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"Tonight We Fly!" The Soviet Night Witches of WWII
The Soviet Night Witches were the most extraordinary and historically significant female fighting forces during WWII. These young women became the first in the world to fly combat missions, the first "stealth Bombers" in the truest sense of the term, and some of the most feared pilots during the war. They relentlessly bombed and harassed German strongholds in the dark of night. The Germans despised them, placed bounties on them and called them Nachtexen, Night Witches. They were the most highly decorated regiment in the Soviet Air Force. AND, there was no witchcraft involved!
- GenresHistory
256 pages, Paperback
Published February 9, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
December 13, 2019
I am always hesitant to levy much criticism against a published book, for criticizing another's work is far easier than is researching the facts, assembling the notes and creating the words that hold our attention as readers. On the other hand, considering that we readers have paid good money to procure a book and, more importantly, have sacrificed hours of our finite lifespans to reading that book, should we not rightly expect something at least striving for perfection? Should we not expect writing that is not only factually accurate but that is also interesting to read, challenging to our intellects, and professionally proofread and edited? Considered in that light, perhaps we should not be hesitant to criticize publications that fall dismally short of these criteria.
The topic of ”Tonight We Fly!” The Soviet Night Witches of WWII is surely worthy of literary treatment. As the author notes (more than once), it is a topic that is not at all well known to American readers, and I, for one, am pleased that I now know, at least superficially, about some of the female pilots, navigators, and ground crew who actively helped to defeat the German invaders of the USSR during World War II. The chapter entitled “Meet the Night Witches,” which consists of brief biographies of several female military aviators, is particularly readable and quite enjoyable.
Since I readily concede that the topic is a valid one and that portions of ”Tonight We Fly!” are readable and enjoyable, why then have I rated the book with so few “quality stars”? First, I must ask whether the book adds anything at all to information readily available elsewhere. The bibliography lists several other books dealing with female Soviet aviators during World War II, several of which even include the phrase “night witch” in their titles. Beyond this, the most numerous bibliographic references are to various websites, and the book contains a statement that the photographs in it are all in the public domain. The bibliography has left me with the impression that ”Tonight We Fly!” contains no original information but is a compilation of facts and photos that are already readily available in printed or digital form. In that regard, I am forced to ask whether this book has any reason at all to exist.
More problematic is that atrocious writing continually distracts from the topic. The first jarring error comes early, specifically on page VI of the introduction, where the name of the principal subject, the night witches themselves (Nachthexen in German) is misspelled! Upon encountering this, I hoped that it was a rare typographical error overlooked by an otherwise competent proofreader. Alas, that was not to be the case. This example was followed again and again throughout the entire book by a succession of punctuation errors such as frequent comma splices, syntactical oddities usually created by omission of necessary auxiliary verbs, conflation of colons with semicolons, and a truly impressive array of unintentional malapropisms. Let us not even mention that the distinction between a hyphen and a dash is consistently ignored.
The author repeatedly confuses the words lie and lay, to and too, ordnance and ordinance, lightning and lightening, et cetera. The prize for the most hilarious malapropism, however, is reserved for winch versus wench, for we are told that a manned German observation balloon is tethered to the ground by a “wench.” That must have been one lusty Fräulein who was able to hold and even haul down a large observation balloon all by herself! I would not have wanted to meet that Amazon on the field of battle! Not as amusing, perhaps, but certainly as wondrous, one of the biographies in the chapter “Meet the Night Witches” describes a crash landing and the pilot's “lifeless body”; however, a few sentences later, we are told that partisans removed the pilot, who subsequently lived a very decent life following the war—quite a feat for someone totally deprived of life in the crash.
As I neared the conclusion of the book, I prayed that the array of grammatical, syntactical and morphological errors was near its end, but then I was confronted by factual disparities. Page 202 informs us that the Germans surrendered, effectively ending the war, on 8 May 1945, only to be followed by page 216 which boldly states that the surrender came on 2 May. Perhaps the six intervening days vanished into a wormhole?
In brief, then, I found the topic of great interest and am pleased to have learned something of the Soviet Nachthexen, the biographies of some being of particular interest. The telling of this history, however, is couched in sophomoric language rife with grammatical, orthographical, and morphological errors which distract the reader from the significant history being recounted. Hopefully, some of the books on the night witches that appear in the bibliography tell the story in a more acceptable version of the English language.
