NIGHT WITCHES
Understanding the Text
A.
1. The aircraft used by the female fighter pilots were built mainly of plywood and canvas. They were small and usually reserved for training and crop-dusting. These planes, if hit by bullets, could burst into flames. One plane could carry only two bombs at a time. A strong wind could toss the plane about. However, the advantage of these small and flimsy planes was that they could be manoeuvred quickly and easily.
2. The people in this situation were making the mistake of thinking that the brave pilot must have been a man—a brave lad. This shows that the female fighter pilots were an uncommon figure at that time—the people did not immediately think that the pilot might be a woman.
3. The female fighter pilots flew their planes at night, often quietly and secretly, running their engines slowly as they neared their targets, gliding their way to the bomb release points and then dropping the bombs. Because of this mode of operation, their planes only made soft whooshing noises as they flew by. This noise sounded like witches’ broomsticks to the Germans. That is why they gave the title ‘night witches’ to the Soviet female fighter pilots.
4. Limited technology was available to the Night Witches; they had no radar to navigate their paths through the night skies—only maps and compasses. They flew only in the dark. They carried no parachutes. Their craft could burst into flames if hit by bullets. Frequently, they had to fly through a wall of enemy fire. Each plane flew multiple missions in a night, as the planes could only carry two bombs at a time. This increased the risk of being shot. The planes had open cockpits, so the women had to suffer freezing cold. A strong wind could toss their small planes. All these factors made their missions particularly dangerous.
5.
a. Pilot Nadezhda Popova said this to her navigator.
b. Just before this, Popova and her navigator had completed a flight. They had survived the flight, but forty-two bullet holes were studding their little plane, with bullet holes in Popova’s map and helmet.
c. Suggested answer (accept any logical answer): The speaker must have said this because she had a lot of courage and a fine sense of humour. She meant that if they could survive such a flight where so many bullets struck their plane, maps and even their helmets without killing them, they were very lucky and would live a long life—they would not die easily.
6.
a. ‘All that’ refers to the female fighter pilots’ bravery and achievements—the thousands of missions they flew, the bombs they dropped and the challenges they overcame.
b. Suggested answer (accept any logical answer): The female fighter pilots decorated their planes with flowers because along with courage they also had a sense of beauty and wanted to make the planes which they flew look as nice as possible.
c. Suggested answer (accept any logical answer): This indicates a sense of humour. The Night Witches must have used their navigation pencils as lip colour as a good joke.
B.
1. Their passage was on its way to being a routine patrol, until the pilots found themselves face to face with a collection of German bombers.
2. Other countries, the US among them, may have allowed women to fly as members of their early air forces; those women, however, served largely in support and transport roles.
3. And the obituaries that resulted, celebrations of a life and a legacy largely unknown to many of us around the world, serve as a reminder of the great things the female flyers accomplished.
4. The Witches (they took the name given by the Germans as a badge of honour) flew only in the dark.
5. The Night Bomber Regiment was one of three female fighter pilot units created by Stalin at the insistence of Marina Raskova—an aviation celebrity who was,essentially, ‘the Soviet Amelia Earhart’.
6. She also prepared them for an environment that preferred to treat women as bombshells rather than bombers.
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