Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 336 - The Night Witches

Episode Date: February 20, 2023

On October 8th, 1941, with Stalingrad surrounded, Leningrad besieged, and the Nazis making new gains on Russian territory every day, Joseph Stalin ordered the creation of three new Air Force regiments... the first female aviation military regiments in world history.  Led by famed civilian aviator Marina Raskova,  these young women, most of whom were between the ages of 17 and 26, would have to transform from flight hobbyists to killer soldiers. The 588th Night Bombers Regiment would earn the nickname “the Night Witches” from the German soldiers they terrorized in the darkness. Flying no-frills wooden planes with ill-fitting uniforms and no parachutes, most runs would happen with three planes, the first two meant to draw attention and enemy fire, with the third being the one to drop the bomb. What made this so dangerous is the fact that the third plane, to avoid detection, would have to cut their engines and glide over their target as quietly as  possible. Despite the danger, the Night Witches regiment alone would fly around 30,000 sorties and have 23 of their pilots awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union— and they would definitively help change the tide of the war against the Nazis. The badass story of the Night Witches and their female fighter counterparts, this week, on Timesuck. Want to apply for the Cummins Family Scholarship fund?  The application process opens on MARCH 6TH, 2023. To apply click this link!: https://learnmore.scholarsapply.org/cummins/ Click the "Scholarship Hub America" button. Register to create a Hub account with a unique username and password.Log into your account and complete the questions in the profile section. The list of scholarships will display on the website.   Locate the  Cummins Family Scholarship Fund application and click the “Apply Now” link to fill out your information!     An online recommendation form must be submitted on your behalf. It is the student’s responsibility to follow up with their recommender to ensure they submit the information before the deadline. Next start filling out the application by completing all required fields and click the “Save answers” button.  If all required data was entered, the Application section in the progress bar at the top of the page will turn green.  An error message will display at the top of the page if any fields are missing or have incomplete information. Click the “Next” button at the top of the page and use the Add a Document tool available to upload your documents. Once all documents have been uploaded, click the “Next” button again to review your information before submitting your application.  If all information appears correct, click the “Lock and Submit” button and click “OK” to submit your data to Scholarship America for processing. You will receive an email confirmation once the application has been successfully submitted.  If you don’t receive the email confirmation, please check your spam or junk mail folder or search for an email from [e-mail]  to confirm your application has been received. Questions can be emailed to [e-mail] Hot Bad Magic Summer Camps are ON SALE!  BadMagicMerch.com Bad Magic Productions Monthly Patreon Donation:  This month's donation is for $14,740 to Teach For America, a diverse network of leaders who work to confront the injustice of education inequity through teaching.You can learn more about Teach for America or get involved by going to teachforamerica.org An additional $1,640 is being put into the scholarship fund! Thank you to all of our patrons who are able to continue to support not only us but these amazing causes. Teachforamerica.orgGet tour tickets at dancummins.tv Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/KMwq1TzDRc8Merch: https://www.badmagicmerch.comDiscord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch related questions/problems: [e-mail] (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard?  Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcastSign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits.

What were you doing when you were 16 hanging out of the mall working in a coffee shop? Sneaking out to parties and fooling around in cars or maybe in your bedroom when your parents weren't around Maybe you're playing so many awesome video games What about when you were 17? Were you filling out college applications at the kitchen table arguing with your parents about how they need to treat you like an adult because you're about to be on your own Even though they still pay virtually all of your life expenses. How about 20? Will you work in a part time job, taking some classes,

kicking back with friends on the weekends, maybe partying a little too hard, or a lot too hard, drinking so much cheap beer or liquor, you black out a couple times a semester, or a couple times a month. Obviously, I don't know exactly what you were doing, we'll be doing,

or are doing right now in your late teens and early 20s. But I do know for a fact, you weren't, or you aren't, or you will not be fighting Hitler's Nazis. I know you've never flown tiny ass airplanes, essentially made a canvas and balsa wood and duct tape behind enemy lines, while better equipped and better trained Nazis tried and tried really hard to kill you. But that's exactly what the night witches and their peers were doing.

On October 8th, 1941, with Hitler's Operation Barbarossa pressing on Moscow and the Red Army struggling to keep them back, Stalin gave orders to deploy three primarily all female Air Force units, the 586, 587, and 588 regiments. The units used a few male mechanics and other ground personnel here and there, but were 99% women, when they were in fact all women. Led by the indomitable Marina Ruskova, nicknamed the Russian Amelia Earhart, these female pilots will be tasked not only with flying missions and dropping bombs, many of them would engage in aerial dog fights and shoot enemies out of the skies. Marina selected around 400 women for each of these three units. Most were university students,

ranging in age from 17 to 26. Girls who have been flying as a hobby, and one of Russia's many flight clubs, but who had never thought they would ever become soldiers. Those selected move to Engels, a small town north of Stalingrad, to begin training at the Engels School of Aviation. There they underwent a highly compressed education, expected to learn in a few months when it took most soldiers several years to grasp. Each recruit had to train to perform as pilots, navigators, maintenance, and as ground crew. Beyond their steep learning curve,

the women faced severe skepticism from many of their male Soviet military counterparts who believed that women couldn't possibly add any value to combat efforts. Men who thought that these civilian women could never achieve the discipline and bravery that such a brutal war required. But then many of the night witches would show them up

and become the most effective, most highly decorated unit in the entire Russian Air Force during the war. This happened despite the military unprepared for women pilots offering them mega resources. Flyers receive hand-me-down uniforms from male soldiers, including oversized boots. Many of them were also provided with outdated polycarpov PO2 biplanes 1920's crop dusters that have been used as training vehicles. These light two-seater open cockpit planes, sometimes one-seater, never meant for combat. One historian would call them a coffin with wings. Flying at night, pilots endured freezing temperatures, wind and frostbites, and the harsh Soviet winners, the planes became so cold, just touching them can rip off bear skin.

But despite all of these obstacles, the night witches would fly and they would fly like fucking bad asses. The night bombers of the 588th regimen would send up to 42 person crews a night each executing between eight and 18 missions in a 12 hour span. The bombs they dropped wouldn't only damage German resources. They would destroy morale, keeping the Germans awake night after night, thanks to psychological terror. When would the bombs drop next? It was this regiment that would receive the nickname the Night Witches. Who knows how many Germans, the Night Witches rattled and sleep deprived enough to lead them to make careless mistakes, the cost their lives during the days when the Night Witches weren't dropping bombs on them.

Today, we will cover not only the Night night witches, but all three female Russian Air Force regiments, the approximately 1200 women who would do so much to help win the war for Russia and prove that women could take to this guys just as well as any man. This is one of the most action-packed dramatic and cinematic episodes we've ever done. I was pretty tired the day I first went through preliminary research and then I stayed up to midnight because I needed to go over the entire thing. I found this week's store insanely captivating. I hope you love it like I do. The night which is in more on today's We Fight for Mother Russia! Communists is you're listening to Time Suck. You're listening to Time Suck. Happy Monday, Meet Sacks. Welcome or welcome back to the Cult of the Curious.

Thanks to many of you for continuing to spread the suck by telling your friends. I'm Dan Cummins, the Master Sucker,iant jazz lover, deviant gin lover. Please don't call one 800 gin jazz and report me. And you are listening to time suck. Hail, Nimrod, Hail, Lucifina, praise, Bojangles, Glory, Beat, Triple M. Lucifina loves today's topic as do I. And before I forget, I said in the cold open, uh cedars, sometimes one cedars, no, the bombers were always two cedars that the night which is flu, as far as I could tell. I went away from my notes for a second,

I doubted my own notes and said one cedars, because I was thinking of the fighter planes that some of the pilots and the other regiments used, which we'll get into later. But for you, military historians who really know your shit, I didn't want that to be nagging you be like, well, the rest of the episode is shit because those were those were two theaters. The Burnett All Down stand up tour continues. San Antonio and Dallas this

weekend limited tickets remain for San Antonio. Hope to see you there. Both cities. I'm sure I'm going to have a good time recording ahead, hoping I already had a blast as you hear this in Sacramento and Denver. More dates at Dan Cummins.tv just announced some spring club dates and we'll be announcing fall to club dates before too long, hitting some new markets like Bloomington, Indiana. Now for this week's merch announcement, introducing the yesterday year collection. A really cool vintage text-based design on premium teas and hoodies. We also saw on the Colt Facebook group that many of you were looking for office supplies, particularly mouse pads. Well, guess what meets X. Wish granted. It's also been a while since we've done a flag. So head on

over to BadMagicMurch.com to check it out along with the rest of the collection. And if you're also a scared to death fan, we're releasing a yesterday year collection this week as well. Last thing this month's donation from Bad Magic is for $14,740 to teach for America, a diverse network of leaders who work to confront the injustice of education and equity through teaching. You can learn more about Teach for America or get involved by going to teach foramerica.org. And in additional $1,640 is being put into the scholarship fund towards next

years scholarships. Thank you again. And now let's get started. Last time we talked about World War II and our recent two part of we took a macro look at the conflict in overview brief summary of the major battles and campaigns, both the European theater and the Pacific theater. We also previously looked at individual missions that took place during World War II, missions like Operation Green Up, aka the Real and Glorious

Bastards, when two Jewish refugees joined the Office of Strategic Services, early forerunner to the CIA, and parachute a deep behind German lines into the Austrian province of Tyrel in February of 1945. We looked at the Manhattan Project, the codebreakers who eventually checked the, or cracks, excuse me, the Nazis, enigma machine and at the Navajo code talkers. And we've gone over to the other side. So look at the Nazis search for the Holy Grail. That one I still think about from time to time, right? And yes, Kyle, the Sultanos, that's where the air and ice-tanks must live.

You have such a wonderful mind. High prize, your psychic intellect. And we explored how our side got a little shady after the war with Operation Paperclip. When former Nazi scientists were brought to the US and never punished for their complicity and Nazi horrors, these are just a few of the many, many stories to come out of World War II.

And we'll be telling another one today. And especially action packed and holy shit is it dramatic. sadly largely forgotten one the story of the night witches. We first brought the night witches in part one of our World War II two part in the time suck timeline. They first appeared on the scene in June of 1942. I got excited, talked about how we really needed to do a full episode on them. The space lizard heard and responded and they voted the topic out by the time suck app and here we are. So thank you space lizards heard and responded and they voted the topic up on the time suck app and here we are

So thank you space lizards and As we mentioned up top the night witches were but one of three all female regiments in the Soviet Air Force during World War two Created the same time with the same recruitment effort in the fall of 1941 We've covered a bit of what was going on in Russia during World War two in our war in Europe episode. And we talked about the Stalin episode quite a while back. I'm sure I've already mentioned how the Allies would not have won the war without them, but it's worth emphasizing again how a massive a player Russia was in the conflict for both good and bad actually. Russia did not originally enter on the side of the good guys. Shocking, right?

Wait, what? Oh, Mother Russia? Did some shady shit, huh? According to Hitler and Stalin's non-aggression pact of August 23rd, 1939, the original plan was to parcel up Poland for Germany and Russia. On September 22nd, 1939, the Soviet and German forces celebrated the conquest of Poland with a joint military parade, they're the best buds at breast litofsk Small city on the demarcation line established under point two of the secret protocol of this Nazi Soviet pact I'm trying to say the name of that city as it is said and Polish but fuck that language forever

If Lindsay ever wants me to live in her motherland I'm just gonna be the equivalent of the old immigrants in this country who refuses to learn English I'll show up at Polish stores and restaurants and just kind of point and shout until they give me what I want to live in her motherland, I'm just going to be the equivalent of the old immigrants in this country who refuses to learn English. I'll show up at Polish stores and restaurants and just kind of point and shout until they give me what I want, just not to have to deal with me anymore. Good for you Polish people. I have teased you so much over the years, but the fact that you can pull a language out of that letter and symbol explosion of yours proves that you have some serious intellectual

powers. A Soviet troops also began moving into moving into the three Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, which had enjoyed some two decades of independence after the First World War, prior to World War I, Russia had controlled all of these nations, and now they were about to again.

In subsequent months, as Soviet military and state security forces continued to pour into the Baltic countries, they compelled the local governments to comply with Moscow's demands. Throughout the war, maybe especially early in it, the Soviets were quite the opportunists. They must have celebrated Hitler's aspirations back in Moscow. The more territory the Nazis claimed, the more the Russians could also then claim under the guise of protecting them from Germany during the war.

And then keep controlling them under the guise of rebuilding them Germany during the war. And then keep controlling them under the guys of rebuilding them, following the war. And then just, you know, keep them because what the fuck are you going to do about it? By mid 1940, Soviet occupying forces have replaced various local governments with puppet regimes that voted for voluntary incorporation into the USSR. Voluntary like the kind of voluntary decisions you make when someone has a load of gun pointed to the side of your head and asked you to voluntarily join or they're gonna pull the trigger. That kind of voluntary. That non-aggression pact was working out very well for Russia early on, but Hitler had no intention of being a good ally long term. I think the Russians had to have known that was a possibility. And soon looked to the massive landscape of the Soviet Union for more Liebenstrom, a K.A. living space for the future Aryan master race as well as valuable farmland that would produce enough grain to feed the Reich. The German attack against the Soviet Union began on June 22nd, 1941, codenamed Operation Barbarossa. And it constituted the largest invasion and human history with millions of troops,

tens of thousands of tanks and artillery systems nearly 5,000 combat aircraft and hundreds of thousands of combat vehicles moving in to bring Stalin's forces to their knees and put Stalin himself down six or so feet into the dirt. Russia was completely unprepared. They didn't remotely anticipate and attack at that time. Maybe they really did not expect the Nazis to come for them. And they suffered massive losses. And in the wake of Operation Barbarossa, driven by self preservation, they would now join the Allies. They didn't team up with us because they loved working with democracy, embracing capitalists. They needed help or they were going to be destroyed. Just a few months later, still incurring heavy losses, their resources exhausted, and their

soldiers pushed closer to the brink of mass desertion, Stalin would make the call to create three female aviator regiments, one of which composed of women who would become the knight witches. And the knight witches would fight for the remainder of the war as, you know, over the next four years, the Red Army bore the brunt of fighting in Europe eventually pushed out by a massive save the motherland nationalistic propaganda campaign launching massive counteroffensives that drove the vermocked out of eastern Europe and back in to Germany where the final surrender took place on May 9th 1945 in Berlin. The night which is

would be coming indispensable part of the story of Russia's success and beating back the Nazis and indispensable part of the story of Russia's success and beating back the Nazis, and more people should know their story. So, let's tell it. Hail Lucifina. All righty, to provide the proper context for today's tale, let's look at how women in general were used in World War II, and in the years leading up to it by comparing

two of the biggest players. The US and Russia going to begin with the US. When the United States declared war on the Empire of Japan in December 1941 and then Germany and Italy declared war in the United States, the only American women in uniform were members of the Army Nurse Corps and Navy Nurse Corps. American women were not allowed to participate in active combat roles in World War II. Brigadier General, Jeannie Levitt became the U.S. Air Force's first female fighter pilots in 1993.

No women in any branch of U.S. military were allowed to participate in active ground combat until 2013. Each service branch eventually opened in some capacity to women and by the end of World War II, over 350,000 women did wear American service uniforms. Though they didn't serve in combat roles, 432 women were killed and another 88 taken prisoner. As far back as the American Revolution, nursing was a traditional role for women in wartime

for the US. So since the very beginning, many years later, 1901, the Army Nurse Corps was formed and the first women were appointed as an official part of the military. The US Navy followed suit seven years later, creating the Navy nurse corps. When Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor and the Philippines, army and Navy nurses were there to tend to the wound. Many of the Philippines became prisoners of war and continued to care for Americans in camps until liberated such as the famed Angels of Patan, 78 female nurses who were POWs for roughly three years.

Apparently compared to most Japanese POWs, they were treated pretty well. Some of the women made it a point to tell the press after the war that they had not been raped. They did lose on average 30% of their body weight thanks to borderline starvation rations. And they spent up to 18 hours a day sowing the buttholes of people and creatures back together who the Japanese soldiers had raped. Crocodile buttholes, pig buttholes, soldier buttholes, civilian buttholes, deer buttholes, children's dolls buttholes, being ridiculous of course. And why did I say the only rape buttholes? That was a weird place for my brain to go. US Army and Navy nurses grew in numbers during the war with 11,000 women serving in the

Navy nurse corps and 50,000 in the Army nurse corps. In 1944, nurses in both corps finally received commissions and full benefits equal to women in the women's army corps. These stable, these trailblazing women paved the way for other women to join the army, Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard and astounding numbers during World War II. Initially women were brought into the various services and the various branches to take over positions deemed culturally appropriate for women in the 1940s. Clerks, typists, receptionists, and communications. But each branch of the military quickly realized the women were capable of many types of work, often doing specialized detailed work better than many of their male counterparts.

Women became mechanics, both vehicle and aircraft, parachute rigors, air traffic control operators, drivers, some even became instructors teaching male service members specialties such as aerial gunnery. Women were also assigned roles which required top secret clearance, putting together intelligence information from around the world, and all there were over 200 jobs available to women in the service. In May of 1942, the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps was created, originally founded as an Auxiliary arm of the U.S. Army, WACs. WACs initially did not receive rank benefits or even pay equivalent to men in the regular Army.

In July of 1943, an important step was taken when the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps became the Women's Army Corps and officially became part of the US Army. And that now enabled WACs to serve overseas as they could be given proper benefits should they be wounded or killed in service. First whack director was Ovidacolp Hobby. And yeah, that's a real name. She was born Ovidacolp and married a, a dude with the last name of Hobby. You don't meet a lot of Ovidas anymore. Pretty sure I've never heard that name. She was born Ovidikulp and married a, a dude with the last name of hobby. You don't meet a lot of Ovidis anymore. Pretty sure I've never heard that name. Ovidis greatest

challenge was to convince the American public that a woman could join the army, but still quote, be a lady. Don't worry, fellas. As crazy as sounds a woman could even say, help make ammunition or repair tank tracks or assemble jet engines or even heaven forbid, shoot an honest to goodness gun and still somehow not have her vagina turn into a penis or her tits turn into pecs and she can do all that and still know which silverware to use for dinner be able to put on address sit quietly in church while right while how humans can do things not traditional to their gender roles but also still do things that are traditional to their gender who to fuck it despite do things that are traditional to their gender. Who'd have thunk it?

Despite cultural misgivings about women in uniform, by November of 1942, the initial recruitment goal of 25,000 had been exceeded. A cap was now set at 150,000 for wax, and that was met by the end of the war. Once a transition to wax service was complete, African-American women were also accepted for the service, but with a 10% quota, can have more than 10% of women doing what they can for their country to help them win a war also be black with a fuck. Politicians, politicians decided that fucking idiots, just as ignorant as the people who voted

for them. Another bill now added women to the US Navy and Marine Corps, creating the women accepted for volunteer emergency service, waves and women reservists in 1942. Under the direction of Lieutenant Colonel Mildred McCaffey or McAfee, waves grew to 27,000 a number in that first year, eventually numbering over 8,000 officers and 80,000 enlisted waves. Unlike their wacky counterparts, waves were part of the U.S. Navy from the beginning, though they were considered Reservous and not regular Navy. And unlike the Wax, waves were not allowed to serve overseas until January of 1945. And even then only allowed to serve in Hawaii and some of the islands of Alaska. So overseas ish, overseas light, limited to roles of shore waves were not allowed to serve aboard naval vessels though they filled vital positions at nearly 900 short installations in the

US. Wave service was not open to African American women until late nineteen forty four and the first two African American waves officers Harriet Ida Pickens and Francis Will's graduated in December. Again can't have too many black women helping in the help of their nation. Honestly, surprise they even fucking want it. The way their nation treated them. The Coast Guard created their own women's unit, the spars, which stood for the Coast Guard motto, Semper Peratus Always Ready in November of 1942. And Semper Peratus is just Latin for Always Ready. The first director came from the waves, Lieutenant Commander Dorothy Stratton,

the initial recruiting drive was successful, but recruiting for the least known service was a challenge. An African American women not allowed to enlist until October of 1944. Women were also allowed to join the Marine Corps in February of 1943, again, in non-combat roles, attempts were made to come up with a cute catchy name for women in the core with suggestions such as glam, uh, glamorines, dainty devil dogs, dainty, fucking dainty devil dog and submarines being a few. None of that is kind of sending it all. Uh, despite his initial reluctance to have women join the core, major general Thomas Holcomb, Commander of the core, refused all the nicknames saying they are Marines. They don't have a nickname and they don't need one.

