Daughters of the Night Sky

As the ground crews readied our aircraft, the pilots and their navigators from the 588th Regiment looked on. The bulk of the equipment we would need at the front, along with our support crews, had been sent forward on trucks and Jeeps the Americans had donated by the shipload. There was nothing left to take with us but the twenty-five aircraft and their crews. We would be in Morozovskaya the following morning, where we would join our brothers in arms and enter combat.

This was what we had trained endless hours every day for.

This was what we had studied endlessly for the past four years for.

This was what Sofia had envisioned when she petitioned to establish our division.

The energy in the hangar was electric. Though we stood at attention, we struggled to remain perfectly still. I felt the tingle of anticipation in my calves, and longed to dash to my airplane rather than wait dutifully for instruction.

We would now have the chance to prove to Stalin, Mother Russia, and the world that we were capable in the cockpit and deserving of the country’s resources.

Sofia paced as she addressed our assembly for the last time before accepting active duty. “Ladies, remember to keep your eyes open. You will be flying very near active combat when we arrive at the front, and there is no way for us to know how far the enemy has advanced. You are not equipped with weapons, so you’ll be flying low, light, and as fast as the aircraft can go.” Sofia’s last words were met with a few derisive titters. We joked daily that the planes were about as aerodynamic as our grandfathers’ rusty old tractors and just as swift. “Since you’re flying unarmed, you’ll have to do your best to evade enemy aircraft, if you encounter any. I know you can.”

As we walked to our aircraft, I offered Sofia a salute. She returned hers with her usual crisp efficiency. She paired it with a covert wink. I’m counting on you.

When given the order, Taisiya brought our plane into formation, and we soared off with the other aircraft to the southwest. Our destination was only six hundred kilometers off, but as that would test the range of our planes, the officers had decided to break the journey into two parts—a decision we welcomed, after four hours subjected to the pervasive hum and drone of the planes’ small engines.

We stopped overnight at an intermediary air base between Engels and the front to refuel and to sleep. A base filled with men was a foreign sight after months training in our almost exclusively female division. From the looks we got—ranging from sidelong glances to contemptuous glares—they weren’t any better used to the sight of a woman in uniform.

At once I was taken back to my early days at the academy. In my head every male cadet had looked at me to size me up. Can she fly a plane? Isn’t she too pretty to be a pilot? Does she think she’s too plain for marriage and children? I was only about three-quarters right, I decided; the rest were too busy worrying about their own capabilities. The boys with their appraising glares made their opinions known and seemed confident I would be eager to hear their assessments. The men on this base were no exception. A dozen of us were walking from the mess to the barracks they’d partitioned off for us when we caught the attention of a line of young officers enjoying their after-dinner cigarettes.

“Darling, why would a pretty thing like you go off to the war?” a leering lieutenant said to me between puffs on his cigarette. Being the tallest, I was always apt to be the one to attract attention first. “You ought to be back home, where it’s safe.”

“My husband is at the front, and I thought it right to do my part,” I hissed between clenched teeth. “I’m sorry your sweetheart thinks herself above doing hers. And if you think any place in reach of the Germans is safe, then you’re as big a fool as you look.”

He looked blankly, blinking a few times before turning on the ball of his foot to return to his comrades.

The rest of the women maintained their composure on the short walk to the barracks but erupted in peals of laughter once the door fell shut behind us.

“What has my ladies in such a state of merriment?” Sofia asked. She’d been detained on business by one of the senior officers during dinner, as was so often the case.

“Our Katya was just giving a lieutenant a lesson in manners,” Taisiya said, wiping tears of mirth from the corners of her eyes.