[Please note that this review is of the paperback edition copyrighted in 2017 but with no printing date and no publisher identification of any sort. The ISBN of this edition is 9781543036671. It is possible that other editions may not contain the multitudinous errors that distract from the quality of this one.]
The topic of ”Tonight We Fly!” The Soviet Night Witches of WWII is surely worthy of literary treatment. As the author notes (more than once), it is a topic that is not at all well known to American readers, and I, for one, am pleased that I now know, at least superficially, about some of the female pilots, navigators, and ground crew who actively helped to defeat the German invaders of the USSR during World War II. The chapter entitled “Meet the Night Witches,” which consists of brief biographies of several female military aviators, is particularly readable and quite enjoyable.
Since I readily concede that the topic is a valid one and that portions of ”Tonight We Fly!” are readable and enjoyable, why then have I rated the book with so few “quality stars”? First, I must ask whether the book adds anything at all to information readily available elsewhere. The bibliography lists several other books dealing with female Soviet aviators during World War II, several of which even include the phrase “night witch” in their titles. Beyond this, the most numerous bibliographic references are to various websites, and the book contains a statement that the photographs in it are all in the public domain. The bibliography has left me with the impression that ”Tonight We Fly!” contains no original information but is a compilation of facts and photos that are already readily available in printed or digital form. In that regard, I am forced to ask whether this book has any reason at all to exist.
More problematic is that atrocious writing continually distracts from the topic. The first jarring error comes early, specifically on page VI of the introduction, where the name of the principal subject, the night witches themselves (Nachthexen in German) is misspelled! Upon encountering this, I hoped that it was a rare typographical error overlooked by an otherwise competent proofreader. Alas, that was not to be the case. This example was followed again and again throughout the entire book by a succession of punctuation errors such as frequent comma splices, syntactical oddities usually created by omission of necessary auxiliary verbs, conflation of colons with semicolons, and a truly impressive array of unintentional malapropisms. Let us not even mention that the distinction between a hyphen and a dash is consistently ignored.
The author repeatedly confuses the words lie and lay, to and too, ordnance and ordinance, lightning and lightening, et cetera. The prize for the most hilarious malapropism, however, is reserved for winch versus wench, for we are told that a manned German observation balloon is tethered to the ground by a “wench.” That must have been one lusty Fräulein who was able to hold and even haul down a large observation balloon all by herself! I would not have wanted to meet that Amazon on the field of battle! Not as amusing, perhaps, but certainly as wondrous, one of the biographies in the chapter “Meet the Night Witches” describes a crash landing and the pilot's “lifeless body”; however, a few sentences later, we are told that partisans removed the pilot, who subsequently lived a very decent life following the war—quite a feat for someone totally deprived of life in the crash.
As I neared the conclusion of the book, I prayed that the array of grammatical, syntactical and morphological errors was near its end, but then I was confronted by factual disparities. Page 202 informs us that the Germans surrendered, effectively ending the war, on 8 May 1945, only to be followed by page 216 which boldly states that the surrender came on 2 May. Perhaps the six intervening days vanished into a wormhole?
In brief, then, I found the topic of great interest and am pleased to have learned something of the Soviet Nachthexen, the biographies of some being of particular interest. The telling of this history, however, is couched in sophomoric language rife with grammatical, orthographical, and morphological errors which distract the reader from the significant history being recounted. Hopefully, some of the books on the night witches that appear in the bibliography tell the story in a more acceptable version of the English language.
[Please note that this review is of the paperback edition copyrighted in 2017 but with no printing date and no publisher identification of any sort. The ISBN of this edition is 9781543036671. It is possible that other editions may not contain the multitudinous errors that distract from the quality of this one.]
August 17, 2019
Wow! I had no idea there were women fighter pilots in WWII. The encounters the women flew were astounding. To think these women outflew the men and set records on flights and hits. They were so brave and willing to go above and beyond to defend the motherland.
May 30, 2025
I wish the Soviet Night Witches were included in the curriculum when I was learning about WWII. These inspirational stories of the first female bomber and fighter pilots need to be told and this book does them justice. Claudia Hagen does a wonderful job telling the Night Witches stories and honoring them by sharing their lives with world. The way the writer seamlessly writes about the war politics and interweaves the personal stories, kept constantly interested.