They inherit the tradition of Marines. They are Marines. With that edict, women joining the Corps were simply referred to as Women Reservus WR for short. What about the Air Force, American Corollary to the Night Witches? In September of 1942, women first began to fly as civilians for the US Army Air Forces. The separate branch of the US Air Force would not be created until after the war. September 18, 1947, prior to that, the Air Force was combined with the Army, part of the Army.

Anyway, the fall of 42-28 women were in the first group of ferry pilots called the Women's Auxiliary Ferry Squadrons, Woffs. So not combat, but they did help with aircraft transport. A training program began shortly after called the women's flying training detachment, WFTD, as women, that's a kind of a weird acronym a little bit to me, as women graduated, I think I had an association with my head actually with WTFD, I had what the fuck Debbie or something, but anyways, that's, I was wrong. That's why I laughed. As women graduated from the WFTD, they became WFFS. God, military loves acronyms.

When the work these women pilots did begin to expand past fairy and aircraft, the US Army Air Force, renamed the organization Women Air Force Service Pilots wasp in the summer of 1943, led by pilot Jacqueline Cochran wasps were officially federal employees and though they worked with the US Army Air Forces, they were not technically members of any US military organization. In order to apply, a woman was first required to have a civilian pilot's license access to a pilot's license varied as women either relied on the assistance their families or would scrape together redine the head to pay for flight hours and certifications.

In addition, women had to pass an army, air core, physical, and then this itself fucked up. Had to cover the cost of transportation to avenger field in sweet water, Texas. Sweet Jesus. We need to help your country. USA, USA, land of the free, home of the brave and all that shit. Oh, fuck yeah, bro. Well, hey, we need to cover your transportation costs. We want you, but we don't we don't want you that bad. We want you

if you're going to be super cheap, right? I mean, that's almost as fucked up as billion soldiers for the bullets they use in combat to kill the enemies with. After months of military flight training, 1,102 of the original 25,000 wasp applicants took to the skies as the United States first women to pilot military aircraft. Yep, over 1,100 women wanted to help bad enough to pay their own way to do so. Crazy. Though not trained for combat, wasp pilots flew a total of 60 million miles performing operational flights, towing aerial targets, transporting cargo,

smoke lane, and a variety of other missions. And smoke lane, I don't remember hearing that term before. Smoke lane, I found out, was a lot like it sounds like. Aircraft will be equipped with M10 smoke tanks or something similar to disperse aerial curtains, quote unquote, that would conceal military targets from enemies, such as naval ships. It is fucking really cool if you want to look up pictures of it.

It's just hiding people behind smoke or hiding big, you know, war machines. By December of 1944, Wasp had flown every type of military aircraft manufactured for World War II. It flew everything from B-17 to P-51s. Wasp pilots varied over 12,000 aircraft flying some to distant theaters, and two women, Dorcia Johnson and Dora Dotry Strother even tested the B-29 Super Fortress when some male pilots refused to do so. From 1943 to 1944, 38 wasp died in service to their countries such as Cornelia Fort.

While flying information from Long Beach to Lovefield and Dallas, the left wing of Fort's BT13 struck the flight officer's landing gear. The aircraft spiraled into a dive and at 24 years old, Fort became the first female pilot in American history to die while on active duty. A ridiculously fort and the 37 additional wasps who gave their lives and service did not have flags draped over their caskets or received death benefits, like they would have received had they been men. Although these women flew military aircraft, they were still technically considered civilians

and were not granted military benefits or burials. One of their families had to pay their funeral costs or had to pay to have the remains, you know, transported back home. What is wrong with our species sometimes? Wasp was disbanded in 1944 due to a surplus of male pilots and public pressure to give the work to those pilots to the male pilots. Took 30 years to women to fly again in the US Armed Forces with the Navy and Army accepting their first female pilots in 1974 and the Air Force following suit 1976. Following the war, no real special recognition

was bestowed upon the female pilots. No surprises, female soldiers were nowhere near as accepted as their male counterparts. When the war was over, the women leaving the service were met overall with a sense of relief. The overwhelming mindset of the time was that women were needed at home to keep the house and raise children. Wasn't considered feminine to wear a uniform.

Despite all branches having feminine uniforms, consisting of skirts and not slacks. And you got to love people thinking that something just isn't culturally okay, like the culture's in decline because women are wearing slacks instead of skirts. Holy fuck, there's never been a shortage of idiots in the world. Crazy fact about women's bodies, they are exactly the same underneath, whether they are covered by slacks or skirts. Another wild fact, if you love women's bodies like myself, women taking off clothes is still really fucking hot. Whether or not they're wearing skirts or slacks doesn't actually affect their femininity.

Yet another fact, if a woman wants to, she can dress exactly like a man at work, but then in the bedroom put on a skirt to you know to feel sexy. Wax and WAACs bore the brunt of a lot of negative feelings and publicity during women in service during the war letters written by soldiers to their families were initially very negative overall towards women in the army. Many servicemen who had never even met a woman in uniform were led to believe that WACs were there solely to keep up morale, which led to a negative perspective towards women in uniform in general. Rumors got so bad at one point, some believed women in the service were nothing more than

government sanctioned prostitutes. Naturally, with these false perspectives and bad rumors, many families of that area did not want to see their daughters put on a uniform only to have, you know, some GI dick trains ran on them or be used in barracks, devils pyramids or camouflage to ifletowers or some shit. So that's how stuff was shaken out women-wise in the US leading up to World War II and during it. Things over in Russia were actually a little bit better, sort of. While women in the US still had to achieve the right to vote, you know, had yet to achieve it,

the Russian Revolution had as much as the pains me to say, it paved the way for some big gains and women's rights. Vladimir Lenin who led the Bolsheviks to power in the October Revolution, recognized the importance of women's equality in the Soviet Union. He wrote in 1919, two years after the Revolution, to affect women's emancipation and make her the equal of man

It is necessary to be socialized and for women to participate in common productive labor Then woman will be the equal of man Following the Bolshevik takeover Russian women saw massive gains in their rights under communism That's right commas. I'm admitting That you had the world's democracies beat back in the early 20th or early 20th century when he came to women's rights. I will, I will not miss, miss represent history. But Jankles, you can go outside if you can't stop wanting. Women's suffrage was granted abortion was legalized 1920 making the Soviet Union the first country

in the world to do so. However, it was banned again in 1936. but in 1922, marital rape was made illegal in the Soviet Union. Again, first nation in the world to pass such a law, also generous maternity leave was now legally required, and a national network of childcare centers was established. Back in 1917, the new Soviet Union, although not officially a new nation until 1922, was the first country to declare legal equality for women, which also allowed them to enter military service. Women were inherently equal in both rights and responsibilities as Russian citizens, as social equality was a fundamental part of communist ideology.

At least that's how it went on paper, but that wasn't always upheld in practice. Though the prevailing Soviet ideology stressed total gender equality and many Soviet women did hold jobs at advanced degrees, they did not participate in core political roles or hardly ever run uh, you know, any government institutions. Above the middle levels, political and economic leaders were overwhelmingly male. In the top circles of the Communist Party, all members were male, leading up to and during World War II, every single one. While propaganda claimed accurately that more women sat in the supreme Soviet, the most authoritative legislative body of the nation, then in most of the world's democratic countries

legislative bodies combined only two women, Yekaterina, Fertzava in 1957 and Galena, Semianova in 1989 were ever members of the party's polyburet, arguably the most important component of the country's government. Never more than one woman at a time in a group always composed up of at least seven, you know, dudes. So maybe feminism wasn't quite as sympathica with communism as leaders like Lenin claimed. In an open letter to the country's leadership shortly before he was expelled from it in 1974, 30 years after World War II, the Soviet dissonant writer, Alexander Solgenitskin, talked about in alleged heavy burden placed on women to do the menial work in Soviet society. He said, how can one fail to feel shame and compassion

at the side of our women carrying heavy burrows of stones for paving the street. Headrick Smith author of the new Russians wrote that many women he talked to complained that they're emancipation had in fact been exploitation since economic circumstances effectively compelled them to work while they still retain their domestic responsibilities at home. And we're often exhausted. And then in contrast to Western women, Soviet women regularly saw their idea of liberation as work and less and having more opportunity to stay at home. He recounted a popular joke.

He said, under capitalism, women are not liberated because they have no opportunity to work. They have to stay at home, go shopping, do the cooking, keep house and take care of the children. But under socialism, women are liberated. They have the opportunity to work all day and then go home, go shopping, do the cooking, keep house and take care of the children. So, you know, some opportunity. Something similar, equality and theory, but not in reality would take place in the field of Russian aviation. And I will share it right after

a quick sponsored break. This felt like the best spot to do it today. And we're back to story time. Thank you for sticking around. Beginning the early 20th century, aviation became very important to Russian society. Given Russia's enormous size and the difficulty of transporting goods, people and communications across such a vast, often coldest fuck landscape, aviation was anticipated to be Russia's vital system for transportation in the future. The thing that would help bring Russia together and thrive under one communist regime.

The newly communist government formulated dozens of projects to prepare and train pilots, navigators, mechanics, and support crew, including public campaigns to get young people interested in aviation from, you know, early ages. Men and women, as young as 17, could join one of dozens of Russia's flight clubs, where they would learn how to pilot an aircraft and perform simple repairs. At universities, too, the government pushed students to get involved in fields like engineering, mechanics, geological surveying, and cartography. Hundreds of women flocked to learn how to fly and were supported in their efforts.

The Society for Cooperation and Defense and Aviation Chemical Development was a paramilitary organization founded in 1927 to provide such training. And by 1935, had developed a network of over 150 air clubs to teach and train pilots. And while women were allowed to join these groups and they did join them, they did also face some sexist hurdles Marina Chishnova later awarded with the Hero of the Soviet Union Russia's highest military award for her night bomber pilot service Was one of the women who faced such opposition. She later recollected Aviation is not a woman's affair. They declared repeatedly and tried in every possible way to dissuade young women from joining the air club.

So again, they were supported in theory to do these things, but not in practice. In the end, though, it would be necessity, you know, that created the night, which is, as opposed to enlightened appeal to someone, lightened appeal to feminism. By the fall of 1941, with the Germans pressing on Moscow, Lenin grad under siege and the red army struggle and Soviets were desperate. Knowing Russia was in trouble for months, Marina, Rascova had been getting letters from women across the country wanting to know how they could support the war effort. Seeing an opportunity, Rascova petitioned Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin to let her form

an all-female fighting squadron. They had a personal relationship since Rascova had already been declared a hero of the Soviet union. On October 8, 1941, Stalin gave orders to deploy three all female Air Force units, backup units in theory, but they wouldn't be in practice. And the night witches would be born. The women from the beginning did not see themselves as backup. They saw themselves as fighting for the same things their male counterparts did, patriotism, redemption for their families, many of whom had family members who had been killed by Nazis,

and a chance to make their mark. And like male soldiers, they knew there was a good chance they might not make it out alive. Flying ace, Ekaterina Katja Budanova, we'll write to her sister, Olyakka. Sorry, some of these little tricky. I am now devoteing my entire life to the struggle against the vile Nazi creatures. I'm not afraid to die, but I don't want to die. If I'm faded to perish, my death will cost the enemy dearly. My dear winged YAK is a good machine and our lives are inseparably bound up together. If the need arises, we shall both die like heroes. The YAK she's referring to there, if you're confused, is the YAKA-F-Lef,

YAK-1, a Soviet single-seat monoplane, a single-plane monoplane, oh my 1 a Soviet single-seat monoplane uh... with a little single-plane monoplane oh my god Soviet single-seat monoplane fighter with a composite structure and wooden wings production had begun in the uh... january 1940 almost 9,000 were built during the war not quite as fast as Nazi fighters but very maneuverable and well-liked by pilots and when i first went to the notes i thought uh... Ekaterina had just given her plane a nickname. I just called it like her yak, like her pet. And it reminded me of dudes naming their planes

during times of war. And after women, having pin up art, put on the planes to boost morale, sexy curvy women and heels, not a lot else. And then I made me think of that in the reverse. Women flying fighters with paintings on the sides just fucking rock hard, rip dudes and banana hammocks. Maybe there's wearing a hand towel, you know, something hanging off their boners. This is my plane, my skydow to Boris. He's a rock

hard pex, unformidable love sword, he'll keep him safe and wet. I don't want everything to go anywhere to go with that. I just love the thought of these women being the female equivalent of like horny top gun alpha males. Okay, time to really get into the fucking awesome story of the night, which is and the other two all female Russian Air Force regiments now after a couple small notes. First, some of the dates, which days certain planes were shot down, for instance, are reported differently in different sources as are the total number of kill counts for every pilot. The dates only vary by a day or two, but if you see a different date in some source, if you're looking to this yourself, that is why. Second, there was also some variation reported in total sorties, flown sorties being operational

flights by a single military aircraft and total tonnage of bombs dropped and some variations in other minor details. We used our best judgment to pick the most agreed upon numbers from the most reputable seeming sources. Third, when it comes to anglicizing the Russian names, translating them into English, many sources do it differently. For example, Liliya can become Lili or Liliyan. Both versions stay faithful to the Russian name. We've gone with what our main source used for the names, which was Knight Witches, the

amazing story of Russia's women pilots in World War Two by Bruce Miles. Finally, there are so many anecdotes in the story. Tales of dangerous missions and outsized bravery, and we've tried to include a lot of them, and that means story-wise, sometimes a person might pop up who you haven't heard of before, and then not come back up again. So, please, when that happens, just always assume, always assume that when someone doesn't return, it is because

they suffered a terrible, terrible fate. Like you know, they probably ended up being literally eaten by dozens of rabid foxes who started their toes and then worked their way up and somehow they didn't die until the foxes made it to their stomachs or they just made a back home from the war and things are going fucking great and they've landed a cool job, met the love of their life, found a small back of gold. And then they bite into that, a little piece of the gold, just to make sure it's gold and it is.

It's soft and they get so excited, they're incredible fortune that they lose the grip on that little piece of gold and it falls down into their windpipe and they get stuck and they can't breathe, you assume that, right? And they're trying to scream for help, but no one can hear them, right?

Cause the gold and their throat and the more they strain to try and get it out, the more it gets stuck. And now all their capillaries, and they're fucking eyeballs bursts, and their eyes just are bleeding all over their faces. And they're just thinking, you know, like, how the fuck is this happening? I was just on top of the world,

and I can't breathe, my eyes are exploded. I'm gonna die covered in my own eye blood. And then that happens. So you can assume that. Or one more thing. Okay, assume this. Assume if you don't hear them come up again, that they were out in their garden after the after the war and join a peaceful summer day And they grab a big rock stuck in the ground and kind of pull it out at toss it aside so they can plant some flowers or or Radishes or something and and then when they look back down at the hole with the rock was a few dozen giant fucking Kailapka Lopada Magnum largest fastest centipedes in the world come shooting out of the nest entrance

that the rock was covering. Holy shit these fuckers have elongated mandibles up to four inches long sharp enough to cut through a loon of cans and these things just start mangling the poor woman's fingers like not not chopping them off. They're not quite that strong, but they can get down to the bone and there's blood everywhere and then this woman she tries to fling them off, you know, which ends up flinging it onto her face and then these fucking assholes nearly three feet long, wind up to almost 20 pounds, these giant evil bugs neck things just keep biting and biting and biting and slicing and biting and now her face has almost no flesh on it but she's still somehow alive for several minutes.

Just laying there, having her face eaten off by a chylopita magnum centipedes wondering how a loving God could ever exist in a nightmare of a world. So you can assume that that happened. If you don't, if you don't hear from again that there's a good chance that that happened. I'm sorry, now let's fucked up.

Don't assume any of that. Don't assume anything other than that we just chose to share a cool little story from an unsung hero who did some badass shit in World War II. And you know, and then the rest of her life was just kind of lost to history. Some of the main cast will remain consistent. People like Nadia, Popova, Lily Lethpick, Marina Roscova and others, but if you hear a name you haven't heard before again, you know again just just don't even worry about it Okay, just forget what I said earlier, okay?

Don't fucking worry about it! I apologized Sorry, I shouldn't I shouldn't I shouldn't yell to you either just forget that happened as well. Start over. Let's get witchy Let's get into this fucking timeline Shrap on those boots soldier, We're marching down a time-sub timeline. A Let Us Begin. Back in 1938, with Marina Roscova's famed flight, made her a national hero. In September of that year, she made a aviation history, set in a world record for a non-stop direct line flight by women along with Valentina, Grisidobova, and Palina, Asapenko.

The entire nation gathered around the radio sets is radio Moscow broadcast hourly bulletins on the progress of the so-called winged sisters. And for suddenly having to evacuate their aircraft, but miraculously surviving, the winged sisters made a triumphant entry into Moscow with the head of a cavalcade, tens of thousands cheering them through the streets. They had to evacuate when their plane was unable to find an airfield due to poor visibility after they set that record. Because an navigator's cockpit had no entrance to the rest of the plane and was vulnerable in a crashed landing, Ruskova parachuted out before they touched down, and she forgot to grab her emergency kit and the rush to jump out and then was unable to find the plane for 10 days with no water and almost no food.

A rescue crew found the aircraft eight days after the crash landing and they were waiting for her when she found her way to it after which all three women were taken to safety. All three made heroes of the Soviet Union but it was Marina's astonishing survival tale. They really made her a national icon. But it was not anyone's mind tale. They really made her a national icon. But it wasn't on anyone's mind. The Marina or any other Russian woman would ever see battle due to what these winged sisters had accomplished. But that would be the case, of course. By the end of 1940 Hitler had issued a furor directive 21 in order for Germany's planned invasion of the Soviet Union. The invasion was codenamed Operation Barbarossa. After the nickname of the powerful 12th century Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I, nicknamed given to him by Northern Italian

cities, which he attempted to rule because Barbarossa means red beard and Italian, which I figured out on my own, because I'm very fluent in Italian. Barbarossa Fabio Barbito Toneiro, and Chalada Pepperarona Giovaronisobizi O Julio Halecius Yeah, it is fucking Julio Nahulio And I know he's not Italian Right, but that's how you say his name in Italian You say Julio Eglaceus

Not Julio For you fucking fact-checkers The barbarist invasion called for German troops to advance along the line running north south From the port of Arkangel to the port of Astra-Can on the Volga River near the Caspian Sea Even as spring turned into summer in 1941 It seemed unlikely to the Russians that the Nazis would attack them only days before the launch of operation Barbarossa

Convoys of freight trains clanked west to the Reich bearing Soviet grain for Germany's food stores Petroleum for her tanks and aircraft, and vital ores for the heartland of her war machine in the Rour. They were buddies, right? Fucking Germany, Russia, good buddies, Hitler, Stalin, best of friends. Stalin, my best buddy for life, I cannot wait to have all the grain and the oil for free. Vido said that last part.

