nightrider_saulat
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well what else one can say these chicks are really hot......
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well what else one can say these chicks are really hot......
I think its a fancy publicity parade. Women are not capable of flying fighter jets in war time. Besides its a highly expensive and sophisticated millitary hardware to be given to girls. I remember a documentary on Nat Geo about US AF. "Being one of the best, is just not enough. You need to be the best to fly that expensive machine which is more than the GDP of a small country", it said.
I think its a fancy publicity parade. Women are not capable of flying fighter jets in war time. Besides its a highly expensive and sophisticated millitary hardware to be given to girls. I remember a documentary on Nat Geo about US AF. "Being one of the best, is just not enough. You need to be the best to fly that expensive machine which is more than the GDP of a small country", it said.
Night Witches
One cold spring day in 1943, two junior lieutenants, Tamara Pamyatnykh and Raisa Surnachevskaya, were on a routine patrol over a Soviet railway junction. Suddenly they were confronted by an armada of 42 German bombers - they reacted immediately.
Diving with the sun behind them, the women opened fire on the centre of the Junkers formation. Each pilot shot down two enemy planes. Tamara ran out of ammunition and was going to ram another bomber with her airplane, when her wing was shot off. She bailed out and landed in a field.
Men and women civilians rushed over to help. "They undid the parachute straps and offered me a glass of vodka, which I refused", she recalls. "Nobody couldn't understand why the brave lad who had taken on a Nazi squadron wouldn't drink vodka!"
Then Tamara took off her helmet and the astonished crowd saw the dashing young aviator was a woman.
Tamara is among the surviving veterans Lucy Ash has tracked down in Moscow and southern Russia. The Soviet Union was the first nation to allow women to fly combat missions. Women pilots in other countries flew military aircraft in support roles and some were fired on by enemies. But only Soviet women pilots could fire back; only Soviet women dropped bombs and fought in air battles.
Celebrity influence
Why? Partly because a young woman called Marina Raskova had the ear of Joseph Stalin. Raskova was a national celebrity, a Soviet Amelia Earhart. Before the war, she and two women co–pilots made a record breaking, non stop flight from Moscow to the Russian Far East. Just days after the Germans attacked the USSR in 1941, Raskova persuaded Stalin to establish three female units grouped into separate fighter, dive bomber and night bomber regiments. She trained her personnel as pilots, navigators, maintenance and ground crews, and deployed them to devastating effect.
Nadezhda Popova, now a great grandmother, was a pilot in the 46th Night Bombers Guards Regiment. "The Germans called us Night Witches because we never let them get any sleep", she says. "They spread a rumour that we had been injected with some unknown chemicals that enabled us to see so clearly in the pitch black.!"
Every May 2nd she joins the surviving members of her regiment oputside the Bolshoi theatre in Moscow to reminisce about their daring raids in flimsy bi-planes without radios or even any parachutes.
Initially, at least, the women struggled to gain the respect of their male comrades. One general at the front complained bitterly about being sent a "a bunch of girlies" with such high pitched voices, that he felt he was in a kindergarten. But the women soon proved him wrong and showed their valour even if they did like to decorate their planes with flowers and use their navigation pencils to colour their lips and eyebrows.
On a more sombre note, the number one fear expressed by nearly all female aircrew was what might occur if they were ever captured alive by the Germans. Galina Beltsova, a navigator with the Dive Bombers regiment says: "All of us were provided with one extra bullet and if I could see I was being circled by the enemy of course I could take out my pistol and shoot myself – as a last resort."
Lucy talks to these formidable women veterans who played such a crucial role in the skies over Stalingrad and elsewhere on the Eastern Front. She discovers that they have not only motivated a new generation of female pilots but that their bravery has also inspired tributes from American airwomen, comic book artists and even a Dutch heavy metal band.
Full documentary is here : BBC World Service - Documentaries - Night Witches
Fighter aces Lilya Litvyak, 12 German kills (left) and Katya Budanova, 11 German kills (center). They both died in combat. On the right is fellow pilot Mariya Kuznetsova.
