They Were Basically Ghosts
If they got hit by tracer bullets, their old wooden planes would burn like sheets of paper. This all-female group of pilots was the pioneering 588th Night Bomber Regiment that, after dropping more than 23,000 tons of bombs on German targets, became a crucial Soviet asset in winning the Second World War. And the nickname makes more sense when you learn of the near-supernatural nature of these women.
The first female pilots together in 1940. Photo by Associated Newspapers / Daily Mail / Shutterstock
The distinctive swooshing sound that gave them their moniker was the only warning the Germans had. Their planes were too small to even show up on radar or on infrared locators, according to Steve Prowse, the author of the screenplay The Night Witches (a non-fiction account of the female squadron). “They never used radios, so radio locators couldn’t pick them up either. They were basically ghosts.”