That last part, the part where I said, I love you. Have a hard time showing my emotions. That issue is not that. June 14th, 1941, just eight days before Operation Bob Roses launched, a broadcast from the Kremlin described rumors of a German attack on the Soviet Union as an obvious absurdity.

I never betrayed my Russian father that must I spot it, not ever. But on the same day Hitler had traveled from his retreat in the Bavarian Alps to Berlin for an all-day meeting with the commanders and chief and top field generals of the three armed services. It was to be his final war conference for Operation Barbarossa. Okay, you got me. I'm a dothed little liar pencil fire. Tehee. Well, Hitler, yeah, he was a fucking dirty little liar. Of course. June 22nd, 1941, more than three million German

and Axis troops invaded the Soviet Union along an 1800 mile long front, launching Operation Barbarossa. Man, three million plus troops, rolling into your nation. On the same day with a fuckload of tanks, planes, other weapons of war as insane. It was Germany's largest invasion force of the war, representing some 80% of the Vermokts,

the German armed forces, and one of the most powerful invasion forces in history. With the three pronged attack towards Leningrad, the North, Moscow, and the center, and Ukraine and the South, German panzer tank divisions and Luftwaffe air bombardments helped Germany gain an early advantage against the numerous but poorly trained Soviet troops. On the first day of the attack alone, the Luftwaffe managed to shoot down more than a thousand Soviet aircraft, and the pilots and navigators controlled them as well as a number of additional aircraft still on the ground. The Soviet pilots who did manage to take off to the skies that day were by and large woefully

inexperienced. Excuse me, in the Baltic military district, young pilots had on average only 15 hours flying experience around Kiev, some had as little as four hours. They were literally just raw beginners, easy prey for experienced German air crews who've been preparing for months and often had better airplanes. The Soviets needed pilots and they needed them fast and they needed them to be experienced, but they just wouldn't admit that yet. On November of 1940 or as November of 1941 approach, German armies were only 20 miles from the gates of Moscow. Leningrad was surrounded and besieged.

The invaders taken over three million POWs again, such an absurd number. Much of the red Air Force was now destroyed and now is time to bring in the girls. On October 8, 1941, Stalin gave orders to deploy three all female Air Force units. A call went out on Radio Moscow from Marina, Raskova for volunteers for these regiments. The announcement said that the women selected would have to understand that they would be front line combat pilots, just like the dudes. Applicants were instructed to write to Marina immediately and the response was immediate and overwhelming.

Every day's posted deliveries brought new sackfuls of application to the little office where the hero of the Soviet union or small staff sat late into the night, night after night, sifting and deciding on the approximately 2,000 who would be summoned for interviews. There would be three air regiments, each with three squadrons of 10 aircraft and all the mechanics, armament fitters and personnel will be women too. Some sources say there was a few male mechanics, but I think that might have happened later

on in the war. All in all, there would be about 400 women in each regimen, as letters of acceptance started going out, young women from the unoccupied territories of the Soviet Union, from as far away as Central Asia, traveled down to the capital. Many had never left their hometowns before. Few had ever used a subway with his dazzling marble interior and strange moving staircases which deposited most of them at Prospect Mark's station. A few minutes walk from their meeting with the legendary Marina.

One of these girls was 18-year-old Larissa Rosanova. On a way to the meeting, she carried a battered leather suitcase in one hand, receded cautiously through the Moscow streets because of a planned blackout, which was intended to confuse any would-be German bombers. So, you can make out a few strange sights, though, in the Red Square, artists painted the walls of the Kremlin to make them resemble the fronts of houses. Wooden boards obscured the famous Golden Domes of the Cathedral, and Lenin's tomb was encased in sandbags. Citizens erected dummy factories made out of canvas and wood, the city was ready for a siege.

In her other hand, Larissa held the telegram she had received, bringing suitable clothing. If selected for training, you will not be returning home. Wanted to be practical, Larissa had packed heavy wool invests, scarves, fur gloves, and an overcoat. How much she also couldn't resist packing a pretty dress in one of her childhood dolls. And that is both so cute and so sad. Right? Emotionally, she is still a bit of a child. Just 18, but about to grow up real fast in ways most of us will never have to.

Despite her age, despite the doll, there was no denying her aviation competence. On the day she'd gotten her telegram summons, she had just completed her first tent as a flying instructor. As Larissa turned on to a Pushkin square, she found herself in a large crowd of excited young women. Now fucking cool. Pushed away through the throng, made her way to two Pushkin square, entering with her bulky suitcase. She accidentally swung into another young woman, Nadia Popova. Too quickly discovered that the interviews wouldn't take place in this building, but at the Zukovsky Academy, together they took the subway and once they arrived, were directed by an arm soldier to the second floor where a woman sat at a desk. The woman was wearing a tunic with the metal of the hero of the Soviet Union pinned to

the left breast. It was Marina Restova. Soon, the interview began with both Nadia and Larissa, little starstruck, maybe a lot starstruck. Larissa would later say in an interview, she had the biggest, clearest blue eyes. I know if I had been a man, I would have fallen in love with her straight away.

It was a bit like a schoolgirl crush on a gym mistress. And before moving on, a gym mistress, Hey, I'll lose the Fina. Did I just add another fetish to my fantasy rotation? What the fuck is the Jim Mistress? Hot Librarian? Check, brains and beauty. Well read, awesome.

Hot teacher. Check, brains beauty. Fantastic. Hot fucking Jim Mistress, very fit. Maybe wearing the tightest, tiniest Jim shorts, maybe knee high socks, ponytail, visor, windbreaker, open pretty low in the chest, a whistle. So you know she means business and she will whip you into shape quite literally. Sorry, I don't want to diminish the achievement to these female warriors by sexualizing them,

but also I am a straight dude attracted to strong women. And these bad ass Russians are strong. Stop now and I do want to remind you that Larissa started this. Larissa and Nadia were the first applicants to be interviewed. Marina studied their flight logbooks, asked some questions about their flying education. Then she asked if they were frightened of going to the front where enemy soldiers would be shooting at them.

And Larissa replied, not if I shoot them first. Larissa was for sure braver than I was at 18. Braver than me now. Marina was impressed, but she also made it clear to the girls that there wasn't going to be an easy mode The risk of what's for sure braver than I was at 18. Braver than me now. Marina was impressed, but she also made it clear to the girls that there wasn't going to be an easy mode because they were girls. If they signed up, they would be soldiers, held to the same standards as any male soldiers. And they would face the same dangers.

They could be blinded, lose a limb, be captured as a POW. She made it clear to them to take it out of their tits, punch off. They could have their vagina, exploded off. They could have their vagina exploded shut. They could also die. Maybe she didn't say the tits didn't, but you know, but she was clasped with me. Both the rest, it was implied. It was implied that they could have their tits punched off.

Both the rest and Nadia said that they could handle it. So Marina Rascova made them her first recruits. As the girls bit it down for the night and they're assigned lodging area to other future night witches. We're figuring out how to join. One was Galina, Junkov's, oh my, her last name is a mother fucker.

Galina Junkov, Junkov Skaya, an engineering student at the Moscow Aviation Institute. She was also a trained parachute instructor, much further away in the Euro-Mounts, another young woman was headed to join up. Ketarina Fetatova, 20-20-year-old mother, Dr. Much further away in the year old mountains another young woman was headed to join up. Katerina Fetatova, 20-20 year old mother had been evacuated to the year olds because her

skills as an aircraft assembly worker were required in the factories that had been shipped to the east to get them out of Nazi, the Nazi's warpath. Her husband Yuri was fighting with the army. So Katerina and her two year old daughter went to the year olds alone. Katerina had more than enough experience to do her job there. Back in Moscow, she had flown every day, both before and after her factory shifts. Soon, she was acting as an unpaid instructor at a flying club attached to the factory and raising a little girl. Soon, all Katarina could think about was doing what her husband was doing, fighting for his country, except in the air.

But there was no flying to be done in the Ural. She even wrote to the defense minister pleading to be allowed to leave her factory job, but was not given permission until she heard Marina Roscova's call to young women. The day before she was to leave, Katarina got the worst news of her life. Her husband Yuri had just been killed in combat. Could Katarina leave her daughter behind and risk orphaning her if she also died in combat? She decided that she could Little Margarita would be safe in the year olds with her grandparents Katarina had no idea when she left that she wouldn't see her daughter again for almost four years That is intense. I miss my kids like crazy when I first moved to Los Angeles for work after my divorce

Only spent a week a month with them, but I was still able to speak with them, uh, basically every single day on FaceTime. Katarina endured so much more heartache. She can get to see her girls face for another four full years. That is quite a sacrifice as a top-ass mead sack. On October 13th, 1941, the new recruits were instructed to report down to the Zukowski Academy to pick up their Air Force uniforms. Larissa Razzanova, with later recall, like all young girls, we were pretty fashion conscious. Even though there was a war on, most of us had slim waist and though we didn't expect uniforms tailored for us by Paris Couchier, Couchier, I fuck whatever, Paris designer.

We hope that they, I'm trying to say the fancy word. We hope that they had made some little concessions to the fact that they were that we were all different shapes from most soldiers at sucks. I feel bad for particularly curvy pilots, right? Some boobs and hips either getting smashed or they had to wear very baggy ill fitting clothes. Could have been comfortable either way. It's fucked up that they didn't, you know, give them altered uniforms. Come on, Stalin. Can't spare a few tailors for all these new pilots and aviation personnel so they can be at their best. What they got was heaps of enormous boots, rough woolen vests and long johns and tunics, trousers and coats. And as they tried on clothes,

they laughed hysterically at all the poor fits. And I love that. Love their attitude. Right, that is beautiful, making some lemonade right now To make the boots fit they had to shove paper balls into the toes Over the next few days some girls who were good at sewing like a tiny blonde name Lily lat uh Lily lit back managed to make the uniforms at least approximately a good fit Despite her small size Lily lit back was a fucking force She at first applied to her local flying club when she was just 15 but got rejected. Told you had to wait. Tell you she was 17, like everybody else. In the meantime, she devoured whatever she could read on aviation,

followed the club's flying instructors around, Conceit trying to impress them with their knowledge. Eventually the club gave up, let her join when she was 16. She had a natural talent learned to fly solo on the P02 by plane after only four hours of instruction. And now a preparation to become soldiers lily and a couple other girls got to work. Even with their pants and shirts hemmed, the recruits still hobbled around their boots, their coach's trail on the ground, but they were so excited to begin training that it hardly mattered. The date set for the new recruits to start that training was October 15th. The training base was to be a small town called Engels on the River Volga, a few hundred miles

north of Stalingrad. Meanwhile more and more women are being interviewed, selected or rejected. Not all of them would be pilots from navigators, less glamorous, but equally important with the jobs of maintaining, refueling, re-arming the aircraft and radios. The quiet peace time air-filled at Engels was still well beyond the range of any German bombers. And as the young women got down from the trucks that had transported them from the station, they tried to absorb their first impressions of a military airfield, something none of them had ever seen before. Ringing his perimeter was a sandbag in placements with long, ugly snouts of anti aircraft guns pointing towards the sky, soldiers and

steel helmets with rifles cradled in their arms. They checked each of their recruits papers as they walked past the main gate. The women looks skyward as they heard the familiar putt-pudding engine sound of the PE, the PE, oh my god, PO2 biplane trainers on which most of the pilots among them had first flown solo. Although some things look familiar, the atmosphere was entirely unlike what they'd been used to. The congenial camaraderie and lightheartedness of their flying clubs. They were shown to a building on the perimeter equipped with bunks and single beds told that they would eat in the officers' mess hall, Nadia Popova hung up. The one pretty dress she had brought with her, tucked in a little brooch in the shape of a beetle onto the pocket of her flying overalls.

It would become her lucky charm and she would never fly a single mission without it. As for their training, major Marina Raskova and her second command, major Yavdakia, Bershanskaya will be in charge. Yavdakia, Yavdakia, Bershanskaya woman of 32 was married and had a young son. Her husband was an officer, served in the army as well.

She had left a teacher training college when she was 17, had trained to be a professional flying instructor in the two years prior to the German invasion. She had been flying airliners inside the Soviet Union. Now she was tasked with turning these schoolgirls into soldiers. And she would later recall it in an interview, the girls seemed little more than children in many ways. Training was a very difficult time for all of us. Although most of them were good basic raw material, with a certain standard in their various skills, they had an awful lot to learn.

And don't forget many of them had never been away from home in their lives before. Marina and I both realized they needed a certain motherly kindness, just as much as they needed to be pushed along with their training. I didn't think of myself as a mother figure at first, still thought I was a girl myself, but these teenagers didn't give me much choice. The training schedule was intense involving up to 14 hours of flying in classwork on exceptional days. Every day at six, there were rouls from their beds and an irrespective of weather, spent up to an hour drilling in marching before breakfast. In classrooms, veterans of the Spanish

Civil War and the Soviet Finnish War would cover the blackboard with intricate scrollwork of different colored chalk as they explained in detail how to gain an advantage over an opponent. These were courses that normal times would have taken two years. Now they had to be completed in six months. And throughout all the young soldiers were being assessed to determine who would be assigned to each of the three regiments. The 586 women's fighter regiment, the 587th women's bomber regiment, or the 588th women's night bomber regiment. As the weeks went by, the pilots flew increasingly on their own without instructors, they practiced bombing from various heights on ranges of few miles from the airfield, pulling a wire inside the cockpit to release bombs carried in

the racks beneath the wings of the PO2s. Then they would practice flying at night, learning how to navigate with only the most basic instruments and with no radio communication from the ground. Navigating with stopwatches and crude manually operating computers strapped their knees. They measured the distance between various turning points on the routes, calculated the effective wind rack and followed their maps all by the light of the instrument panel in the plane. Rackiously, no one was killed during these exercises though occasionally pilots

did get lost had to land on a field, even on a road and then walk back to the airfield. As the week's been by Marina, Roscova and Yavdakia, Bershanskaya formulated and wrote up their assessments of the different volunteers. Which women flew well together as pilot and navigator? whose brain worked more quickly in navigational exercises, who reacted more calmly during crises in the air. They encouraged the pilots to experiment with acrobatics and taught them first in theory, and then later airborne had to shoot small cannons or machine guns from their planes to close range. To do this, the recruits would stay dog fights or mock battles with their

planes. Lily Litfack was there to take off one afternoon in a dog fight with her instructor Lieutenant Dobkin. When it was her time, Lily pushed the throttle of the P.O. 2 wide open and it trundled across the grass gathering speed with the airspeed indicator on the instrument panel, reached 40 knots, Lily ease back to control column between her knees and the aircraft climbed steadily to the rendezvous. She was to fly to a position three miles east and the aircraft climbed steadily to the rendezvous. She was to fly to a position three miles east of the airfield and circle in gentle turns to the right and left at a height of 4,000 feet. As Lily leveled out of 4,000 feet began circling to the left over the village landmark, she

kept glancing over her shoulder with the cloud covered to the north. That was where Dobkin was likely to be lurking. She circled once to the left and then once more over the village. She pointed the nose of the PO2 down into a dive. As the speed increase, she pulled the stick back and zoomed upward. The PO2 stood on his tail and she smoothly cordoned his stick and ruddered to roll the aircraft back into level flight. Once more, I'd be fucking thrown up right now. This time pointing in the opposite direction. She circled to the right now. Her sense is racing her face flushed in the slipstream. There was no sign of an aircraft from the cloud. She cupped her hands, shielded a low afternoon sun from her eyes, peered straight back at

the glowing orb and from its periphery, a dark shape emerged racing straight towards her rear. It was Dobkin using the glare of the sun to catch her by surprise. And this dog fight stuff. So crazy to me. Just hiding in the sky like that. Without turning her head, Lily pulled the stick back into her stomach, pitching the nose of the plane up suddenly. At the same time, kicked hard and stood on the right rudder pedal, executing a perfect barrel roll over Dobkin. If she had a gun on her control column, Dobkin would have been a pilot scrap metal. Dobkin now snapped his aircraft into the roll to the right and Lily, her engine roaring to full power, followed him. This male instructor

threw the earthen sky, tumbling across the front of her aircraft. She squeezed the imaginary gun button again in another short burst, Dobb can then went into a dive, slipping and sliding out of Lily's sights as he gained speed. Suddenly he zoomed and Lily followed him all the way up. He hesitated to the top of the loop, then decided to complete it, row into the right again as he came out of his loop. Whatever he did, Lily was right there, sitting so close to his tail that he had to waver back. Lilly sat there until she forced him to make a violent cutthroat motion, conceding complete defeat. Lilly lit back had defeated a lieutenant and she was ready for war. What's she ever, as you will soon find out?

In April, Major Roscova pinned to the notice boards a list of the regiments to which women had been assigned. Only a third of the regiments to which women had been assigned. Only a third of the pilots would be assigned to the fighter regiment, right, the most dangerous duty. Lily Litfax, name was there, to be sure, along with Galia, Bordinia, Olga, Yemshakova, and three dozen other fledgling fighter pilots. Nadia Popova and her friend Marina Chichnova would fly PO2s, which were being pressed into service as the aircraft for the 588th Nightbomber Regiment.

Galina Junk Skav... Junk Kolvskaia, who had to fill her quota of trained parachutists before acceptance, was to be navigator on the Petlikov PE2 Daybomber Regiment. And Katerina Fedotov, who had left her daughter in the year olds, was to be a PE2 pilot. Larissa Rosanova, who had met up with Nadia Popova on the way to join up with Moscow, was to be a navigator on a PO2 night bomber. And she was bitterly disappointed. Felix, you'd had the most experience of anybody in both flying and navigated. And now she'd been stuck with the Navigating job since there had been fewer experienced navigators. And she can fucking want to navigate a little PEO two at night.

She begged Marina Russcova in six separate letters to reconsider. She wanted to be a fighter pilot. Eventually, Russcova brought Larissa into her office for a meeting and immediately she laid into Larissa, reminding her that people were fucking dying on the front every day by the thousands and whining about not getting exactly what you wanted in these circumstances was ridiculous. Chase and Larissa went to leave, then Roscova put a hand on her shoulder,

explain the Larissa to Larissa, that navigators were needed just as much as anybody else, and she needed Larissa to use her experience and help them win this war. And then Larissa, fucking headbutted the shit out of Roscova. And it's fucking on! Woo-hoo!

Kick her ass, see bass. Her commander never sat coming. While stunned, Larissa need her in the front butt, doubled over now. Larissa need her again in the face. And then she roundhouse kicked her Shawn Cloud Van Dam style, cleared through the wall of Raskova's office. Then she jumped up to land a flying elbow. But Raskova, no easy foe.

Let me tell you, rolled while also grabbing a sharp piece of lumber from the broken wall, which she used to fucking impale. Larissa, the wood went clear through her stomach, out her back, it was gruesome. Larissa looked like death awaited her mere moment, moments, but still she wasn't on fighting. She turned around, then jump back, use the piece of wood sticking out of her back to nail Reskova to the wall. And now they agreed to a truce. The risk of wood fly, she improvement herself, she passed the test. Rissa cova made it clear that if Lurissa ever defied her again,

though, she would literally snap her fucking neck and drop kick her head all the way back to Moscow. They both laughed about their fight. As the Rissa pulled the wood out of both of them, and they banished the other up and then went and each drank a bottle of vodka to heal themselves, Russian style. Nightways is no fuck around. No, the Rissa walked out of that Russ Kovas office feeling proud.

Not knowing that within a few months of arriving at the front line, she would be promoted to squadron navigator. Now about to ship out the women had to complete the last part of the transformation into soldiers. They're required to cut their hair. No more than two and a half inches all over. Can't have long hair.