August 25, 2019
As quite a girly girl, I'm not often attracted to war stories. However, I am drawn to books that portray very strong, resourceful, brave, and intelligent women, especially when written by female authors. This excellent book introduces an exceptionally interesting group of Soviet women pilots, navigators, aircrew, and ground support personnel that successfully fought for their country during World War II. During that conflict, the USSR was on the side of the Allies. These women were truly outstanding and they excelled against all odds! The experiences related in this book often brought laughter as well as many tears. Thanks so very much to the author, Claudia Hagen, for writing about this somewhat unknown aspect of aviation and military history:)
December 26, 2023
After checking on wikipedia i changed the amount of bombs dropped by the 488th Regiment to pounds instead of tons.
The best section of the book was near the end when telling of the individual exploits of the women pilots. Such as Alexandrona Timofeyeva-Yegorova' getting blown out of the sky, losing consciousness, hurdling to earthwood but not waking in time to activate her parachute, smacking into the ground, breaking most of her bones, includig her skull. Due to so much body damage she was unable to reach her pistol to kill herself (as required if ending up in enemy territory). In any case her pistol was taken away from her during her capture by the Germans. When librerated months later she went from being a war hero to a traitor for not having killed herself.
Vat might explain the disappearance of another ace pilot, Lidia Litviak, who crashed in enemy territory not to be seen until fifty years later in Switzerland.
These stories might have been interspersed (alternated) with the chapters leading up to their individual stories. The chapter on the memorial flight, including American Airwomen sixty years later would have better as a Postscript rather than as the fieth chapter.
There were three alll women Soviet flying regiments, that included pilots, navigators, mechanics and other ground crew. They flew around 800 missions each! Compare that to 25-50 for American and British crews. Sometimes they flew dozens of missions a night. They were closer to the enemy lines than Britain was to mainland Europe. One regiment, the 588th, dropped nearly one million pounds of bombs on German encampments. Compare that to nearly two million tons dropped by all the Allies.
They flew in wood and fabric bi-planes at low levels, that escaped radar, with four bombs strapped underwings, at night. When the bombs wouldn't release the navigator/bombadieur would walk out onto to one of the wings to loosen the bombs bl hand. They didn't have instrumentation for night flying, and not even moonlight to guide them, but they reached their targets and flew back.
Amazing feats are featured with only postage stamp size photos to accompany the narrative.
:
The best section of the book was near the end when telling of the individual exploits of the women pilots. Such as Alexandrona Timofeyeva-Yegorova' getting blown out of the sky, losing consciousness, hurdling to earthwood but not waking in time to activate her parachute, smacking into the ground, breaking most of her bones, includig her skull. Due to so much body damage she was unable to reach her pistol to kill herself (as required if ending up in enemy territory). In any case her pistol was taken away from her during her capture by the Germans. When librerated months later she went from being a war hero to a traitor for not having killed herself.
Vat might explain the disappearance of another ace pilot, Lidia Litviak, who crashed in enemy territory not to be seen until fifty years later in Switzerland.
These stories might have been interspersed (alternated) with the chapters leading up to their individual stories. The chapter on the memorial flight, including American Airwomen sixty years later would have better as a Postscript rather than as the fieth chapter.
There were three alll women Soviet flying regiments, that included pilots, navigators, mechanics and other ground crew. They flew around 800 missions each! Compare that to 25-50 for American and British crews. Sometimes they flew dozens of missions a night. They were closer to the enemy lines than Britain was to mainland Europe. One regiment, the 588th, dropped nearly one million pounds of bombs on German encampments. Compare that to nearly two million tons dropped by all the Allies.
They flew in wood and fabric bi-planes at low levels, that escaped radar, with four bombs strapped underwings, at night. When the bombs wouldn't release the navigator/bombadieur would walk out onto to one of the wings to loosen the bombs bl hand. They didn't have instrumentation for night flying, and not even moonlight to guide them, but they reached their targets and flew back.
Amazing feats are featured with only postage stamp size photos to accompany the narrative.
:
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 1, 2018
Love that this history is being told but the book was very slow. It didn't keep my attention at all.
December 20, 2019
This is an interesting and under reported facet of World War II. The brave Soviet woman who flew against the Nazi assault.
February 6, 2022
A Novel Bunch book club pick.
True story about the Soviet women flyers.
True story about the Soviet women flyers.
August 19, 2022
As a history teacher, I loved reading the stories of these amazing women!
April 7, 2023
Great book! Lots of research done and very interesting history!!!
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews