leather skull cap thing right
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: with the strap that you would buckle under your chin. Yeah,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: I would imagine so. But here's the thing. The women
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: of the fight were unafforded. They were absolutely ready to
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: go and do whatever it took to pitch into the
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: war effort. So after their first bomb run, which took
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: place on June ninety two, they absolutely not obliterated, but
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: definitely slowed down the Nazi forces with these overnight bombing
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: runs um and continued until the end of the war. Yeah. Yeah,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: at their height. So it started first bombing at June,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: and at the height of their strength, they had forty
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: two person crews each which were flying get this, multiple
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: runs as soon as the sun set. The record would
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: be like eighteen runs a night. Why would you make
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: eighteen incredibly dangerous bombing runs, you may ask. It's because
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: the planes could only carry six bombs at a time,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: so as soon as they dropped those six, provided they survived,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: they flew back, got another six bombs, and then flew
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: back again. This meant that there was also a tightly
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: controlled weight limit. That's part of why they flew at
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: lower altitudes. But that's also the reason they could not
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: bring parachutes. That is, that is pretty bold and using
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: that cover of night was crucial. There was no way
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: around it. Um the three planes would leave at one time,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: and then two would kind of act as almost decoys
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: or they would draw fire enemy fire, and then the
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: last one would would do the bomb run. And they
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: also had to like pre a style like kill their
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: engines so that they could they would just glide over
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: it before they dropped their their payload and then start
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: the engine and then start the engine and get out
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: of there. Absolute badassery. Yeah, and there's some psy op
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: going on here as well, because the wooching sound we
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: already mentioned that freak the German soldiers out. But they
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: they are also the source of the name night, which
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: is once they had learned that this was indeed a
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: crew of female combatants and bombers, the misogyny kicked in
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: and it was even more injury is to them on
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: some level that they were they were getting creamed by
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: female forces instead of Russian dudes. And the Germans started,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: you know, in the fog of war, so much strange
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: speculation thrives. The Germans started saying that the Soviet forces
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: were changing the women, somehow, experimenting on them to give them, quote,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: the night vision of a cat. That's right. The Germans
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: would have referred to them natively as uh the knock
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Texan or or the night witches. And one of them, no,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: dadsya popova, I'm gonna go with that one. She flew
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty roughly a hundred fifty missions, and
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: she received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: um and in Albert Axel's book Greatest Russian War Stories nine,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: she's quoted as saying, this was nonsense. Of course, what
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: we had were clever, educated, very talented girl and fighting
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: against this. For some reason, tell me what you think
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: about this, folks, for some reason, this gives me a
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: league of their own vibe in a much in a
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: much more dangerous field, because they had to deal with
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: fighting a war against ruthless opponents, but they also had
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: to deal with misogyny from people who should have been
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: supporting them. Members of the Soviet military were still very
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: dismissive of the idea of women flying in general, let
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: alone in combat. They wouldn't give these soldiers, these pilots,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: these mechanics anyone on the credit they deserved at the time,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: and the inspiring thing here, especially for any of us
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: listening who have been in a situation where you have
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: to confront institutionalized misogyny. Uh. These women doubled down. They
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: didn't care. They were not cowed. They did not say,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: oh no, let's let the dudes fly the planes or whatever.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: They said, Yes, we're women, we're pilots, we're killers. We
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: do what we want and if you have a tough
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: time with it, go pout somewhere else. Yeah. But unfortunately,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: the the brass, you know, the Russian military brass, weren't
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: super kind to to these women. And I think there
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: was even like a incentive in the among the Germans
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: to to uh any to give an Iron Cross, which
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: I think was one of the highest awards you can
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: get in the German army if you shot down one
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: of these women. So they were hated on both sides.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Just kind of a kind of a rough situation to
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: be in. Fortunately, while the wheels of justice grind slow,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: they grind exceedingly fine, and the members of the Night
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: which is were eventually recognized, such as the example you
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: had mentioned earlier, Old Popova, who got the title of
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Hero of the Soviet Union and the multiple met By
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: the end of World War two have flown around thirty
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: thousand bombing raids, which translates to twenty three thousand tons
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: of explosives or munitions. They also lost a lot of people.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: They lost thirty pilots during the war, which is an
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: unbelievably low number when you consider what those planes were
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: made of, their technical constraints, and the fact that these
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: people were often using the same strategy repeatedly, not over
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: the course of the war, but sometimes as much as
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: eighteen times a night, you know what I mean? Like,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: how many times if you're in charge of the searchlight
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: on the German side, how many times do you fall
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: for that two planes fly in opposite directions without checking
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: where the bombs are coming from? You know, Yeah, that's
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: a really good question. Um, they weren't even given their
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: own side uniforms. They had to take kind of tattered
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: hand me downs from other soldiers who I don't know
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: if they had like died or what, but that'd be
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: pretty morbid. But now they were absolutely treated like second
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: class citizens. Yeah, this is it reminds me of something.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Have you seen that video that compares men's soccer and
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: women's soccer. And it's like a scene from American Sniper
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: where it's uh, Bradley Cooper as the sniper and it
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: shows him like you know, cocking back the gun and
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: like looking through the scope and then you see him
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: shooting at a male soccer player and they fall down
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: and like grab their knees and start like cringing and
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: crying because apparently in male soccer, um, dudes are just
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: always taking dives because it's like it gives them an
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: edge or they're able to get like penalty. But I
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: don't know on that because it's less unless the referee
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: absolutely sees what happened, they can't say you're faking. There
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: you go. It is technically, I think, and someone someone
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: tells us more about this. I believe it's technically on
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: the books illegal to do that, but it's very tough
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: to prove it. There's lots of footage of it. And
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: then compare that with footage of women's soccer where they
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: literally stand up and spit their teeth out and just
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: keep you know, marching forward. Um, there is absolutely an
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: element to that in this story. Uh So Popova, who
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: we spoke about earlier in an article from the Atlantic.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: There's a great, great quote from her talking about walking
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: away from a bombing raid with forty two bullet holes
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: in her little wooden plane. You would think that would
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: have just shredded the thing. Ben Like, I mean, God,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: to to take a hit like that in the air,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: in a plane made of wood and like canvas, that
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: is just absolutely terrifying. I can't imagine having that level
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: of bravery, right. And let's also consider how young a
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: lot of these people were. They were not experienced soldiers.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: They were arranging the age from seventeen to twenty six.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: And many of us who have had military service in
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: the background may say, well, I've met some people in
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: their mid twenties who unfortunately have a ton of a
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: very very harrowing experience fighting domestically and abroad. That's true,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: But at this time, until Stalin gave these orders, no
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: other nation officially allowed women to engage in combat. Previously,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: women could help transfer planes and ammunition, after which they
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: would say, all right, it's to him for the boys
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: to take over or whatever. And when when the night
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: which is did this again. We cannot over emphasize how
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: it was a crappy gig was a crappy gig. They
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: didn't even get things like radar guns and radios. They
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: had to use rulers, stop watches, flashlights, pencils well, and
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: you know, and not to poo poo the Soviet Union
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: or anything too much. That's not what we're here to do.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: But if you have read about the story of chernobyl Uh,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: you realize that a lot of the equipment that the
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: folks had was were substandard. Um, they didn't have enough
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: aviation suits, they didn't have meters that even reached the
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: levels of contamination that were present in some of these situations.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: So that seems to be sort of a legacy thing having,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: you know, kind of substandard equipment. Yes. Oh, and I
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: want to clarify there. When we said six bombs a piece,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: that's six bombs perade, not six bombs per plane. The
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: planes could each only carry two bombs at a time,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: one under each ring. So when three planes flew out,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: that was a total of six bombs they could drop
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: while the other two members of the flight or the
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: raid were running, uh, running scrimmage or making a distraction there.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: They also had this was really cool. This is something
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: I couldn't find in full yet, and I'd love to
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: hear if someone else has found this. The commandments, the
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: twelve Commandments of the Night, which is the one that
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: we found, and the first one was be proud that
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: you are a woman. Uh. There are eleven others we've
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: we've got, we've got to find in them. The last
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: Flight of the Night, which has took place around May fourth,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: nineteen five. At this time they flew within thirty seven
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: miles or sixty kilometers to everybody in any country other
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: than what the US and the MAYBEA and Myanmar. They
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: got thirty seven miles or sixty kilometers close to Berlin,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: and this was three days before Germany officially surrendered. We
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: do know that the Germans had two theories about why
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: these women were successful spoiler alert. Neither of those theories
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: have anything to do with their ability as pilots or
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: as professionals. The first theory is that they have been
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: given these special injections and experiments that turned them into