Getting your eyes when you're in a dog fight or navigating a bomb and run. Well, actually they could. Once they got going and proved themselves, they would just go their hair back out. Now with time for the day bomber and fighter crews to train on the aircraft in which they would go to war. The 588 would fly the old P0 P02 trainers, the pilots assigned to the 587th, they would fly the Petlikov twin engine PE2 light bombers. Light bombers carried a crew of three pilot, navigator and radio operator slash gunner. Had two fixed machine guns firing forward, one swiveling machine gun in an acrylic plastic bubble behind the navigator, and two guns operated by the radio operator in the middle of the

fuselage, one in the floor for defense on the underside of the aircraft, and one that fired through a hatch above her head. The pilot sat in an armored seat in the cockpit, with the navigator behind her, also in an armored seat. The radio operator sat about six feet away in the middle of the fuselage, crouched over her equipment, surrounded by boxes of spare ammunition belts for her guns. It doesn't sound super comfortable. Fully low to these planes were difficult to manage and get off the ground, some with a lot of strength needed to pull the stick at the appropriate moment to take

off and most of the girls just lighter weights, not as much upper body strength, had to have their navigators help them do this. But they did it. Catarina, a fedatoba would recall it was a delicate business because if the stick was pulled back too far, the aeroplane would lose flying speed. It would stall and you'd make a big fire on the runway. Sounds fairly dangerous. The women also needed cushions to pad their seats so they could see uh out of the windscreen. Some of the girls with shorter legs had to have blocks put on the rubber

pedals so they could reach in with their feet. They had to fucking magi-ver the shit out of everything to modify enough to work for them. Incredible. In the end for the 587th women's bomber regiment dealing with these hassles was worth it. These new planes were much more powerful compared to what they've been flying before. Over a few days, they got accustomed to the aircrafts practicing flying in the formations that were becoming standard procedure in the Soviet Air Force fighter units. They practiced dog fighting with their instructors and each other, learned the moves and tricks that could, and often would save their lives.

The 586, they flew a variety of planes, mostly YAK1s, but then later YAK7s and YAK9s. YAK1 was a single cedar, the YAK7 was a two cedar, then the YAK9 went back to a single cedar to allow for more speed and maneuverability at its smaller size and lighter weight. So for the most part, these women in this regiment, they were up in the sky alone. Armed with 20 millimeter nose mounted cannons and dual mounted 7.62 millimeter machine guns similar to M60s that are still in use around the world. While the final training took place, the women kept up to date with the progress of the war, hoping that the training would be finished before the tides turn further against the Soviet

Union and resistance to become futile. Every morning at roll call inspection, Marina, Moscow would read out bulletins on the progress of the fighting. The women whose families were now in German occupied territories had to smooth their anxiety and fears and get to work. Nadiya for example had no idea what happened to her parents and overrun the nests. Oh my god. The nests.

Tough for me to say. I want to say don'tsk. Nadi would later recall the horrifying story she heard about what the Germans were doing to civilians in the areas they conquered. Stories she'd have to put out of her head if she wanted to focus and fly well. Anastasia Colvitz, a radio operator, had a family trapped in Leningrad. By that spring, hundreds of thousands of civilians had died of starvation in the siege city. Was her family among them?

Would they be part of the one million in the city of three million who died of starvation in the 900 day attack? She had no way of knowing Another woman, Masha Bhattukovah Received some letters from her father in Ukraine, which were smuggled through friends They spoke of rape and other atrocities. It took place wherever the Germans found Soviet nationalist activity. I got Imagine the stress of all this you're rapidly learning how to fly modified planes, you know Go fight one of the most powerful militaries that the world has ever seen. Wall said military is conquering places where you have either lived or have family.

And now on top of risking your life in battle, you have to go to sleep after fighting one ring of the people you're fighting for above everyone else or even still alive. You go to sleep, you wake up, one in if they're being tortured, raped, being pushed into some big open mass grave maybe buried alive To some all of these horrific possibilities provided more motivation Agnia policyva Would recall if only the Germans had realized how much that sort of news helped us in our determination to beat them I used to fly across our sector and look down at the fields and rivers and I had this overwhelming feeling that this land was ours And these people were violating it. And we must kill them and throw them out. Hail, loose of phoenix. May 17th, 1942, the women's training has ended.

To celebrate, there was going to be, they have a big party in dance. There's a band composed of women and instructors from the base, playing accordions, banjos, piano and drums. Candles made the space seem fancier. Young men who were also training on the bass came over to do some slow dances. That music they were listening to, it might have sounded a little something like this. And maybe the banjo they're playing. And a lot like this little air banjo, I just happen to have it laying around here. Pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don, don't, don't, don't, don't, don, don't, don, don't, don't, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don't, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don allowed. At midnight, Marina, Rascova, she got up, she clapped her hands, signaled that the band was to stop, and the women warriors needed to go to bed

without the dudes around. Morning and specs in the next day, Marina announced that the 586 was gonna be going to the front. There was a moment's pause, and then everybody burst out in wild cheering. They broke ranks, hugged each other. It was the moment that these brave bastards had been waiting for.

They would soon take their fighter planes those 7.62 millimeter automatic pistols. They had strapped their thighs and head off from angles and formations of four. They were off to war. By that time the Germans were busy launching their second summer offensive. The drive south to capture the caucuses and the vital oil fields of Baku. Their first winter campaign had ended at a virtual stalemate with the Nazis reaching Moscow but not able to take it. Leningrad was under siege, would remain so for a year and a half longer. Soon in the summer of 1942, the Nazis will take most of Ukraine in the first three weeks of their new offensive. The Germans captured 400,000 prisoners roughly around 1,250 tanks and over 2,000 guns, like big artillery guns.

And the Soviets knew that they couldn't sustain more of the same sort of crushing losses as the year before and survive. What remained of its military, including the night witches, would have to be better to Soviet Union instead of chance. The paralyzing cold, the Russian winters alone could not save them. The 586 would be assigned to defend Seratov, a city with vitally important railways and munitions factories. One squadron of 10 planes would fly night missions and the second would fly during the day. To avoid the dangers of collision and such low visibility, the

regiment would put up only four fighters at a time during heavy night raids on the city. Now not only would they have to navigate during nighttime but also keep their assigned sector of the city while searching for an enemy that was nearly impossible to see in the dark. On the second night of their assignment the phone rang and Olga Yemshakova, the squadron leader got the call. 20 plus enemy, 6,000 feet, heading 090, 20 miles from Saratav. As she listened the other fighters scrawled the heading on their maps and with the minutes 4 pilots took to the skies, the moon above obscured by cloud cover. At

7,000 feet, they leveled out, began to patrol the outskirts of the city, looking for the enemy. Galea Bordina was the first to spot them. The enemy was sliding past beneath her wing tip, and to her sector in two minutes, they would be over the city raining down bombs. Talk about pressure. Stop these motherfuckers or watch them kill your fellow countrymen. She started firing right away, charging to the middle of their formation. She maneuvered so quickly, looping back around that she suspected they thought that there was more than one fighter attacking them. The Nazi formation was broken up and they jettisoned their bombs in the field. It was a success for the Russians. Across the Volga at the Engels training base, the waiting was over now for the Russians across the Volga at the angles training base that waiting was

over now for the 587th and the 588th they too had been assigned their first tasks on different parts of the front. They said goodbye to their friends and flew off in their PE twos and PO twos. Their mechanics and other ground crew followed in transport aircraft. Night bombers will be sent to the town of Grozny in the north co Caucasus, having to dodge German fighters as they made their way south. They all made emergency landings close to the base, showing up unharmed but frazzled, believing that they'd been close to the death door and not understanding why the Germans hadn't shot them out of the sky. And after the base, they discovered that the fighters that had dived on them were not

actually Germans. It was Russian planes sent to escort them to the airfield. Apparently, those decades have been unable to resist given the women a bit of a scare. A whole lot of a scare. Major, uh, Barshan's kaya had recognized them, but most of the girls had freaked out and broke formation. Based on how they handle themselves, the commander of this base informed the major that he did not think that her women were ready for combat.

Marina Chichno would later recall how demoralized they all were. Saying, after all that intensive training at Engels and all that anticipation, it was a terrible anti-climax, but we tried not to let it show to the men who were sharing our airfield. For the next two weeks, the women flew more day and night training exercises now familiarizing themselves with the train and regaining confidence. In their moments of spare time, they studied aircraft recognition manuals showing German and Soviet aircraft from different angles and in silhouette, but it wasn't that they had not known their aircraft types before.

It has simply been a case of a straightforward panic obliterating their training, and they were determined not to let that ever happen again. What was even worse in the humiliation was their new home, a cow shed. They weren't any cows in it, but the smell was pretty awful. Some of the male soldiers dubbed it the end of the flying cow is a joke. Yeah, cool, guys. Sure, mocked the women also risking their lives to save their country, same as you makes a lot of sense. The night bombers will be given their first mission June 8, 1942, some sources say June 28th, mothers say the 12th, the target was a local headquarters of a German division near Varashila grad, Varashila grad, only three aircraft were to fly the mission. Major,

you have Dakiya, Barshan's Kaya herself would fly the lead aircraft, the commander of one of the squadrons, Luba, Olga Skaya, and her navigator Vera Tarasova would take off two minutes later, followed by Anya, Amasova in the third PO2. It was her first real combat mission. They knew the target itself was lightly defended, but they would also have to navigate precisely to stay out of heavily defended areas. They'd be taken off at the maximum load of around 800 pounds of bombs, tiny by present-day

standards, and even by the standards of more conventional bombers at the time, but a remarkable load for this little trainer aircraft On June 9th after Luba milked a cow and passed around some warm milk to the fellow pilots to fortify them the planes taxied out to the end of the grass runway and One after the other took off and you heard that right One of them has just milked a cow to make sure that their you know fellow fighters have enough nourishment for the mission Life is so fucking weird sometimes. Despite their loads of bombs and fuel tanks, the PO2 staggered out of the air or into the air after only 500 feet of takeoff run, guided by her navigator and using her stopwatch and map, major, a Bershanskaya approached the target at a height of just over 3000 feet, then cut her engine and glide it down to

the darkness silently so that the Germans could not hear her. They're flying so low. Right at that height of, you know, 3,000 feet, little over. They're roughly only twice as high as the one world trade center in Manhattan. At the appointed time, the navigator thrust her arm over the edge of the open cockpit and dropped two parachute flares into the slipstream. They ignited and suspended from their little parachutes, cast a fierce incandescent light over the landscape.

Both women now saw that they were right over target. Major Bershanskaya knew it was time, she would hit the target and then Luba behind her would be able to aim at the fires she had started. Searchlights now came on stigling the Germans in spot of them, but the major didn't want to get off course so she flew straight ahead. You know, possible anti-aircraft fire be damned until she was right over the target as German soldiers, you know, were shooting the airplane bucked into blast from some of these explosions as they're being fired on, but she kept flying, then

she yanked and released, wired, dived away from the search lights, steered for home confident that the two planes behind her would finish the job. Won't you go back to base? Luba and Vera, who had been in the second plane, were not behind her. There wasn't any cause for a media concern. If they had trouble finding their way back, they had plenty of fuel. Anya, Amasova and her navigator landed 50 minutes later, increasing morale slightly, but when an hour passed without sign of Luba and Vera, a feeling of dread increased.

After two hours, the regiment reluctantly went back to the cow shed, trying to convince themselves that Luba and Vera'santly went back to the cow shed, trying to convince themselves that Luba and Vera's plane would be there the next day, but it wouldn't. It wouldn't be until after the war with the night bombers or excuse me, that the night bombers discovered how their friends had died. The lone PO2 had been bracketed by search lights and the heavy artillery had drowned them behind enemy lines, down them, excuse me. They were likely dead before their plane hit the ground.

In the morning on June 9th, 1942, Russian villagers found the pilots before the German patrols. The plane was incredibly intact, but the women still strapped into their cockpits, had bled to death from a shrapnel that had torn through their plane. The Germans arrived, confiscated the planes, revolvers, maps, and the few personal papers. The girls had on them. The Germans then dragged the bodies from the cockpits and just left them lying in the field. The villages were left to wash off the bodies and bury them on the edge of the village. Back on the base it was decided that that night the entire regiment would fly to bomb the Germans.

It was as much a tactical decision as a morale decision. With two of their friends dead the regiment was in danger of dangerously low spirits and that night all 20 aircraft The regiment was in danger, dangerously low spirits. And that night, all 20 aircraft remaining took off and successfully bombed a railway junction and an artillery battery and then returned safely to base. So Halo's a pheno again. Even though they'd had a major loss on the heels of a big humiliation, their self-confidence was back. That summer, Marina Chichnova was promoted from Sargent to second lieutenant.

She'd fly a solo mission and successfully bombed a railway target dodging search lights and bursts of artillery fire. Through the night bombers were running more and more successful missions or she should be but though the night bombers were running more and more successful missions. The Soviet forces on the ground were still being pushed back by a ruthless German advance. Sometimes covering 30 miles in a single day, right? Fucking blitzkrieg and Panzer tanks. The success below of the Nazis made the night bombers missions all the more essential, which their flight logs would prove.

July 11th, railway station destroyed. Fuel tankers blown up in great explosion after four attacks. July 25th, help destroy crossing of the River Don. July 26th, flew 47 sorties, destroyed motorized unit and personnel trying to cross Don July 27th entire Regiment again flew destroyed Don Entire Regiment again flew destroyed Don crossing and caught German troops attempting to cross in boats and rafts As summer turned to fall the women were sometimes flying up to 10 missions a night Frequently their targets were less than 10 miles away between missions the women would

often remain in their cockpits catching maybe a 10, 15 minute nap before heading back out again. When they finally made it back after their last mission, they would wrap themselves in blankets, fall into an exhausted sleep underneath the wings of their planes. While they were physically exhausted, morale overall was pretty high. Quick to the night bombers became terrifying to the Germans, not only for their physical damage, but also for the effects on morale. It was hard to get any sleep with the night bombers became terrifying to the Germans, not only for their physical damage, but also for the effects on morale. It was hard to get any sleep with the night bombers cruising overhead.

The Germans dubbed their aircrafts sewing machines, not sure why, and dubbed the women who piloted these sewing machines the night witches. And news of that, Nick, they made it back to the bombers who were delighted that they were terrorizing their enemies. The reputation didn't mean that the night which didn't face danger themselves and actually made them more of a valued target before the war would be over any German military member able to take out a night which would be immediately awarded an iron cross. A metal awarded for a single act of bravery in the face of the enemy that went above and beyond the call of duty. Since a flu in a straight line, often using the same routes, the Germans had plenty of

opportunities to learn the night which is flight pass and line weight. And so the women devised a way to counter that. They started to fly in pairs with one plane drawn enemy fire and one plane making their attack. Marina Chishnova, who flew alongside Nadia Popova, would explain, it wasn't a nice feeling, knowing that your friend was inviting the enemy to shoot her down. They must have heard her very clearly, and I can see the flames from her exhaust pipes as she dived away from me.

But it was a full 30 seconds before the firing started. To the night witches, with their small but very agile PO2s, 30 seconds was plenty of time. Sometimes others still of course got shot. Pilot Nina, Russ Povah and her navigator were once badly cut by a red hot shrapnel splinters. We were losing blood. Shrapnel also also pierced their gas tank. And as they flew their engines sputtered from the loss of fuel plunging them through the air and they landed in a river made it to the opposite bank before the plane came to a grinding halt. There there was no time to think they're lucky stars for coming out of the sky alive.

They heard enemy shout from just across the river, weak from losing blood, the women unfastened their harnesses gathered their maps, struggled out of the cockpits. For from one glance of the smashed PO2, they knew it would never fly again. As German artillery began flashing from the other side of the river, the pilot navigator hobbled a few meters away, flung themselves into a hollow in the damp ground while German bullets ripped through the remains of the POEO of the P02. If they hadn't got out when they had, they would have been cut to a Swiss cheese. Suddenly, the plane exploded as its remaining fuel ignited and the women would never know

if the Germans assumed they had finished off the night witches or if they had been called off to go do something else. Either way, the firing stopped. They would then soon be found by Ukrainian villager and rescue before dying from their wounds. During this time, the nightbomb of regiment also served as courier aircraft from port and personnel who needed to get from one point to another quickly. This work happened during the day, meaning many of the night, which is were flying essentially 24-7, transporting people during the day, running bombing runs at night.

By the end of the summer, the 588th will be moved to the North Caucasus, helping to stop the German thrust south towards the Caspian and the vital Russian oil fields around Baku. They slept now mostly with local families, many of whom were without husbands, fathers, older brothers, returning from their night missions. They flyers would march or be driven to their temporary homes to sleep. The other peasants were desperately poor, had very little food. They kept the pilots rooms and navigators rooms spotless.

You know, these soldiers were revered. The pilots gave them chocolate and held them around the house and returned with what little free time they had. In turn, the peasants treated them like their own daughters, putting jars of fresh cup flowers in the bedrooms, washing and combing their hair, talking to them about their hopes for their futures like the girls own mothers would have done. Fucking adorable.

And the families little girls would sneak into the's rooms at night to hear about what it was like to be a soldier, what it was like to be a pilot. But it wasn't all, of course, good times. August 2, 1942, Nadia Papova is now reported missing. The rest of her regiment would learn a few days later that while she had survived her plane crashing, she happened to crash directly into an entire field of Kylappura magnam centipede nest. She never made it out of the cockpit. The corner estimated that dozens of those old fuckers ate her face off in mere minutes as

she struggled to release herself tangled in a safety harness that have been damaged in a crash landing. Did I tell you that coloptia magnam centipedes aren't real? I probably should have said that earlier, apologies. Nadia did go missing. Her friends saw her PO2 spiral-den of flames during the bombing strike near the town of The Nadiya's fuel tank had been set on fire. She was a thousand feet above the ground when it happened, bombing from a low level. That's fucking crazy, a thousand feet. But she did manage a lucky landing in a large field.

The pilot navigator walked through the water. She was in the water. She was in the water. She was in the water. She was in the water. She was in the water. She was in the water. She was in the water.

She was in the water. She was in the water. She was in the water. She was in the water. She was in the water. She was in the water. She was in the water. She was in the water. She was in the water. She was a thousand feet above the ground when it happened bombing from a low level. That's fucking crazy a thousand feet, but she did manage a lucky landing in a large field. The pilot navigator walked then until daylight, joined a main road that was chalked with people and vehicles, soldiers and civilians, women, children, crime, babies,

farm animals, refugees being forced along by a column of Soviet tanks and troops. Some pushed hand carts filled with tables, chairs, and bundles of clothes. All that could be snatched from abandoned homes before the arrival of those dreaded Nazi invaders. Now what a nightmare. The roadside was littered with possessions dropped by the countless refugees who had fled before them, like letters, children's books, ornaments, treasured family photographs. Not even fighting in the war for months now, but this was the first time that she realized truly what it was all about.

She began to realize how lucky she was to have a chance to fight back against the Germans when so many women, children and old men could do nothing but flee. She watched in horror as German bombers swooped low over the crowd, releasing bombs and exploded on impact. Nadi threw herself into a field as screams from the road

mixed with the sound of explosions. It was over in five minutes, but five minutes it felt like an eternity. Nadia now wandered days down the road. She saw a soldier who had quite literally just lost his head. Blood still seeping out of his shattered neck. The two leading tanks were on fire. Her navigator was nowhere to be found. She busied herself with helping a young nurse bandage that wounded. Then she met up with a fighting pilot, a young man named Simon Harlamov. Though one half of his face was bandage, she found him very attractive and he told her I only asked you one thing. Try not to make me laugh. It makes my face hurt.

For days Simon and Nadia would be swept along on the retreat from the advancing Germans. Nadia and her navigator tried to contact their regiment, but it was impossible. There was no way to let their friends know that, you know, she was still alive, at least her, at least are both together now at night, Simon Nadia and the remaining refugees slept in barns, school houses, even under trucks, Simon and Nadia shared a blanket, and she would sing to him every verse of every song that she could remember trying to distract him from the pain of his torn face. Finally, after two weeks, they retreat, the retreat halts and at the local headquarters, they each made contact with their regiments. As they parted ways, Nadia squeezed Simon's hand and leaned over carefully kissing his chin where his face was not bandaged and they promised to write, both knowing that it would be very hard to stay in touch. I can love little details in the story like this. A few days after being back with their regiment, Nadia was returning from a mission when she landed at a diversionary airfield to refuel her

plane. She jumped out of the cockpit to stretch her legs as a mechanic approached her. He told her that another pilot wanted to have a word with her. As she followed him, she noticed a dark-haired pilot standing at the tail of one of the yaks. He smiled broadly and said, don't you recognize me, Nadia? It's me, Simon. He didn't even need to say his name. As soon as he spoke, she knew with Simon, she threw her arms around him, kissed him, carefully avoiding the fresh red scar that ran across the to say his name. As soon as he spoke, she knew with Simon, she threw her arms around him, kissed him, carefully avoiding the fresh red scar that ran across the bridge of his nose.

He'd of course gotten that scar when he had been attacked by a pair of chylopidum magnam centipedes or from shrapnel. One of those things. Now he had to get going, but wanted to leave him with some kind of token. All she had was an apple. She had packed before the previous light.

So she polished it on her sleeve, offered it to him. As he took it, she kissed him gently on the nose and walked off to her aircraft. They would meet again by chance several months later. While they were apart, Simon listened to the tales being told the night witches over the radio, waiting to hear Nadi's name as he penned her letter after the letter. And she thought of him often, hoping they would both survive. Maybe also hoping that those fucking evil bugs nakes wouldn't start eating their faces in the middle of the night as they slept. Maybe you don't know her. By the end of 1942, the 586 fighter regiment had moved to an airfield near Vorostnish,

now a Russian city of a little over a million people a day, between 300 and 40000 then, which was a major junction for road and rail communications, also controlled crossings to the river dawn. Their task was to patrol the area, protecting railway stations and bridges that were important to the war effort. Over the past summer, the Germans had tried to take Verrashnish, uh, but they'd failed. As the 586 patroled above the areas, they protected from enemy air attack. They would watch the progress of the land battles from enclosed cockpit to their fighters, seen flashes of artillery, explosions of striking shells, along with the progress of convoys of trucks and tanks and other armored vehicles. Sometimes they were ordered on ground attack strafeen missions

when the Germans had made a breakthrough in their area. Excuse me, it was a test of a low flying and low level navigation. Finally, two or three hundred feet above the ground, following the contours and swiftly reacting to landmarks, which would lead them to the enemy. Holy shit. Two hundred feet is nothing. That is so close. Less than 70 yards away in a football field.

There are NFL quarterbacks that could have thrown a pass to these bombers from the ground or, yeah, these planes. I mean, it might be pretty hard to hit a receiver flying by 368 miles an hour, but possible. Tom Brady probably could have done it. You know, you could have threaded that needle a few years ago. An addition to being shot up by the enemy, despite the red stars on their fuselages and wings,

there would be the occasional outburst of small arms fire from their own troops as they swept overhead, mistaking the low flying fighters for German aviators. But the fighters were able to remain focused on their targets. Aircraft would then pull up quickly up quickly to around 1000 feet to identify the enemy formation, then roll into a steep dive as they perform these complicated moves. They could see machine gun cannons and tracer shells striking off tanks and trucks. They sometimes flew through

the smoke and flame of a truck that had just exploded three seconds flying time ahead. They pressed their firing button immediately pull up the nose and climb to the left and store out of range, frequently through the smoke and flames of pilot can see one of her friends planes at tree top level flickers a gunfire balancing from the wings and nose. These battles were fucking intense. Life at the base was rough too. Since Ukraine, which supplied most of the Soviet Union's grain and fallen into enemy hands, the girls had to get by on one meal a day, consisting of soup and some black bread.

Ugh! During the day, they nibbled on the dark chocolate. They carried with them in their aircraft as emergency rations. On top of all that shit, sooner would be a hard winner and temperatures would dip to 30 or 40 degrees below zero. And they're wearing ill-fitting, shoddy uniforms. They don't have the proper gear for the cold. They're huddling together at times at night just to not die. They're praying that they're not losing fingers and parts of their faces to frostbite, or the flying. And many of the women did suffer frostbite, but they never quit. It's tough bastards.

And after they had a choice, I guess, but they also used a large pop-bellied stove, moved from one airfield to another to keep warm, taking turns, staying awake to the stove, we keep burning throughout the night so they can sleep around it, partially because of the cold and partially because they had to be ready on a moment's notice. They often slept in the uniforms, a baggy, khaki blouse, loose trousers, tucking to thick, fur-line boots. The uniforms are wearing were quickly becoming worn out with an inspection coming up. The girls realized that the very men who were opposed to having women in the service also

couldn't stand to see women looking shabby. So they roughed up their uniforms even more. They cut holes in the arms and ripped, you know, made rips in the pants. Within a few days of inspections, new uniforms arrived, made it the finest English wool and life was a bit warmer at least. Okay, backing up from winter into the fall again now. September of 1942, fighters Lily Litvack and Katjaudanova, whose principal roles have been fighting off bombers before they could reach their targets, will be transferred now to join the men of

the 73rd fighter regiment in furious battles being fought in the skies over Stalingrad. Just a few days earlier, on August 23rd 1942, the Nazis have broken through to a river only five miles north of Stalingrad on the same day 600 aircraft attacked the city, killing roughly 40,000 civilians. As the German bombers turned for home, much of the city was enveloped in flames and smoke floated over the vulga. Retreating Russian troops made their way through thousands of refugees, many then wounded, streaming from the flaming carnage, peasants with their livestock and agricultural tools fought with residents of the city for places on fairies across the vulga trying to escape the chaos.

Fuckin' pitchfork fight. You know my spot on the escape fairy? Well feel free to try and take it. Just know that if it's if threatened I will pitchfork you. It would suck to get pitchforked. That's like getting stabbed three to five times in one time, depending on pitchfork model. Be a terrifying scene, General Vasilie Chukov, who commanded the 62nd Army through the Stalingrad siege would later write, and suitcases, who had been hiding from German bombs and shells. When they saw the ferry arriving, they rushed to the pier with one desire of getting away

to the other side of the river from their wrecked homes, away from a city that had become a hell. Their eyes were grim, and there were trickles of tears running to the dust and soot, soot on their grimy faces. The children suffering from thirst and hunger were not crying, but simply whining and stretching out their little arms to the waters of the Volga. And continuously, the Stukas and Mejorshmits bombed them. By September the Luftwaffe essentially had control of the skies over Stalingrad, and

the Russians were desperate for help. Workers in the city not involved in war-related weapons production were soon asked to take up fighting, often without firearms of their own. Right? Just attack with anything you can get your hands on. Just grab that pitchfork. Women were enlisted to dig trenches at the front lines and the Soviet air force was trying everything they could to, you know, to turn the ties to this battle. Pilots did their best to bomb the enemy positions around the clock, hoping to break them. They

also raised against time to build new air bases on the far side of the river Volga. Approximately 50 new airfields were hurriedly laid down, their command posts and sleeping quarters housed in underground bunkers protected by earth and sandbags. Through this chaos, Lily Litfac landed her plane, went into one of the hastily constructed command posts and told the men waiting there that she was Lieutenant Lily Litfac, their new pilot. She was fucking stoked to begin her new post and started a new assignment. Instead of looking for bombers to scare away and patrolling one area, now she would be seeking out enemy fighters for dog bites. She'd written to her mother just before her transfer to Stalingrad. Dearest Mamenka, I am riding this sitting in the cockpit on readiness.

I'm thinking of sitting with you in our dear home. I'm eating our favorite fritters in my dreams. I often dream that I'm with you, going somewhere in a hurry to the theater perhaps. We look so well dressed and happy in my dream and you are so young and cheerful. I look so happy too. May all this come true one day. Please send me a parcel when you have a moment. I need the following things. A white helmet with good material, close woven and easy to wash, if there's such a thing available. Two pairs of warm gloves and socks, toothpaste. Oh, what about 10 exercise books with lines? And if you have some silk hanker chips, too, you know how nice it is to get things from home. Flying in the fighters with the clothes cock, but isn't cold like the old PO2's. In fact,

it's quite warm, since you ask. I really feel part of the yak now. I feel like we've grown up together. Please remember to send father's photograph next time. Your loving daughter, Lily. PS, please, Mamanka. Don't address your letters to Pilot Litvac. Just make it L Litvac. The names of the pilots are supposed to be secret. I love that letter.

I love how much she loves her parents. It's beautiful. Love, man. The risk is sound like a silly sad percent of a bitch. There's nothing better. And love like that between grown children, parents, so special. Others especially the male pilot she was now commanding. Well, they were less than stoked to have her around. When their commander, Colonel Barranov arrived back from a mission,

he told the women that he would not have girls flying with him. He'd read their records and admitted that yeah, they look good on paper. But he thought that flying missions that focused on inanimate targets like bridges and roads. That was one thing, but this was stolen. He talked about pilots, you know, how they had to be able to trust one another completely as the executed complicated flight maneuvers. And Baronoff said he could not restilize his men for some girl. So he told them that they would be transferred out within the week. No more than two seconds later, he really regretted saying that because he was bleeding out now. He was dying. Lily lit back, had literally kicked his dick off. Or she just maybe kind of wanted to do

something like that. He was fine. Later, Lily and Katya would learn that there had been two female pilots sent before them, whom Baranoff had managed to assign to another regiment. It was becoming clear that that's what he planned to do with them. Adding insult to injury with Lily and Katya tried to work on their planes, not even fly them, male pilots said they wouldn't ever fly those planes now because they had been worked on by women. Which I do get, I mean, come on. Women's minds are only capable of raising babies, cooking, looking pretty, and cleaning up messes. Please send in emails to confirm that lady meets X. You know, I'm sorry, X, that was cruel. Please tell a man to get on their man computer, right? Something that undoubtedly confuses and terrifies your lady,

brands and have them send in messages that you dictate, which means, you know, you speak about out loud. You can probably just ask whatever man has been helping you listen to this podcast. Despite the unnecessary condescension or condescension, Lily Litvak was not going to give up after Baron off flew his last mission that night. She approached him, Litvak was not going to give up. After Baranoff flew his last mission that night, she approached him, told him she was going to sit next to him until he told her that the girls could fly. And he didn't fucking care for her being, you know, for her doing that. And he started

yelling, luckily a friend of Baronoff's would intervene. Alexei Selamatin, a pilot who had been his friends since their days together in flying school. After Alexei intervened, Baranoff did finally agree to let Lily fly as Alexei's wingman the following day. Lily still wasn't satisfied. Now asking him about her friend, Kacja, she was so persistent in convincing Colonel Baranov gave in again. He would let her fly as his wingman sometime the next day.

So then the next day, Lily would strap into her plane alongside Alexei to the right and slightly behind him. At the appointed time, both aircraft took off, made their way toward the towering columns of smoke and flames. Gunfire sounded as they flew, but neither his plane nor hers would stray off course. The Russian pilots swept their yaks into a tight turn, flew straight at the Mejorsmiths, playing a deadly game of bluff that could have easily ended in a mid-air collision. The German aircraft came first and suddenly turned away, and then thanks to Alexei's gunfire,

one exploded in mid-air and the other crashed in flames at the edge of an airfield. Lily and Alexei leveled out then and it was time to head back. Lily knew she had done well. She had stuck to Alexei, just like they told her to do. She was as good a pilot as any man. As they got out of their plans once they landed Alexei now promised that Lily the next day, she would kill some Nazis. And the days that followed Baronoff would rescind his order to have the women change regiments.

Lily and Katja had earned the right to stay on September 13th, three days after her arrival. And on her third mission to cover stall and grad, Lily lit back becomes the first woman in world history to shoot down an enemy aircraft and actually scores her first two kills, right? Like a shoot down an enemy aircraft from the sky that day four yak ones with major S. Danilov in the lead attack to formation of youngkers, J. U. 88 scored by measures mid BF 109s. One of the plans that was the backbone of the Luftwaffe's fighting force. Lily's first kill would be a J. U 88, which fell in flames from the sky after she shot it down. Then she shot down a BF 109 G2 gust off on the tail of her squadron commander,

Arraza Ballade. The BF 109 was piloted by a decorated pilot from the fourth air fleet, the 11 victory ace staff sergeant, Irvin Meyer. Meyer, paratrooper from his aircraft, was captured by Soviet troops, and then asked to see the Russian ace who would shot him down. When he was taken to Litvac, he thought he was being made fun of. It was not until Litvac described each move of the fight to him in perfect detail that he realized he had been shot down by a female pilot.

And then no more than two seconds later, he was bleeding out. He was dying. Lil' Litvac had literally kicked his dick off. Sorry. I just really love the concept of her being able to actually kill dudes by kicking their dicks off. Like walk closed, no less, which speaks to her force and precision. Like I pictured the severed dick ripping through their pants as he gets kicked and then sailing through the air, spinning end over end or head over shaft rather a good two 300 feet. And I'm back now. And Lily is not done. The very next day September 14th, according to some authors,

there's just be it about her total number of kills. Lily shot down another BF one or nine two weeks later. September 27th. Lily scores another air victory against the J U 88. The gunner having shot up the regiment commander major major MS Cove, Cove's Nostakov. But Litvak, Belivea, Burnov, Kusnetsova would only stay in the 437th regiment for a short time, mainly because it was equipped with lag 3s rather than yak 1s, which the women were used to flying. So, the four women were moved now to the ninth guards fighting regiment where they would continue serving until January of 1943.

By Christmas, the Lee had personally shot down six German aircraft, three fighters and three transport aircraft running the gauntlet of the Russian air defenses in a desperate and vain attempt to keep the trapped six army supplied from the air. Most of the time, her flying partner was Alexei. And on the ground, it was becoming clear that he was her partner in more than just flying. Oh my, what's happening here, Lucina soldiers will watch them walk across the airfield together after missions. Their heads bent close together as they discuss today's work.

And then some others saw Alexei slip into the woman's bunker at night. They never do their arms around each other or kiss in front of anyone. But the care and concern they showed one another before they took off on missions was unmistakable. Their romance gave them even more incentive to fight well. Later on, Lili's fellow pilots would say that she had always been a good pilot, but it was her love for Alexae that really made her a Nazi killing badass ace. But even with the power of love on their side, Staldengrad, you know, was still hellish. The pilots flew into combat nearly every day. Their crafts returning riddled with bullets when they did return.

Pilots had to sub in for mechanics to repair the crafts, working in temperatures that reached 40 degrees below zero. Jesus! Some parts of the metal would be numbingly cold. Other parts very, very hot, which meant that you usually didn't notice that your hands were burning until the damage had already been done. The turnaround of aircraft between sorries could take up to half an hour. During that time pilots would get out of their cockpits, grab something to eat at the field kitchen, or go to a bunker or tent near the dispersal area

where they could lay down in a bed or sit in a chair, and try and relax a bit before the next takeoff. Thanks to this tireless work, Lily and the girls were quickly becoming national heroes. Radio reports spread, tails of their daring missions, and now newspaper reporters were coming to the base to interview them. And turn to Lee had a mechanic paint a series of roses on her plane, one for each kill. And soon she would be known as the white rose of stalling red.

As fucking badass. Frequently when she was up, ground, would hear German fighter pilots calling to one another, uh, octong lip back danger lit back, right? She, they fucking know her by name, Hailu, Safina, storage keeps getting better. Soon the battle for Stalin grad will be over on the ground. Autumn had seen the Soviet fighting force reduced to less than 20,000 troops and a hundred tanks. Bistolic events she was able to send in reinforcements. thousand troops and a hundred tanks. Bistolic eventually was able to send in reinforcements. Russian generals, Georgi, Zukov, and Alexander, Bislavitsky, organized Russian troops in the mountains

to the north and west of the city. And from there, they launched a counter-attack famously known as Operation Uranus. And the seventh grader in Mejus left. Although they again sustained significant losses, Russian forces were able to form what in essence was a defensive ring around the city by late November 1942

trapping the nearly 300,000 German and access troops in the 6th Army. Hitler had not properly equipped them for fighting in Russia during the winter and they had advanced too fast to too many places their resupply lines too exposed, you know thin and vulnerable Also fighting in northern Africa and across western Europe right to Nazis, you know, they just were in too many places at the same time. It reminds me of playing risk when someone, you know, gets a bunch of troops masked up in one territory and they go ape ship after conquering a few territories. And they just try to see how much of the board they can take over in just one turn and they keep going further and further and spreading the troops more and more thin, right?

Open to a counterattack. And then when their opponent is up for their turn and cashes in some cards for troop reinforcements, they easily take back territory after territory, right, not properly defended. And the person who just kicked some ass to turn before loses all of their newly acquired territories and more. Sorry, if you've never played risk before, that description was probably not helpful at all. Anyway, with the Russian blockade limited limiting access. Excuse me to supplies German forces trapped in Stalingrad now slowly starved

The Russians would seize upon the resulting weakness during the cold harsh winter months of followed They began consolidating their positions around Stalingrad choking off the German forces from vital supplies and essentially surrounding them in an ever tightening noose And then the women of the five hundred the 587th bombing regiment arrived on the solid grad front on the Stalingrad front in time for this counteroffensive. Most Germans were still dressed in their light denim summer uniforms and they were having to fight savagely from house to house as they insted away towards the city center. Soon the Soviet Union's double pincer blow from

north and south was to encircle and trap in the Stalingrad pocket a quarter of a million Germans. And now for the first time the Soviet Air Force was achieving numerical superiority. Marina Raskova who had taken command of this regiment set up her command post in an underground bunker and the women were shown to the bunkers that were to be their homes for the next few months. As they trudged across the airfield their heavy fur line boots kicked up the snow, they would make these bunkers right there. Their homes, their regiments first mission was to strike the German troops

who were attacking the defenders of the tractor plant. The attack was to be made at first light and regimental strength using all 30 aircraft, but it was going to be tricky as the two sides were so close together that the front line was difficult to pinpoint. At five in the morning, the pilots pulled on their socks. They're forlined over roles. They're flying boots. As they took to the skies, they would witness for the first time the extent that the devastation of Stalin grabbed.

They couldn't help thinking of the families who had once lived down there, leading normal family lives. The kind of lives they might have had if they had not become soldiers. Luckily their mission was a success. That night after their first sortie over the city, they had a sing along in one of the bunkers. They sang mostly folk songs accompanied by several of the women who brought their musical instruments with them to the front.

Remember that awesome music? Oh, fuck yeah bro. That's sad. It's a big blunder. Oh, it's a big blunder. Oh, it's a big blunder. It's a big blunder. Oh, it's a big blunder. Oh, it's a big blunder. Thanks for seated like this with the bombers fly missions during the day and spending the nights in their bunkers, talking, writing letters, singing, trying to take their minds off the carnage around them.

Some nights they would go to see films being screened at the airfields. Propaganda films show in the bravery of Soviet heroes combined with newsreels about the war and sometimes they were the stars of those films pretty fucking cool And while they watch these films some of them took advantage of the darkness to scoot a little closer to an attractive male pilot This was the case for Katarina Fedotova who met her future husband flying ace would shot down more than 10 German aircraft during one of these films Hey, Lucifina kicking ass in war kicking ass in romance They are truly making the best of a shit situation just before midnight November 26, 1942 now Hitler addressed a personal message to every soldier in the six army, then trapped in the stalling grad

pocket. He ordered them to stand fast and assured them he would do everything in his power to support them. What he meant was that he would supply them with air, you know, or supply them by air with fuel, food and ammunition until a relieving force could reach them. And it was a promise he had zero chance of keeping. Not if the Soviet pilots had anything to say about it. You know, I don't count about promises. I'm a dead hell of a lion, pencil fire.

Tehe. The airfields and solemn grad on which he depended for resupplying and evacuation of the wounded were gradually falling into Russian hands until eventually the only contact the six army had with the outside world was by radio. And a lot of female pilots played a big part and to not allow Hitler to follow through on his probably holopromus. Meanwhile on the ground, thanks to Russian gains nearby fighting, including in a Rostov Anton 250 miles from Stalin Grat, the Axis forces, mostly Germans and Italians,

were stretched in. Through Operation Little Saturn, the Russians began to break the lines of mostly Italian forces to the west of the city. That's a spasimuth, Bo! At this point, German generals abandoned all efforts to relieve their believed forces, trapped in Stalingrad. Still Hitler refused to surrender, even as his men slowly starved and ran out of ammunition. That piece of shit would rather leave

the Naurat rather than lose face with his devotees back in Germany. On January 6, 1943, inside the encirclement, the remains of the German 6th Army are approximately a quarter of a million men are waiting for the end. The cold is intense, temperatures regularly falling below negative 5 degrees Fahrenheit without windshield. And the German troops are down to four ounces of bread and a few scraps of horse flesh a day from their slaughtered horses. And they were maybe to also deal with hundreds of nests of those calopita, magnum, centipede, fucking bugs, neck things that are always so hungry for faces. Ammunition was handed out at a daily rate of only 25 rounds.

The Soviet Air Force was taking a dreadful toll of the lumbering German transport aircraft. The troops only hope a supply and the daily tonnage was a mere fraction of what was necessary to sustain the army. And soon their last remaining airfield inside the encirclement would be overrun. Day after day, the 587th Regiment and their PE 2s helped bomb the doom Germans hiding in the ruins of what had once been Russia's most, you know, modern city. On that day, January 6th, they flew without Marina Ruskova. She and two other crews have been detached from the stalling grad front for several days on a special mission in Crimea. The women's

mission was a success. The night had that night that a single long again to celebrate the acquisition of a second hand piano, liquor flowed freely as the women hung out with the men talking, dancing, hoping the arena would be back soon from her mission. And then after a few hours, the bunker door opened and it was not Marina. It was the commander of the men's regiment and he told him that major rescuers have been killed when her aircraft crashed and several of the girls burst into tears. They would learn the details next day that Marina had just made a tiny mistake leading the other two aircraft in her flight. She become disoriented in the

swirling snow was lower than she should have been and her plane crashed on the summit of a hill and she died on impact. Their hero was gone. Hale Nazi killer extraordinaire, Marina, Raskova, rest in peace. For the rest of the women, there was still a big war to fight. Two days later January 8th, their new commander arrived, Major Valentin Markov, a 32-year-old aviator with a reputation for having a strong moral code. This was seen by Sopiris as essential in a man who would be put in charge of a group of young attractive women. An attractive not even my word. That's from the source. But look at them up. Sources right. These ass kickers were fit, young, fiery, intelligent, not surprised. They were also

gorgeous. Major Markov would not allow the women, the little allowances that Marina Ruskova had, like small pieces of embroidery on their uniforms. They would only realize months later that having them be angry with him was a tactic. instead of allowing them to sink into a depression. He wanted to rattle them up better to have them angry than sad as commander of the regiment valentine led many of the missions personally major mark off in the 587th bomber regiment were now transferred to the north caucus front. There they would fly dangerous missions bombing enemy troops. Once again the bombers wouldpoint targets with smaller bombs. The planes behind them would aim for the explosions. And one mission,

they would be ambushed by the by two fuck of wolf 190s aka butcher birds. The fastest, most agile planes in the world will enter the war and four measuresmiths who nearly guned one of the pe2s out of the sky. Galena and Junkov's go, oh my gosh, that name again. Junkov's Sky, oh, only survived by doing something that seemed insane. Out of ammunition with her pilot hit, she opened the cockpit above her head and grabbed her handheld pistol,

the fired signal rockets. She fired a ball of red flame with the Germans and they quickly veered away. Then Galina glided the plane down to the road intentionally crashed into some saplings, coming to a halt. Galina and the pilot had only walked 30 feetided the plane down to the road, intentionally crashed into some saplings, come into a halt. Gleene and the pilot had only walked 30 feet when the plane exploded,

showering them with burning metal, but they would survive. Meanwhile, in January of 1943, the 588th night bomber regiment, those girls originally nicknamed the Night Witches, for how they'd psychologically torment the Germans, now fighting in the North Caucasus, and are given the title of the 46th Guards

Regiment. By this time, many of the women have been profiled in newspapers, where it's starting to be recognized as national heroes. They've been in combat for months, but they still dealt with showbizism and, you know, doubts by fellow soldiers and it appears on a daily basis, but not anymore. Being given the title of the Guards Regiment was the greatest honor they could have achieved. The first regiment in their division to be rewarded with a title in the first women's air regiment in Russian history to get it.

With it, they also got new uniforms, especially tailored skirts that honor their femininity and made them proud to be women in the Air Force. Meanwhile, the tides had definitely turned in the battle of Stalingrad. By February of 1943, Russian troops had retaken Stalingrad and captured nearly 100,000 German soldiers. Though pockets of resistance would continue to fight in the city until early March. What a brutal battle. Most of the captured soldiers died in Russian prison camps, either as a result of disease or starvation. Finally, German General Frederick Paulus went against Hitler's orders and surrendered what remained

of his weakened troops to Russia on February 2nd 1943 and act which Hitler called treason The loss of Stalingrad was the first failure of the war to be publicly acknowledged by Hitler the estimated loss of life at Stalingrad varies but the modern war institute put the total death toll and approximately 1.2 million people man Nazi Germany alone suffered between 750,000 and almost 900,000 casualties.

Those numbers are so horrific. So many lives snuffed out forever and one of so many battles. The scale of the carnage is always so difficult for me to process when it comes to World War II. The lost put Hitler and the Axis powers in the defensive and boosted Russian confidence as it continued to do battle on the each and front World War two

And hundreds of female pilots especially Lily Litvac helped achieve this major victory On February 23rd Lily is awarded the order of the red star made a junior lieutenant and selected to take part in the elite air tactic Where pairs of experienced pilots were given freedom to search for targets on their own initiative. The highest honor a Russian ace could achieve. So, hey, Lucifina. In March 1943, after squashing Russian resistance in Belgorod and Karkov near the south of the

Kursk Bulge, German field marshal Eric von Manstein wants to take advantage of the momentum and the battle-weary Russian army and attempt to seize the Russian city of Kursk. But the Vermox Germany's unified military forces chose to prepare for a later campaign along the Kursk Bulls instead and lost their potential edge. Over the next few months Germany amassed over 500,000 men, 10,000 guns and mortars, 2700 tanks, and assault guns, and 2500 aircraft to mount and attack on the Kursk Bulls and take Kursk. and assault guns and 2500 aircraft to mount an attack on the Kirk's Bullets and take Kirk's. But the Soviets knew something big was in the works and their war machine went into overdrive, producing top of the line tanks artillery and aircraft, the Red Army dug in, and a master formidable arsenal which included almost 1.3 million dudes, over 20,000 guns and mortars, 3600 tanks, 2,650 aircraft and five reserve field armies of another half million

dudes and 1,500 more tanks. Fuck! Stolnges had so many bodies to throw the Nazis. Russia had suffered around 950,000 combat casualties and Stolngrad alone, nearly half a million dead, and then they were able to still do this. Now north of the Kirk's bulge was Germany's ninth army made up of three Panzer divisions and over 300,000 men. At the south was their fourth Panzer army also with over 300,000 men that is so many. And a combination of Panther and Tiger tanks to the west with Germany's second army with

around 110,000 men. But fighting would hold off for another few months. Also by March, the Lily Litvac had now been flying in combat for 10 months. So far, she'd been extraordinarily lucky. Her plane had sustained damage, but she'd always emerge unscathed, but that was about to change. March 22nd, 1934, she had both her tits shot off. I know. Sorry, I'm stupid. I know. But on this day, Litvak would be fine as a part of a group of six Yak fighters when they attacked a dozen JU 88s. Lidfak shot down a Heinkl, one Heinkl 111 bomber, her ninth German aircraft, but then things started to go wrong. Alexei was above her,

protecting her rear. She felt sure she had killed the mid upper gunner in the bomber on her first pass, but she was now descending from right angles to rake along the bomber's wing Try and get the second engine a light as she closed a sustained burst from the mid upper gunner smashed to the engine Cowling and now lowly's engine stopped dead She managed to haul the act out of its shallow dive turned away from the enemy looking swiftly around for a convenient landing field There was nothing Alexei could do to help her The burst that had destroyed her engine also hit her left leg and she had no idea if she could land the aircraft before passing out from blood loss. Luckily, she managed to make an emergency landing on a field.

The yaks slided across the field on his belly. Landing gear still folded up, spun around violently before coming to a stop. Lily unfastened her harness, pulled back the canopy overhead, climbed out his blood poured from her leg wound, so much so that the inside of her boot felt soggy. Alexei flew low across the field and she waved her arm vigorously. He radioed the home base, which was only a few miles away. Now he circled the crash landing site to guide transport. Lily hobbled to the roadside, took a discard from her neck, made a turner kid around her thigh to stop the bleeding. Alexei running low on fuel now turns for base, making one last low pass over Lily.

She waves to him as he disappeared behind a tree line. He must have felt sick to leave her. Baronov drove up a few minutes later, Lily stood up to talk to him and promptly faded, promptly fainted. And when she opened her eyes again, she was at a nearby field hospital. She lay in a narrow bed in a crowded tent,

the blood transfusion dripping her arm. She had passed a narrow bed in a crowded tent with a blood transfusion drip in her arm She had passed out during the operation to remove the bullet from her leg and when she woke up the first phase She saw belonged to Alexei Salamatin. Is this real life or one of those fucking movies? We're have to stare up at the ceiling to keep Lindsey from seeing me start to cry a bit. What is happening in this story? Why hasn't a major Hollywood blockbuster already been made about the night, which is come on showbiz That's how they should do it in Hollywood Alex they had brought with him two gifts There was his own almost new copy of love poems by seamenoff

Which he had inscribed on the title page to my love lily also gave her a little slim dagger and a leather sheath with a black wooden handle that he had carved himself slim dagger and leather sheath with a black wooden handle that he had carved himself. After recovering somewhat, Lily would hitch a lift on an army truck, part of the way, and then take a tram the rest of the way to Nova, Slobatskaya Street, the street where she had grown up. Her mother, Anna, and brother Yuri embraced her tearfully when she entered her childhood home. Her father was not home. He was out driving trains near the front, also helping the war effort.

After a week, Lily was anxious to get out of the apartment, test her leg in the streets. The devastation of the war was even more evident in the place where she'd grown up because she remembered how it had looked before. There were no goods in any of the windows of the stores. Long lines of people stood everywhere, waiting their turn to buy whatever meager supplies were available. Most of the faces in the streets were old men and women, not the young people and families she had grown up with. She was spent just two weeks at her family's house and then that tough bastard would head back out to the front.

Through the night of April 2nd, 1943, the 46-gards regiment was bombing enemy troop concentrations at the port of Navaréssik, Navar-Ras-Sisq, as well as resupplying Soviet Marines who were stuck there. One squadron was on the ground refueling, rearming, as well as resupplying Soviet Marines who were stuck there. One squadron was on the ground refueling, rearming, waiting for another squadron to land on its aircraft before taxiing out and taking off for another sortie. A red flare was fired from the end of the runway, warning all aircraft to keep clear. One of the returning aircraft was in trouble. It had attempted to land once, had to go around again in the darkness.

No one knew it at the time, but the pilot was dead. Flying the aircraft from the back seat was Ira Kashirina. It was not until later that night that Ira was able to tell her friends a full story. She and her pilot, a doucy nozzle, had dropped their bombs and were turning for home when they were hit by a flag from the heavy barrage of German anti-aircraft fire. They were caught in the beams of several search lights and then a German night fighter was upon them. With terrifying suddenness, there were several explosions in the front cockpit, as cannon shells exploded around the pilot.

The PO2 immediately rolled onto its back, dived away, you know, out of the search light, but now Ducey was unconscious and the plane was still diving. I ever had to fly the plane even though she was an avigator. With difficulty, I were managed to get the plane stable stable but her side of the controls were not working well. And when she clamored over to Doosie's side, her hand hit something wet and warm and it was Doosie's brains. There was nothing I could do to help her friend. She had to focus on landing the plane as she held the dead pilot away from the controls, her muscle screamed and protested but each time she stopped holding Doosie's body up, she would slump over onto the controls and the plane would start to climb again.

Dear God, finally she was able to actually land the plane. When she collapsed on the grassy airfield, she saw that both her sleeves were sticky and red all the way to the elbows. Lucy Nausell had been one of the regiment's best pilots with 354 combat missions to her credit. She was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, or posthumously, where it's always given trouble. For her outstanding courage, I receive the order of the Red Flag. And that settles it. Okay, we have to make the movie. We need to surround Catherine

Bigelow's house immediately, the director of Zero Dark Thirty in the Hurt Locker. And we're going to make it clearer that she has to fucking direct this movie. I don't care if you 71 now now and has already left her mark on the film world forever and doesn't want to be told what to do We're gonna make it clear. Then we're gonna kill her if she doesn't make this movie, right? And it has to be your best. We're gonna bring pitchforks and A lot of a chalapita Magnum centipedes and we're not gonna take no for an answer Back to history now. There was still more war to fight, the future, movie, not over. The night witches would continue flying over Navura, Sisk, dropping supplies to avoid smashing the canisters, drops would have to be made at very low altitudes. A mistake of a few meters, either way in many places would mean that vital supplies were fallen

into German hands. Marina Chichnovah would later remember, it was very difficult to keep the aircraft on course. The wind was gusting and throwing it around. Sometimes the PO2 would drop suddenly about a hundred feet in my stomach would lurch. My head was inside the cockpit, concentrated on the instruments most of the time. The heavy canisters under the wings didn't make control any easier

and the thought of those cold, black waves below us wasn't a nice feeling at all. We knew that if we had engine failure over the water, there wasn't a hope in hell of surviving. It was cold and the rain was beating into the cockpit from all directions, but I just kept thinking of our men on the beach. It was her 500th mission and it was a success, like the 499 previous ones. The girls could hear the men shouting and cheering as they received their needed canisters. Okay, now let's check in with the 586th. They're at Saratav. Valentina Petrochenkova was flying her second sortie as a pair with another woman, patrolling

at 3,000 feet above the bridge at Saratav. Their mission as usual was to drive off any enemy bombers who might attack it. It was brilliantly clear day with visibility seemingly endless. And at low level, they saw a German reconnaissance bomber skimming its heavily camouflaged route towards the bridge. And they dived on the radar. When he saw their approach, he reversed directions, sped for his lines. At treetop height, the German pilot weaved as the women repeatedly attacked from opposite directions. They could see that they were hitting the German on almost every pass they made, yet the plane was not going

down. As the minutes passed, Valentina looked down, realized that she was a long way from her patrol area and that she was getting into territory that was forbidden. She managed to land, but she was out of ammunition and almost out of fuel. And then she got into serious trouble for disobeying her instructions, but lived to fight again though. The work to the 586 was doing was essential. One night in early spring, Galia, uh, Bordina, within her yak above a railway station she

was protecting when parachute flare started drifting down several thousand people over wings. The Germans were starting their bombing run and were illuminating the target. So she dived down, reduced power to adapt her speed to the formation from a slightly above and behind she was able to see in dark silhouette, the distinctive shape of the Junkers J. U 88 bombers droning ahead towards their target. She reduced her speed further, drop below formation. Their bomb doors were swinging open.

She climbed again, carefully positioned herself about 200 feet behind one of them, glanced to her left, slightly higher, only 50 feet away was another one who could have easily spotted her. She skidded the act slightly to the right, firmly squeezed, only 50 feet away was another one who could have easily spotted her. She skidded the yacht slightly to the right, firmly squeezed the gun button, the aircraft vibrated as the tracer streamed towards the Yunkers dead ahead. The bomber on her left jerked immediately into a violent twisting dive and was gone from sight. But her intended victim flew steadily on, so she increased speed and closing range, put

another long burst of cannon and machine gun fire along the fuselage and into the area of the wing route. Flames appeared and erupted on the wing as the German craft keeled over and dived. Galita didn't stick around to see if she had hit him hard enough to take him out of the sky. She assumed she did and fuel was running low and it was time to get home. At the very least, she definitely fucked up his mission. Now back to Lily lit back.

So many bad asses just trying to keep their stories going. The young pilot had spent two weeks recovering in her family's house, but was desperate to get back into the action, even though she was not fully recovered. Still, she got an airplane back to the new airfield at Rostov. And as soon as she arrived, she could tell something was wrong. Alexei approached her with a dark look on his face, and she wondered if he had changed his mind about her. If he didn't love her, but when he opened his mouth, it was to inform her that Baranov was dead. He had been attacked by two Fokka Wolf 190s that morning

and his outnumbered wingman had been unable to help. His aircraft had exploded into pieces when it hit the ground and Lily was crushed. Even though he had been skeptical of her abilities in the beginning, they had maintained a mutual respect and affection and Baranov had also been Alexei's best friend But there was no time to grieve they had to get back in action But first another tragedy and the times since Lily had been gone several new pilots had joined the regiment as replacements for those who had died in action

They were experienced and highly skilled but flying combat missions meant they had to receive special training Like the special training the night witches had received all those months ago Alexei Salamaten would be one of those trainers engaging in dog fights with new pilots to simulate tactics they would need in battle. On the afternoon of May 21st during a lowland one afternoon, Alexei was dogfighting with the new recruit while soldiers Lily included watched from the airfield below. Lily was lounged on the ground playing with some blades grass, chat with her friend Katja as planes zoomed around overhead. The two yaks were flying in a dangerous manner at a speed so low they were approaching a stall where they would be a lose air speed and could spin into the ground. Alexei was trying to force his other pilot into tighter and tighter turns at low speed

and tell the recruit lost his nerve and broke. And then he did lose his nerve. And combat this would have allowed the opponent to get on his tail possibly to gun him down. But when Alexei put his yak into a steep turn, he lost height. Alexei's wing dropped as he turned. It hit the ground. There was a loud bang. And suddenly everyone was running. And ambulance drove across a wide airfield towards the crash, lily sprinted after it. It was no use. The cockpit simply did not exist anymore. The impact had crumpled the entire front end of the act. When they pulled Alexei out of that cockpit, of course, he was dead.

Fuck, gonna, uh, uh, gonna need to rewrite that for the movie. I don't like it. I don't like it. In the movie, he lives. Uh, we have to remember to tell, uh, Catherine that she has to, uh, uh, you know, rewrite the movie. She can have a screenwriter of her own choosing, of course, but they have to write that out.

Uh, again, there's no time to grieve. Litfac would score against a difficult target just 10 days later on May 31, 1943, an artillery observation balloon, manned by a German officer. German artillery was aided in targeting by reports from the observation post on the balloon, sort of like a blimp for which people could direct planes in targeting.

