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Re: Does anyone know of any information relating to the soviet female bomber pilots that served during WWII? They're best known as the Night Witches.
This sounds interesting? Do you have pictures of the unit and planes? Were any shot down and survived as POW's during WW2?
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Re: Does anyone know of any information relating to the soviet female bomber pilots that served during WWII? They're best known as the Night Witches.
1 person found this helpfulYeah they flew the Po-2, which was used before the war as a training aircraft, meaning it was a basic paper-and stick death trap. The Flying Heritage Museum in WA has a replica of their plane in their collections. A google search of "night witches" pulls up the most popular pictures of the unit. They were hard to shoot down, which is why the Germans called them the Night Witches, so to my knowledge there were no POW's in the 46th. Anna Timofeeva-Egorova a female pilot serving in a male unit (805th Attack Aviation Regiment) was a POW , and she published a book on her war experience entitled Red Sky, Black Death: A Soviet Woman Pilot's Memoir of the Eastern Front.
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Re: Does anyone know of any information relating to the soviet female bomber pilots that served during WWII? They're best known as the Night Witches.
Rebecca Collier
Sep 20, 2017 10:11 AM
3 people found this helpfulDear Yasmine Vaughan,
Thank you for contacting the History Hub.
We have checked with several members of the Textual Reference Staff at the National Archives in College Park, MD and they are not aware of any records during WWII but there may be something in the intelligence records, especially after the war. The staff will be pleased to make the finding aids to these records available to you or your representative in the Textual Research Room at the National Archives in College Park, MD. The Textual Reference Archives II Branch (RDT2) is located at 8601 Adelphi Road, College Park, MD, near the University of Maryland--College Park campus.
--Textual Research Room (Room 2000) hours are 8:45 a.m. to 5:45 p.m. Monday through Friday, except legal holidays. --Our consultation room hours are 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, except legal holidays. No appointment is necessary.
--Records are retrieved Monday through Friday for use in the Textual Research Room at 10:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m., 1:00 p.m., 2:00 p.m., and 3:00 p.m. We do not pull in advance.
--Prior to your visit, please consult our web site at http://www.archives.gov/dc-metro/college-park/, http://www.archives.gov/dc-metro/self-service-copying.html, and http://www.archives.gov/research/start/getting-started.pdf.
We hope that this information is helpful.
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Re: Does anyone know of any information relating to the soviet female bomber pilots that served during WWII? They're best known as the Night Witches.
Awesome! I see on the archives website that I don't need to make an appointment, but that it is a good idea to go ahead and contact NARA if I plan to visit so I can make my experience more fruitful. How do I send that email?
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Re: Does anyone know of any information relating to the soviet female bomber pilots that served during WWII? They're best known as the Night Witches.
Rebecca Collier
Sep 21, 2017 8:10 AM
3 people found this helpfulDear Ms. Vaughan,
Please contact them via email at archives2reference@nara.gov. Let them know when you plan to come to the National Archives In College Park.
Also, you might want to contact the Air Force Historical Research Agency, 600 Chennault Circle, Building 1405, Maxwell Air Force Base, AL 36112-6424. They have WWII-era Army Air Force records that NARA does not have. Please call (334) 953-2395 or write to that office to see if they have information about the "Night Witches". The web site is http://www.afhra.af.mil/.
Best of luck with your continuing research.
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