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: uh people with supervision. And the second was that they
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: were all criminals who were masters at stealing, like the
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: idea of the Russian thief and law and had been
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: said to the front line as punishments. So they were
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: conscripted hardcore criminals. That's the only way they could get
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: away with these cunning, breezing acts. And during that really
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: pretty brief four year period the Night which is operated,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: they lost thirty pilots and then the twenty three pilots,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: not all of them, but twenty three of the remaining pilots,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: including Popova who we talked about earlier, were given that
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: very high honor of heroes of the Soviet Union. Interestingly enough,
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: the squad was never disbanded UM, and it actually just
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: was given a new name and continued on and it
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: was called the much less intriguing sounding forty six Taman
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment UM, which continued to be
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: a mainstay in the Soviet Union's mixed gender forces. And
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: we should also mention that they weren't just reigning death.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: They also performed a hundred and fifty five supply drops
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: of food and AMMO to Soviet forces. And here's here's
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: one of the last facts. I found. Let's file this
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: under under that's a kicker. Despite being the most highly
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: decorated unit in the Soviet Air Force during the war.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: After after they were disbanded and became part of this
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: other grouping. There was this big Victory Day parade in
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Moscow and the night which is were not included because,
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: according to the management, their planes were too slow. But
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: that's like the whole point, man, It's not their faults.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: They were forced to use those planes. They were giving
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: the leftovers. Maybe they should have had the parade at night.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: I don't know. To keep it on brands. Our parades
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: pretty slow usually, though, I mean, I don't see how
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: that would be a detractor. Yeah, I don't know. I've
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: never I've never organized a Victory Day parade after a war,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: although I do want to go to New Orleans and
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: hire my own parade. Do you know you could do that?
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: I told you that, right, Yeah, I'm gonna next time
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: I'm in New Orleans. Think parade prices are incredibly reasonable
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: in New Orleans, and you can, especially in the off season,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: you can pay a group of people are not particularly princely,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: some and they'll just do a parade for you. How
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: much are we talking Yeah? And did this include floats?
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: H No, this would be that. I think we're talking
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: a few hunter we're talking about just the musicians, which
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: I think is great because it feels like a better parade. Yeah,
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: that would be a lot more fun. I don't need
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: a float that's in the shape of my giant head. No,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: no custom flutes. You're getting into Marti Gras territory. I
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: don't know what about Casey, would you? Would you ever
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: have a parade? Would you ever purchase a parade for yourself? No? Definitely,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: not for someone else that. Yeah, maybe for somebody else
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: they did something really really special. Maybe, yeah, Casey on
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: the case I am gonna embarrass the hell out of
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: you when we get to New Orleans. Casey, just forget
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: about it and act surprised later. Well, do I think
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: that's all we got for today? Right then? Yeah? Yes,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: So ends our tale of the Heroic Night, which is
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: one of the chapters of World War two history that
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: I think is very familiar to a lot of our
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: Russian listeners, but maybe news to some of us in
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: the West. We want to hear your stories of other
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: World War two heroes or strange tales that you think
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: your fellow listeners would enjoy. You can find us on
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Facebook at Ridiculous Historians. You can also find us on
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: Twitter and Instagram. Yeah, and if you want to find
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: us individually on Instagram, I hang out with my kid
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: and occasionally travel, mainly domestically, but um hoping to get
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: out of the country one of these days two so
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: I can match Ben's sick Instagram adventures. But my slightly
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: more underwhelming adventures are at how Now, Noel Brown, I
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: think you're beating yourself up there a little bit. It's
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: the thing I do. Circumstances will probably find uh find
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: both of us overseas sooner than you think. In the meantime,
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: you can find getting kicked into and out of various
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: places at Ben Bowling named to what I would only
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: describe as a burst of creativity. But hey, guys, you
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: might be saying, I I don't really like the social
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: meads Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Those aren't my cup of vodka
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: and cup of meads. There we go, But I I
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: do have an email. I got around to that, so
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: can I just contact you guys that way? We have
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: good news for you. You can emails directly. We are
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: ridiculous at my heart radio dot com. Big thanks to
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: our super producer Casey Pegrum, as always Alex Williams, who
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: composed our theme Christopher hasiotas Friend of the Show, friend
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: Inside of Our Hearts Gabe Louisier. Also Eve's Jeff Coach
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: who will be on our show pretty soon spoiler alert.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: And uh and we we'd like to welcome Ryan Barrish.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the family, Ryan Barriss, who will be helping
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: us with some research moving forward. See you next time,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Fox Yeah. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.