The elimination of the balloon had been attempted by other Soviet airmen, but all had been driven away by a dense protective belt of anti-aircraft fire, defending this balloon. Litfac volunteered to take this motherfucker out, but was turned down. She insisted, describe her commander her plan. She would attack it from the rear after flying in a wide circle around the perimeter of the battleground and over German held territory. Her commander agreed reluctantly to let her take her shot. She did and the tactic worked.

The hydrogen fill balloon caught fire under her stream of tracer bullets and was destroyed. Little bit of revenge on the heels of her success with the balloon on June 13th. Lily was appointed flight commander of the third aviation squadron within 73rd guard's fighter aviation regiment. Let the vengeance continue. Let the Nazis feel Luciferin is fucking wrath. Now it's time for the Battle of Kursk, the city where there had been a huge buildup of Russian and German forces throughout the spring. Hitler himself had said that it was essential for the German army to make up that summer

what they had lost during the winter. To achieve that he wanted to inflict upon the Soviet Union a defeat that would compensate for the humiliation Germany had suffered in Stalingrad. Despite warnings from some of his generals due to the Red Army's substantial fortifications to abandon Operation Citadel, the invasion of Kursk, Hitler was determined to move forward. The original start date was May 3rd. Hitler chose to wait for better weather and the delivery of his new state of the art panther and tiger tanks, even though they had not been field tested. Russia took full advantage of the delay by bolstering their defensive zones around Kursk, which included tank traps, barbed wire snares, and nearly one million anti-personnel

and anti-tank mines. My God. Now with the help of Kursk civilians, they also dug a vast network of trenches that extended over 2,500 miles. To make matters worse for the Nazis, British intelligence had cracked the infamous German of Vermach secret code and were regularly passing intelligence to the Soviets. The Soviets knew that the Germans were coming, right, the whole of fucking enigma, machines is awesome, and had an ample time to prepare.

In the buildup to the Cursk offensive. The Germans flew many missions against the Soviet defenses and attempt to soften them up. But the women's 586 fighter regiment would help make sure they stayed so fucking hard. The 586 have been flying almost continuous sorties one day when just afternoon, Rhea, Soren Chefzkaya, and Tamera, Pamietnitch found themselves the

only two yaks in the sky over the sector. They were circling to hide of around 12,000 feet when Tamra saw a cluster of black dots approaching below them from the Southwest. She mistook them at first for a flock of birds, but within seconds saw that it was a group of 42 German, youngkers, J.U. 88s and door near bombers. The women dive down. Their aim was to break them up before they reached their

apparent target, right? They're vast outnumbered. The target was a railway station, which was within the regiment's zone of operations. Two bombers fell away in flames to explode in the ground on the first pass, but the second wave held their formation as the two yaks pulled up from their dive and attack from opposite sides.

They got one more bomber each on their second pass. then the enemy jettison their bombs and broke formation. Tamara's Yak had been seriously damaged by the concentrated fire of the second formation. It spun out of control. She hurled herself from the Yak, opening her parachute at under a thousand feet. Her face and neck had been badly bruised and her escape from the stricken fighter, but she would live. As she floated down, her fighter was burning in a field nearby. Up above, she could see Ria's yak pursuing the broken formation of German bombers. All right, they started out two against 42 now. Open this guy. It is one against 39 or maybe 38. I'm just counting a little bit. Ria wrote later, when I saw Tamara falling, I was sure she was dead.

I felt a mixture of grief and anger and pressed home my attack until the ammunition had been exhausted. I did a belly landing on a hillside. As I got out of the cockpit, peasants were running towards me, waving pitchforks. So many pitchforks in the story. And size. And one even had an old shotgun. They had, they had, then they saw the red stars on the fuselage and they dropped their weapons and started hugging and kissing me. Then I took off my helmet and goggles and my hair fell down around my shoulders and they stepped back in amazement. That's awesome. The day the two women fighter pilots took on the 42 bombers became a newspaper story

told around the world. In both Rhea and Tamara or Tamara were decorated for their unreal valor. Then another big battle erupted. In the early morning hours of July 5thth 1943 among the beautiful yellow wheat fields that surrounded the Kursk bulge Operation Citadel was ready to launch Above the Kursk battlefield more than 4,000 aircraft from both sides were operating over an area only 12 miles by 30 miles man That is densely

Populated with aircraft German Soviet fighters were whirling and diving everywhere He imagine watching that holy shit below the pilots, hundreds of tanks are fighting to the death. As a Soviet pilot, shoot down German plane after German plane, the Red Army's ground defenses prevent German tanks from making much headway in the north and penetrating the heavily armored salient. By the end of the battle on July 10, the two wings of the German army that had tried to act as pincers were a hundred miles apart.

The offensive was over. The Russians won, despite losing over a hundred thousand more soldiers than the Nazis. They also won, what went down is the largest tank battle in history. For the female pilots, this victory was tinned with sadness. As they made their way to the villages near Kursk to get food supplies, they encountered women who had been raped and assaulted by German troops. One girl they had met had been taken from her home every day by drunk and soldiers and continuously raped before being dumped back with her family at night.

She had hardly spoken since it happened. They spent several weeks in Kursk and even found a doctor for this girl. By the end of their time there, the girl was laughing and smiling, treating the pilots like old friends, and for many years after the war, this girl would make an annual pilgrimage to a square in Moscow, where war veterans gathered annually to thank these pilots for the kindness they had shown her. Some beauty came from all that pain. Hey, Elusufina, damn, this is one of my favorite episodes. Man, one of the best we have covered in over six years doing this.

So much shit. And a bunch of Russians are the good guys, or good gals, I guess. Never thought that would be the case. Nice to be in Russia and not covering Stalin or some creepy serial killer or weird folklore. On July 16, 1943, Lily mother fucking lit back makes an additional kill that day six yaks encounter 30 German, a J.U. 88 bombers with six escorts with downs of bomber shares a victory with a comrade, then her fighter is hit and she has to make a belly landing. And she is wounded again, but refuses to take medical leave.

Three days later, she shoots down a BF 109. Another BF 109 killed two days later, July 21st, 1943, and then more tragedy strikes. July 19th, 1943, so backing up a little bit, bit bouncing but she hears about after I'm bouncing on a group of BF 109 fighters Kaccia, Budanova, shot down one her fifth solo kill but dam and damage another but her aircraft also hit With her aircraft on fire. She did land the Yak one in a nearby field But by the time local farmers came to help her exit the cockpit she'd already died The farmers buried her near the village of Nova Cross Nova Nova Cross Nova. So rest in peace, Kacyebura Nova. Winley hears she is now seriously depressed. First her commander, then her lover, now her best friend, all dead. But throughout the rest

of the month, she and her fellow pilots will continue flying missions, including a series of night missions at the end of July, in which the night witches targeted the German blue line fortifications near the villages of Cremeskaya. On July 31, while targeting the blue line, the night witches are unexpectedly attacked by a German night flyer. That night, four aircraft carrying two soldiers each will burst into flames, killing their occupants. The airfield was close to the girls who didn't go on the mission that night watched, as the doom planes plummeted to the earth, taking their friends with them. Eight young women were dead. Among the surviving pilots was Nadia Papova and Marina Chishnova.

For the next three days, the dead women's beds remained exactly as they had been left. And when the regiment sat down for a meal, places continued to be laid for these missing flyers. Natalia Mechland would recall later, obviously no one could have survived the crashes, but somehow we could not accept this. Every time the door opened, every time a truck drove onto the field, we expected to see the eight girls jumping out and running towards us. When you're flying in combat, you mustn't believe that it can ever happen to you.

It's one of the things that keeps you going. When eight friends disappear in a few seconds from the face of the earth, your mind refuses to accept it. When the fourth day came and nobody returned to the base, the pilots carefully wrapped their friends belongings in brown paper parcels to send back to their families. And then their deadly missions would continue. August 1, 1943, 21-year-old Lily Litvac does not come back to base. It was her fourth expedition of the day escorting some ground attack aircraft, her right hand have been injured by a bullet that appears to cockpit a few days before, but Lily still insisted on flying just as many missions as normal.

My God, is Lily Litvac Russian for Chuck fucking Norris? Just before she left that day, she had dictated a letter to her family. It said, battle life has swallowed me completely. I can't seem to think of anything, but the fighting is difficult for me to find a moment to write, but I'm doing it now. I'm alive as you can tell and in good health. I've hurt my hand slightly, so a friend is writing this for me. I love my country and you, my dearest mother, more than anything. I'm burning to chase the Germans from our country so that we can live a happy normal life together again. I miss you all. I kiss you affectionately. Her mission now is a sweep to the front line,

looking for enemy bombers. As the Soviets were returning to base near Arrell, a pair of BF 109 fighters taking advantage of the cloud cover dives on Litvac while she's attacking another large group of German bombers. Soviet pilot Ivan Berennsi, Borisenko would later recall, Lily just didn't see the measure smith 109's flying cover for the German bombers. A pair of them dove on her, and when she did see them, she turned to meet them. Then they all disappeared behind a cloud. Borisenko saw her one last time through a gap in the clouds, her yak one pouring smoke and pursued by eight BF 109's, eight of them. He wanted if they had spotted her distinctive white rose decorations

and knew who she was and wanted to make sure that the white rose of Stalingrad was done wreaking havoc in the sky. After he landed, Boris Senko descended to see if he could find her. He didn't see any parachute. Excuse me, and there was an explosion, so he decided to go back to the base and wait for her to show up. What she never appeared. And the months have followed, Sovi to Thorey suspected that she might have been captured. A possibility that prevented them from awarding her the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. For 36 years, senior sergeant, Aina, passport to Canova, passport Nikova, tried to find Lili's aircraft assisted by the public in the media. For three years, she would join my relatives, who together combed the most likely areas

with a metal detector, then she continued on her own. More on Lilly's fate later. In the autumn of 1943 now, the women of the 587th bomb arrangement are fighting farther north, bombing German troop concentrations around the town of Smolensk. As the Soviet ground forces prepared to push invaders farther west, they were working with the famous French pilots of the Normandy Neiman Squadron, a unit composed of free French pilots who had volunteered for service in Russia. During the war, these guys would be credited with 273 kills.

Valentin Markov continued commanding the regiment, often flying several missions today himself. The pilots, excuse me, flying into German territory were keenly aware of what would happen to them if they parachuted out over their planes and were taken prisoner. Flies would stay in their burning aircrafts until the last minute, hoping they could parachute into Russian territory for Nina, Kara Sova though, the gamble failed. The teenage navigator with the curly, fair hair was to suffer an imprisonment more hideous than any of her friends had contemplated. Her capture was to lead her to the hell of the concentration camps of Ravensbruck and

Buchenwald. The women's regiment was supporting a breakthrough by ground troops nearer Smolensk when they came under heavy attack by German fighters. Nina and the radio operator Slash Gunner exhausted all their machine gun ammunition on the German fighters. Need a drop to the hatch and the floor of the aircraft landed in unknown territory. Without a map she had no idea which direction would lead her home and which would lead her into the hands of the enemy.

She chose a direction random, hoping to hide out in the trees, but was spotted by two German soldiers. She was taken to Smolensk, hurled it into an enormous bob wire compound. After a day there, she was brought in for interrogation. It was her first opportunity, or it was the first opportunity the Germans had to question one of the Soviet women aviators And after refusing to talk Nina rejoined the thousands of other Russian prisoners being transported west from camp to camp Sometimes tantalizingly close to their own advancing armies

But Nina during this developed a plan to escape working with the Russian doctor The plant was a simulated illness so she would be transferred to a hospital where she had a better chance of escaping. Over a number of days, the doctor made small cuts on in his body and implanted pieces of metal under her skin. He then asked for an x-ray examination, hoping that the image would reveal patches on her lungs, but it wasn't to be. That is an extreme plant.

On May 7th, 1944, two days before the doctor had arranged the x-ray exam, Nina was taking without warning from her friends, thrown into the cattle truck of a train. Unbeknownst to her, her destination was Ravensbrook. There needed clothes were taken from her. She was given a striped dress and wooden clogs, and she would sleep on a mattress filled with wood shavings. And then three weeks later, she was transferred now to Boocanbold.

For the next 10 months, she would work in the Camp Laundry for 11 hours a day, subsisting barely on thin soup, tiny portions of bread. She lost count of the number of women who died in their sleep or were taken away while she was there. Then on April 14, 1945, Nina and the other prisoners heard the sound of prolonged artillery a couple miles away from their camp. When they stumbled out of their barracks, they realized that all of the guards were gone. When they tried the gates, they simply swung open. 18 months had passed since she had taken off on her bombing mission, but she had survived. Now that's head back to the summer of 1944. By that time, the Germans had been pushed back beyond Donetsk, Nadia Popovas hometown.

The 587th was fighting in the Baltic region. When they found orphan children wandering through desolate villages, they adopted them after the children were restored to health. Major Markov arranged for them to be sent to boarding schools. The 46 guards regiment, meanwhile, had climbed into their PO 2's, Pio 2 Night Bombers, and taken off from the beautiful Crimea, now liberate, liberate from the German occupation, and were on their way to the second Belarusian front, joining Russian campaign to push to Nazis further and further west. They flew reconnaissance missions over vast forests looking for German soldiers who have been cut off from the regiments. As they clear the area of Nazis, they moved on from Belarus into Poland,

Tanya Makarova, one of the squadron commanders and Vera Beleck were the first women flyers to die on foreign soil now. On a night mission in Poland, they were stalked and then shot down in flames by a night fighter. And in Poland, Lily Sanferova and her navigator Rufa Gashiba were shot down on a night mission north of Warsaw. They landed in the middle of a minefield and Rufa crawling out of her stomach did make it out. But Lily miscalculated and detonated a mine killing her instantly. The rest of the women were on their way to Berlin. Lucepine is coming for you Hitler. On May 1st, 1945, the Soviet flag is hoisted over the Reichstag in the heart of Berlin. The city has fallen to the Russians. The day before Hitler and Eva Braun had committed suicide,

the night bombers of the 46 guard regiment were at an airfield north west of Berlin. That night, they had flown what was to be their last mission of the war against some of the last German troops resisting. And now they were sleeping in a local farmhouse. And then a mechanic burst to the door with the news victory girls victory. The war is over. But the mechanic came too late. The girls were all dead. They had unknown these slept in a farmhouse infested with with chalapura magnum centipede bugs, Nick thinks all their faces had been eaten every fucking face. No, they were fine. That was needless. For the next two hours, the girls climbed into their planes and let their rockets loose

in the sky, sky, creating their own celebratory fireworks display. The women of the 587th bombing regiment also got the news in the middle of the night. They ran out of the airfield firing pistols in the air That morning major markoff landed at the airfield went into the women's quarters stood at the doorway looking awkward and shy and asked to speak to Galina Junkaskaya for a moment Outside he took her hand told her that over the past month She had fallen in love with her and wanted to marry her and she said yes nice hell never on

Uh within an hour the regiment was celebrating not one victory, but two. We're keeping that in the movie. Nadia Popova had also had something to celebrate or also had something to celebrate. The day the war ended, her boyfriend Simon, who she had met all those months ago in the refugee crowd, right, the guy with the bandaged face,

arrived at the airfield, and they got engaged the next day. Fucking yes, also keeping that in the movie. Help me remember to let Catherine Bigelow know when we surround her house, you know, with pitchforks and fucking bugs and stuff that we're going to make sure she has that in the movie. Simon and Naughty will stay together until his death in 1990 at the age of 69, she will live another 23 years, died at the age 91. The two had a son who also became a pilot. And she worked as a flight instructor

for almost two decades following the war. The night which his regiment was disbanded six months after the end of World War II, October 15th, 1945, as were the other two female regiments. And when it came to the big victory day parade in Moscow, they were not included. What a bunch of bullshit, right? How completely unnecessary and absurd.

The female pilots immediately following the war had to make the decision to try to continue with her careers or to take their place as Soviet mothers and wives, which propaganda encouraged. Irene, rockable Skaya, a pilot with a 588th regimen, rationalized the difficult reality and challenges she faced to pursue both the family and piloting career, which she stated,

I think that during the war when the fate of our country was being decided, the bringing in of women and aviation was justified. But in peacetime, a woman can only fly for sport, otherwise, how can one combine a career with family and with maternal happiness? So, prevailing traditional values the time, despite not being properly hailed at following the war, for many of the night witches and the other female fighters, it was enough to have survived to grow old and to be able to think back on how recklessly brave

and fucking incredible they were. Sometimes on a dark night, Nadia Popova would recount many years later, I will stand outside my home and peer into the sky, the wind tugging in my hair. I stare into the blackness and I close my eyes and I imagine myself once more a young girl up there in my little bomber And I ask myself not you how did you do it? Hail Luciferina that also stays That for sure stays in the movie credits might start to roll after that shit I need to tell Catherine that that is a must she can pick a screenwriter But they will include that or you know pitch forks and bugs nice and stuff

But they will include that or you know pitch forks and bugs next and stuff Now for some sad news in 1979 After uncovering more than 90 other crash sites 30 aircraft and many lost pilots killed in action The searchers looking for Lily Litfak discovered that an unidentified woman pilot had been buried in a small village From that craze it took that long from that they gathered that Lily had been killed in action after sustaining a mortal head wound. A special commission was formed to inspect the exhumed body and it was concluded that the remains were those of Litvek. Nope, fuck that shit. Also rewriting that for the movie. I'm gonna tell Katherine that she has to live. She was shot down, crash landed in a swamp, and we're putting the, uh, kind of lopped a Magn Magnum, centipede bugs nakes into the film, right? She figures out a tame them and she teaches them how to hunt Nazis.

And Hitler doesn't kill himself in the movie, uh, Lily Littsback sneaks into his bunker, uh, six or a horde of evil, face eating bugs nakes on him. Yeah, no, I like that. And then she spends the next few years tracking high ranking Nazis around the world, like Mengele, killing them with her demon peats. That's good. Kazuma, I have to let me write the script. May 6, 1990, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev posthumously awards Lily Lidfak, the title

hero of the Soviet Union. Her final rank was Senior Lieutenant, as was documented in all Moscow newspapers of that date. There is no consensus among historians about the number of aerial victories scored by Litbeck. Some Russian historians were able to confirm five solo and three team shoot downs of enemy aircraft, plus the destruction of the air balloon with archival documents, deceased American aviator, aviation historian, and noggle credits her with 12 individual two team shoot downs. I'm going to go with that.

Either way, still the most successful female A Spider pilot of all time. And that takes us out of one of my favorite time suck timelines, ever. Good job, soldier. You made it back. Barely. The Night Witches. Hot damn! What amazing bad asses they were. And what a movie that really would be.

I don't watch it so many times. I actually have a little trailer, you know, I put together, of what my version of that movie might look like. Coming this summer. From Bad Magic Productions, an award-winning director, Catherine Biggler, who did not agree to helm the greatest film of 2023 under any kind of pitch-four-conducted duress despite what you may have heard. One of the greatest stories ever told, the Nazis have stormed the east and threatened to topple the Soviets, and irreversibly shift

the balance of world power through an abundance of resources. Hitler is tightening his grip on world domination. But then, three brave regiments of new super pilots show up right when the Allies need them the most. Starring Jennifer Lawrence, as Soviet ace pilot trainer and recruiter Marina Raskova, who definitely lives past the end of the movie, also Starring Timothy Shalamay as ace fighter pilot Alexei Salamata, who also definitely lives, way past the end of the movie. John Goodman stars as Joseph Stalin.

Maybe he dies. And Sophie Turner stars as Lily Litfac, the white rose of Stalin grad, in Ace Fighter pilot, who also lives and also trains in army of kind-louper-magnum centipede bugs, snake demon things, to eat off Hitler's face, and in the faces of so many other naughty boy dirt bats. There's a bunch of other ladies who bomb a lot of stuff at night. It's the mostly true story you've never heard before now. Action, romance, bugs, snake things, and a bunch of Nazis getting their faces eaten off!

It's the night witches. Did I mention how excited Catherine Below was to direct it? Opening in theaters worldwide. June 1st. Holy shit, I can't wait to see that movie. The movie sounds like it might be as good as Killer Christ. I can watch him back-to-back. Anyway, when Joseph Stalin greenlit the creation of three female aviators, regiments october of nineteen forty one he probably had no idea that they can tribute so dramatically to the war effort not a fan of that monster but i'm a fan of his uh... his decision here for so long in russian all over the world women were either thought of as uh... obviously less than or as equals to men only in theory best case in practice women were relegated when it came

to industry or the military you know to uh... acceptable things to do. Acceptable, uh, work like sewing, clerical work, uh, secretary work, anything that kept them looking and acting feminine, definitely not combat, right? They're too delicate, too emotional, too weak within the night witches and their fellow bombers and sister dog fight aces, right, prove to the world that you can be a girl and you can be fucking tough nerves of steel of motherfucking badass. You can put flowers in your hair and paint flowers on the side of your plane for the enemies

you have killed in combat, like Lily Liffek. You can embroider your uniforms and make your bunker look as homies as possible and adopt orphan children and emotionally help heal rape victims and still be a Nazi killing fucking death machine in the sky. The ability to nurture, the ability to destroy, not mutually exclusive. These brave women had to bust their asses to prove that. From interviewing with Soviet hero Marina Rascova in the fall of 1941 to show up for hours of intense training at Engels, where they only had a few months to learn.

Well people learn normally in years, the future night, which is another bomber, is in fighter pilots, we quickly learn that the life of a soldier is not an easy one. Especially for a woman soldier who has, uh, who almost no one thinks has what it takes to help, uh, win the war, like the man can. And at angles, these women would be given the worst planes Russia had to offer. They would have to get used to flying unwieldy wooden canvas, polycarpov, YouTube biplanes, designated the, the, the P.O. 2, which were not combat planes, the P.O. 2's were training aircraft equipped with bomb

racks, a light machine gun and the rear cockpit, noise and flare mufflers for stealth, also planes that on the right hand, the women proved could do a whole lot of damage. Once training was complete, it will be time to report to the place so many of them had imagined over the past months where their brothers and fathers were fighting or had already fought and died the front pilots in the 500 and 88th Regiment were tasked with night missions to bring chaos to German troops on the front lines and have it to 15 times a night. The aim was to maintain a state of chaos by flying at targets and regular intervals, interrupting

the Nazi sleep, keeping the troops on constant alert and therefore additionally stressed, the planes each with a pilot up front and navigating the back, traveled in packs to accomplish their goal. The first planes would go in his bait, but tracking German spotlights, which provided much needed illumination, these planes which rarely had ammunition to defend themselves, would release a flare to light up the intended target. The last plane would idle its engines or kill them entirely and glide in darkness to the bombing area. These women were referred to as the Natexan, Night Witches, but there would be two more

badass female regiments working to take down the German simultaneously, the 586 fighters regiment and the 587th bombers regiment. The three regiments will be home to many of the Soviet Union's heroes, pilots like Nadia Popova, Marina Chichnova, Kaccha Burunova, and Lily Litvak, the latter two perished during the course of the war. In the end, Soviet women who volunteered for military service comprised 8% of all combatants, and their performances in battle proved that gender did not account for skills. There are so many more stories we could share of Russian women not just fighting valiantly in the air, but also on the ground. Nearly 150,000 were decorated for their accomplishments and 91 of these Russian women were recipients of the highest award for valor, the hero of

the Soviet Union medal. Of the roughly 1000 who made up the all female fighter pilot regiments, more than 30 were awarded for their bravery with the hero hero of the Soviet Union medals. more than 30 were awarded for their bravery with a hero of the Soviet Union medals. At least 50 of these women were killed in action. 32 of the night witches would die and two regiments received guards' distinctions, accomplishments. That still didn't get them the full recognition they deserved from the government when their oppression become mothers and wives in the post-war years and not, you know, be present for celebrations. Still the night witches were proud of themselves and their contributions.

And now we get to thank them for taking out Nazis and looking fine as fuck while they didn't. Some of Lucifina's finest. And now let's head to today's takeaways. Number one, the night witches, the women in all three regiments we discussed today were fucking bad asses, literally teenage girls and young women in their early 20s, most of whom had taken up flying as a hobby, who decided to enlist as soldiers to fight one of the most fearsome opponents history has ever seen, the Nazi Luftwaffe.

Not only did they enlist, they fucking thrived. They killed their missions figuratively and literally they flew thousands of missions, protecting vile Russian resources and bombing behind enemy lines as well as making drops of supplies to Soviet troops. Number two, the planes many of the night which is flew were PO2's, 1920 style planes made out of canvas and wood with rudimentary instruments which they often flew in the dark. They did have some advantages though given that their speed was slower than the Germans plane's stall speeds so they can make quicker turns.

So many truly amazing stories about what those women accomplished with these old-fashioned planes. There were also many stories of exploding planes, hit by bullets and quickly engulfed in flames, pilot shot dead in their seats by bullets that ripped to the canvas. Number three, a woman's place in the military has come a long way from World War II here in the US.

World War II, so the creation of many women's units in every branch of the military. And so we rush a woman were allowed to fight as their male counterparts did. Though in both countries, this ended up being more in theory and less in practice overall. And practice women had to face skepticism and sexism. We're told to do women's work like sowing and typing and even after they'd proven their bravery, we're often still not honored as members of the armed forces, even when they gave their lives to their countries. Luckily times have changed, although I'm sure there is still sexism in the military, just like there are still bad ass ladies fighting it.

Number four, the three regiments were the brainchild of Russia's Amelia Earhart, Marina Ruskova, who flew a dairy mission in September of 1938 that made her a folk hero, aware that there were young women across the country who wanted to contribute to the war effort. She petitioned Stalin to create women's regiments and was successful. She then undertook the task of turning these civilian girls into soldiers, which she did so well, along the way she became their confidant and biggest supporter. And then Marina Roscova died on January 4, 1943 at the age of just 30, crashing while in route to the front of Stalingrad through a heavy snowstorm.

She then received the first state funeral of the war. Number five, new info. We talked about the bad assery of the Russian military during World War II today. They also of course did a lot of shady shit. Nothing night witches or other women actually but some dudes. Soviet soldiers conducted a massive number of massacres in rapes in Poland. And just like it's illegal to talk about the Tiananmen Square massacre in China today, as we learned just the other week, it is illegal to talk about these tragedies in Russia today.

Under legislation adopted in May of 2014, from who else but propaganda master Russian strong pony boy Vladimir Putin a piece of shit The legislation allows criminal charges punishable by up to five years of prison in prison As well as large fines to be brought against anyone in Russia who spreads information. This is a quote Anyone in Russia who quote spreads information on military and memorial commemorative dates related to Russia's defense That is clearly disrespectful of society Or who spreads intentionally false information about the Soviet Union's activities during World War II. But they get to decide what's true and what's false. Russian scholars who wish to investigate and write about sensitive

topics such as the collaboration of Russians with the Nazi occupiers, or the atrocities committed by Soviet troops are strongly deterred from doing so, less they be sent to prison. So fucked up. Putin. Still, you know, just really, really not a fan. Still hoping somebody fucking kills him. Many good things to admire about Russia's military, like the night which is many bad things to also point out about Russia's military.

You know, Sam goes to the US, but at least here, we can talk about it. Insisting that everything about your country is perfect, takes away from the real stories of bad asserying bravery. The people who rose above what their lesser peers did to be even more heroic. Time sucked. Top five takeaways. The epic tale of the night witches has been sucked. I hope I did it some justice.

What an incredible story. I can't wait for Katherine Bigelow to definitely direct that movie. Thank you to the Bad Magic Productions team for all the help of Making Time Suck Again this week. Big thanks to my partner in crime, Lindsey Cummins, my own personal Polish night witch. Thanks to the Suck Ranger Tidler C for producing. Oh, no, my God.

Sorry, left that in. The artwork was our director today. Logan Key, thank him. And Tyler helps us as needed. Thanks also to Bitelixer for upkeep on the time, suck app, the artwork lock, Logan again, for creating the merch at badmagicmerch.com, such a robust, awesome store.

And for helping run socials, along with the suck Ranger, and a team managed by social media strategist Ryan Handelman. Thanks to producer Sophie Evans again for the initial research this week. And thanks again to the all-seeing eyes moderating the cold to the curious private Facebook page, the mod squad for making sure discord keeps running smooth. And everyone over on the time sucks subreddit and bad magic subreddit.

And next week on time suck. We explore a crime that captured my imagination when I glossed over in the Leopold and Loeb, the perfect murder set. The Gardner Museum Heist. It's been wanted to do a deep dive on a proper Heist tale for a few years now. In the early morning hours of March 18, 1990, while many in the city of Boston were celebrating St. Patrick's Day, two men dressed as police officers, and are the Isabella Steward Gardner Museum stole roughly $500 million dollars with the artwork.

In just 81 minutes, the two thieves committed the biggest art theft in history. With their disguises, they tricked an unsuspecting security guard into buzzing them in, once they did a museum, they overpowered the guards. Well, you know, tricked them, tied them up, the museum's basements began stealing art from the galleries. The Garden of Museum Heist remains unsolved. The museum currently still offering, as I mentioned, a $10 million reward for info. The FBI did name those that they believe are involved in the theft, but the problem now

is almost everyone who might know something about the heist is likely dead. With the most recent suspect, Dine in 2021, the FBI was able to track the movement of the stolen art, and they believed that it never left the Northeastern United States. But with the primary suspects dead and no one willing to talk to location, exact location remains a mystery. The thief stole priceless historic works of art that were collected by the founder of the museum and the lady in 1800s, early 1900s, causing a huge loss to the museum and the community. How exactly did the heist happen? Who were the guards working that night? What happened in the aftermath of the investigation?

How has the investigation progressed in the three decades since the heist? We're going to cover all this and more. We're going to cover the timeline of the garden of the museum of heist, the investigation, how has the investigation progressed in the three decades since the heist? We're going to cover all this and more. We're going to cover the timeline of the Garden of Museum of Heist, the investigation, all the theories and ties to the Boston Mafia next week on TimeSucker. Right now, let's head on over to this week's TimeSucker updates. First up today, a shout out request that really cracked me up. Jessica Ashley does not give a shit about this podcast. But she cares very much about her husband, Brian, and he loves it.

So, uh, here we go. She writes, Hi, I'm not really sure how this works, but I thought I'd give this a try. My name is Jessica Ashley, and my husband is Brian Ashley. I don't listen to you guys at all. I like the at all, but my husband does, and he's a fan. We've been to a few dance shows, and I guess he gets mentioned on some secrets show.

Sometimes, I don't wanna say too much to embarrass him, but his birthday is February 22nd, and I was wondering if you could give him some sort of birthday shout out from me slash you I'm not really sure what you guys are all about And looking to this website has me a little bit more has me a little bit more confused But you all make him happy and laugh and feel like a part of something and that's all I want for him So thank you Jessica

Well, Jessica How about you go fuck yourself? No, JK, I love this, I love it. Brian, you've got a good one. No bullshit with Jess. She's a straight shooter. I like it, hard to find those. Tell Jess her message was received since she will obviously never hear this herself.

And happy birthday, brother, and hail them, right? God, it cracked me up. Now let's hear from a sweet dick love and sack, Adam Hill who writes, dear master sucker and the rest of the bad magic crew or rater of the objectionable. Thank you for all that you do to make my male route seem that much easier. If you happen to have an episode without a dick in it, feel free to shout out the wonderful meat sack that adopted me and most definitely save me from much abuse neglect. Dick Hill.

If it wasn't for that wonderful father, daddy, I most likely wouldn't be around. Hope this saves the streak of time. So it's Dix sincerely at him. Well, thank you, Adam. Well, I did make some dick references in this episode. There were no Richards unless one of the crazy names at a hard time pronouncing was Russian for Richard. I don't think so.

So he did save the day, Hale Dick Hill. Your name inspires quite the visual, a hill of dicks. I, for whatever reason, picture myself as a little kid trying to ride a bike up that hill and then get stuck and I start to sink in the hill of dicks. And then I just, I'm sinking further and further just hoping that's not how I suffocate and die. You're welcome, everybody else for that scene. I think you're being a solid father, daddy, dick hill. And now for a much heavier message, no easy way to segue into it. So here we go. Good morning, suck family, space, let's our Troy from Massachusetts, chiming in.

I want to say thank you for the hours and hours of content and joy. You've all provided to me and thousands of other suckers for the past number of years. Now onto the meat of my message. Pete Reed is the brother of a good friend of mine and my wife. He is a former marine with tours in Afghanistan where he found his calling and passion after leaving the military. He spent time in Iraq near Mazul providing frontline first aid and critical care for fighters and civilians alike. He started his own NGO, Global Response Medicine, and through them, he was able to provide critical help to people in need and areas with the government system to provide that aid is non-existent. In January of this year, 2023, Pete went to Ukraine with Global Outreach Doctors,

another NGO. He was in a buckmoot, in the area of buckmoot evacuated civilians before the advance of the fucking Russians. On Thursday, February 2, the ambulance Pete was in Buckmoot in the area of Buckmoot evacuated civilians before the advance of the fucking Russians. On Thursday, February 2, the ambulance Pete was in was hit by Russian artillery and Pete lost his life. He was recently married and his wife Alex has gone to Ukraine to retrieve his remains and bring them home. My God. I did not know Peter very well having only met him a handful of times, but in those times and talking to him I found a man who knew his life had more to offer and he was selfless. He freely gave his life in order to help people who were in grave danger. Peter is left behind his brother Chandler, wife Alex, two nephews in a niece, and his mother

Candy, as well as innumerable friends and people whose lives he has touched. I want to say fuck you to the pony bitch boy Putin and thank you to Pete Reed and all the other selfless veterans and volunteers out there. Thanks for reading my message. Three out of five stars. I wouldn't change a thing. Much love to all the bad magic crew and may Vlad Putin suffer from general warrants and a fragile butthole for all eternity because fuck that guy. Keep on sucking. Troy Lindsey. Oh man. Damn Troy. Yes. Agreed on the Putin hate. And thank you for sharing the powerful story of another hero. How fitting for today's episode. So rest in peace, Pete Reed, what an incredible meat sack. He clearly was. You know, an inspiring, selfless man condolences to his family. Thank you

to all the brave military meat sacks, all the veterans who listened to this show. I truly mean it when I say, you know, thank you for your service and your sacrifice. I just tell these stories. You live them and that is so much more meaningful and powerful. And then one more, another Tiananmen update from somebody who has been over in China. And I'm scrolling down now because I apologize when I added this last message. And of course it's Pat.

So we got a kick ass sack Pat sent us a message from across the sea and Pat writes, Hey, master sucker and the rest of times I crew I wrote in previously on the miles of dong episode and talked a lot about Taiwan and the many positives of the beautiful island. Well, like many American companies, I sold my soul and moved to China for work at another international school. One of the first things we were told in our new teacher week was to make sure not to talk about the three T's in our classroom. Taiwan, Tibet, and Tiananmen. Holy shit. Having lived in Taiwan for six years, it was really difficult to not talk about it. So I did it anyway when I introduced myself to my students. One of the first questions I was asked was, is Taiwan an independent country? I ignored it and just moved on because students have

been known to complain to their parents and police have come to classrooms before to talk with was, is Taiwan an independent country? I ignored it and just moved on because students have been known to complain to their parents and police have come to classrooms before to talk with teachers. And happened to a friend of mine at another school after speaking negatively about the government's handling of pollution in a science class. The idea of censorship in China is incredibly strong and the surveillance state is very, very real. There are cameras and police literally everywhere. Talking with Chinese friends, they are to, they are to the point where they pretty much self-center a lot of the things they say because they don't want their voice to have a negative impact on their families.

The CCP has been so effective in this and it doesn't look like it will stop anytime soon because they love control. They control all news media, social media, and even people's wallets because all forms of transactions now are pretty much exclusively through apps. So if you piss off the government, they can just block you from most of the banking and transaction apps. People will literally look at you and discuss if you try to pay in cash. It is wild.

All social media is monitored and on days like June 4th, the internet and most social media grinds to a halt as the sensors work overtime to block and delete anything that goes against the party line. Recently, the white paper movement in China was something that stood up against this control, and it mostly had to do with standing up against COVID restrictions after a number of people died in an apartment fire because they had been barricaded inside after one person tested positive in the building. In many universities across the country, people protested by holding up a blank sheet of paper to show how their voices have been hidden away by the government. These protests also spoke against one party rule, and it looked to be gaining some steam

until the CCP basically ended all of the COVID restrictions. Call them on a lot of the protests, and also arresting a ton of people. Yeah, I'm sure they got fucking reeducated. The CCP has so much control in China that it is very difficult to see them given up any of his control and censorship any time soon, with Winnie the Pooh still in charge. I think it's important to remember too that a lot of people in China have a really big problem with their government. They hate a lot of the things that are going on and how much the CCP controls everything.

However that fear of something happening to their families is too strong for them to start standing up and fighting back against the control. I think it will take something pretty massive for them to stand up like they did in Tiananmen in 1989, but I did see glimpses of it back in November of 2022 with the white paper movement. Lastly, Dan, I hear you when you say Taiwan will probably be taken over eventually by China sometime in the future as it becomes more and more powerful. However, in order to do this effectively, China would have to create an invasion

force larger than what we did on D-Day to actually have enough troops to potentially be able to take control of the island. Logistics and amphibious capabilities are so massive that to me, it doesn't seem likely anytime soon. And if anything goes wrong with this invasion, it could mean that CCP losing their power on the mainland. China has a lot of economic and demographic problems right now that an invasion just doesn't make sense other than pride and bringing back and bringing China back together.

They want Taiwan's economy, specifically the semiconductor industry, which Taiwan vowed to destroy if China ever invaded. So I went to Long email, but I wanted to share some thoughts from someone currently living in China and yes, I used a VPN to get this message out. Otherwise, the time stock website is not available on the Chinese internet. Jesus, PS would love an episode on Chiang Kai Shek or his son, Chiang Qing Quo. They both did some heinous things to maintain KMT power in Taiwan against the Taiwanese people who protested against a lot of the Chinese and KMT coming over to Taiwan after World War II. Taiwan still number one, Pat. Wow, Pat. Yeah, thank you for masking your IP address

to be able to send that message and be able to listen to the show. Man, so scary, this surveillance state. What a, what a just dismal terrifying way to live. Good to hear about Taiwan's defensive capabilities and strategy though. That gives me hope, they can remain free. Hope that somehow, despite how impossible it looks right now, the CCP will crumble and fall. I mean,

eventually they will. All empires, all regimes do eventually. Hopefully they fall before our hours does. Thanks for the messages, everybody. Love when you send them into the old jangles at time suck podcast.com. Let's get out of these. Thanks time suckers. I need a net. We all did. Thanks for listening to another Bad Magic Productions podcast. When you're outside this week, keep an eye out for nests of chylopita magdom centipede bugs, Nick thinks. I'd hate to hear that you had your face eaten up. I mean, I think I made those creatures up, but I'm also tired and really hungry right now. Man, I don't have a perfect memory. So maybe they're real.

Did you probably just stay inside? We're safe. And where you can keep on sucking. And now let's jam! I've decided that I'm also going to score the movie that I'm going to be doing with Katherine Bigelow. Come to what a for the demon piece And to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to think to I'm not sure how much time they put into preparing these songs.