Women-only combat regiment formed at the instigation of
Marina Raskova and led by Major
Yevdokia Bershanskaya. From June 1942, the 588th Night Bomber Regiment was within the
4th Air Army. In February 1943 the regiment was honored with a reorganization into the 46th Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment and in October 1943 it became the 46th Taman Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment.
The regiment flew
harassment bombing and
precision bombing missions from 1942 to the end of the war. At its largest size, it had 40 two-person crews. It flew over 23,000 sorties and is said to have dropped 3,000 tons of bombs. It was the most highly-decorated unit in the Soviet Air Force, each pilot having flown over 1,000 missions by the end of the war and twenty-three having been awarded the
Hero of the Soviet Union title. Thirty-one of its members died in combat.
The regiment flew in wood and canvas
Polikarpov Po-2 biplanes, a 1928 design intended for use as training aircraft and for crop-dusting. The planes could carry only two bombs at a time, so multiple missions in a night were necessary. Although the aircraft were obsolete and slow, the pilots made daring use of their exceptional maneuverability; they had the advantage of having a maximum speed that was lower than the stall speed of both the
Messerschmitt Bf 109 and the
Focke-Wulf Fw 190, as a result, the German pilots found them very difficult to shoot down. A stealth technique of the night bombers was to idle the engine near the target and glide to the bomb release point, with only wind noise to reveal their location.
Commanders
- Yevdokiya Bershanskaya - Regimental Commander
- Yevgeniya Zhigulenko, Hero of the Soviet Union- Flight Commander
- Tat'yana Makarova, Hero of the Soviet Union- Flight Commander
- Nina Ul'yanenko, Hero of the Soviet Union, Flight Navigator
Notable members