Thousands of Russian women and girls courageously fought for their Rodina (Motherland), serving with the Voyenno-Vozdushniye Sily (Air Forces, in Russian). In 1942, three air regiments were formed from female volunteers:
The 586th Women's Fighter Regiment (initially equipped with Yakovlyev YaK-1s and later YaK-7Bs)
The 587th Women's Day Bomber Regiment (flying Petlyakov Pe-2 2-engined bombers)
The 588th Women's Night Bomber Regiment, the famous "Night Witches" (flying Polikarpov Po-2 biplanes)
Many other women also served integrated with men with other aviation units. For example, in 1944, 1,749 girls served with Zabaikalsky Front, 3,000 women and girls served with the Far East 10th Air Army, 437 women served with the 4th Air Army of the Second Belorussian Front that comprised the crack 46th Guards Women Air Regiment that comprised 237 women-officers, 862 sergeants, 1,125 enlisted women and 2,117 auxiliaries. They also served flying and as gunners in the famous Il-2 and Il-2M3 Shturmovik tank busters, the "Flying Bathtub".
Women-pilots of female air regiments engaged in dogfights, cleared the way for the advancing infantry and supported them in ground support missions. The fighter pilots of the all-women 586th IAP (Russian abbreviation for Fighter Aviation Regiment, same as Fighter Air Regiment) flew a total of 4,419 sorties (per pilot) and participated in more than 125 separate air battles, in which they massed a total of 38 confirmed kills. That is, the sorties when the enemy was actually encountered.
Sexism in the V-VS was high initially, male pilots refusing to fly with women as "wingmen", or fly airplanes that had been repaired or serviced by women mechanics and ground crew. But the demonstrated, and often superior, courage and great skill of these female soldiers proved their better than average competence to fullfil their duty. The USSR highly praised the combat deeds of female pilots: thousands won orders and medals. 29 won titles of Hero of the Soviet Union. 23 of these went to the Night Witches.
Sabiha Gökçen
Sabiha Gökçen is the world's first female fighter pilot. Born in Bursa, Turkey in 1913, she was orphaned early in life. Fortune began to smile on her in 1925, when the founder and President of the new Republic of Turkey, Kemal Atatürk, took her under his wing. He gave her the name Gökçen ("related to the sky") and brought her to Ankara for more education. She completed her education at Üsküdar Girls College in Istanbul. In 1935, with war clouds over the horizon in Europe, the Turkish Aeronautical Association opened the country's first civil aviation school. Atatürk participated in the opening ceremony and named the school Türkkusu (Turkish Bird).
He enrolled Gökçen as the first female student. It was a revolutionary move in an Islamic country. Following initial glider training, she attended advanced training in the USSR with seven male Turkish students. All hoped to teach flying. Gökçen was an apt pilot and within a year returned to Turkey bearing her glider instructor's diploma. In 1936, she went on to military flight school in Eskisehir. Gökçen endured more than a year of rigorous basic and advanced training. Successful again, she earned her pilot wings in 1937. Flying extensively in French-built Breguet XIX and American-built Curtiss Hawk biplanes, Gökçen earned a place in history as the world's first combat-ready female pilot.
In 1937, she took part in maneuvers in Turkish Thrace and on the country's Aegean coast, and in combat operations in Eastern Anatolia. In the Dersim Operation, the First Air Regiment moved to Elazig to provide close air support for Turkish ground forces combating a foreign-provoked rebellion. Gökçen and other male pilots flew daily shifts. Her performance was superior, both as a pilot and observer. For this she was awarded the Turkish Aeronautical Association's first "Jeweled Medal." In 1938, she was invited to tour several nations of southeastern Europe. On 16 June, she began a 5-day tour flying a Vultee-V bomber. From Istanbul, she flew to Athens and Thessalonika in Greece, and then to Sofia, Bulgaria.
At her next stop, in Belgrade, the Chief of Yugoslavia's General Staff awarded her the "White Eagle," the country's highest military decoration. Her last stop was Bucharest, Romania. On this tour, she had flown nearly 2000 miles over the rugged mountains of the Balkans. Next, Gökçen was named Chief Instructor at the Türkkusu Flight School, where 3 years before she had earned her glider wings. In the 1950's, Gökçen made two trips to the United States, and in 1990 she was invited to India. She retired from active flying in 1964, having flown a long list of aircraft from France, Great Britain, Germany, the United States, and Turkey. The Fédéderation Aéronautique Internationale awarded Gökçen its Gold Medal in 1991 for outstanding achievements in aviation.
She is a member of many international associations, including the Ninety-Nines, the premier organization of American female aviators since 1925. There are statues of her at Türkkusu and at Headquarters, Turkish Air Force. The Turkish Aeronautical Association published her book, My Life Following in Atatürk's Footsteps, on the 100th anniversary of Atatürk's birth.
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