WWII Colorized Photos (32 pics)

#10 are the famous Night Witches (Nachthexen), members of the 588th Night Bomber Regiment who decorated their planes with flowers ... and dropped 23,000 tons of bombs.
Even though they were experienced pilots, most were discouraged from joining the Soviet air force. And when they persisted were stuck with Polikarpov Po2's (shown behind them) planes that were—per their plywood-and-canvas construction—generally reserved for training and crop-dusting.
They ranged in age from 17-26 and were given the name by the Germans they terrified with their tactic of idling their engines and gliding in on their targets in near silence and making a 'whoosh' sound as they passed.
Those noises reminded the Germans, apparently, of the sound of a witch's broomstick. So the Nazis began calling the female fighter pilots Nachthexen: "night witches." They were loathed. And they were feared. Any German pilot who downed a "witch" was automatically awarded an Iron Cross.
Their missions were dangerous and unpleasant. Each night, in general, 40 planes—each crewed by a pilot and a navigator—would fly eight or more more missions. Nadezhda Popova, a commander, once flew 18 in a single night. (The multiple nightly sorties were necessary because the modified crop-dusters were capable of carrying only two bombs at a time.