Flyzolo Team Update - Throwback
Whilst Zara was in Alaska, we recounted you the story of the WWII Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) and whilst in #Magadan, the story of the Russian "Night Witches".
Now that Zara made an unplanned landing in #Ayan, on the shores of the Sea of #Okhotsk, let us tell you something more about these far eastern borders of #Russia.
Marina Roskova, as we recounted in a previous post, was instrumental in convincing Stalin to start an all-women regiment of combat pilots in WWII. These women became known as "The Night Witches" and were feared by the German troops.
But before that, in 1938, Marina and two other Soviet women, Valentina Grizodubova and Polina Osipenko, at the express request of Stalin, completed a record-breaking flight that gained them the respect of the entire Soviet Union. The flight was called “The Flight of the Rodina.” Rodina, means "Homeland" in Russian and the purpose of this state-sponsored mission was for the pilots to connect Moscow with the farther corners of the Soviet Union.
The women took off on September 24, 1938 and had flown a full day and through the night. The clouds and turbulence forced them to fly at higher altitudes than planned. Finally, they located the shores of the Sea of Okhotsk. They turned around and flew back over land, and found nothing but forests and swamps. Nothing on their meager charts matched any landmarks they could find, but Raskova still managed to roughly locate their position.
Radio navigation aids were non-existent and they had no fuel to fly a box search pattern to find a town or village, let alone anything of interest. Their radios were knocked out from the night before when the cabin temperatures had fallen to -35 degrees Celsius. Fuel was getting low and time was running out.
Everything that was expendable was thrown out to lighten the load. At 6,500 feet, Raskova bailed herself out. She had to descend into the forests and then find her way to the imminent crash site on foot. She left her emergency kit and supplies and didn’t even have a compass. There was nothing for her to do but set out in the direction she had last seen the plane fly as it disappeared in the distance.
Grizodubova and Osipenko descended slowly and searched for the best option that didn’t include trees. They found a half frozen swampy area and prepared for a landing. They set down and damaged the plane but the two of them were uninjured and able to climb out. All they knew of their location was that they were somewhere in the Far Eastern reaches of #Siberia. They elected to remain with the plane and hope that search teams would find them.
Raskova wandered the forest alone for ten days before coming upon the plane. She survived despite having no water and only two chocolate bars. She found the plane just two days after a Soviet search aircraft had located the wreckage and had dispatched ground rescue. The three pilots were eventually picked up, taken to the nearby village of Kirby, then brought back to Moscow.
As it happened, the “Rodina” had flown 3,672 miles in 26 hours and 29 minutes, a new record for an all-woman flight crew. All three pilots would be celebrated as heroes of the Soviet Union (the first time any women had been so honoured and the only ones to receive that award prior to World War II). Additionally, each received a reward of 25,000 rubles for their loyal service to the Soviet ideal.
A year later, Polina Osipenko died in an accidental plane crash. The village of Kirby and surrounding district was renamed in her honor, a name that it retains to this day – P.Osipenko.
Marina Raskova went on to form the famous WWII all-women night attack regiment called “The Night Witches”. She died in operations during the war against Nazi Germany.
Valentina Grizodubova was the only one to survive the war. She saw the flag go down on the Soviet Union and the end of Stalin’s dream of Soviet socialism. She passed away in 1993 at the age of 83, in Moscow.
On July 4, 1998, after two years of planning, Nikki Mitchell and Rhonda Miles climbed aboard their Maule M-5, "Mary Beth", a single engine tailwheel airplane, and flew from Nashville, Tennessee to Moscow, Russia. They were joined there by two Russian female pilots, a support team and two Antonov 2’s, the largest single engine tailwheel airplane ever built. From there, they commemorated the 1938 record-breaking “Flight of the Rodina” by retracing it through Russia, Siberia and the Far East. They flew in formation, while bridging American and Russian female aviators.
You can read al about the recreation of this historical flight (with the second to last stop in Ayan) and the fascinating story of these amazing aviatrixes here: http://bridgeofwings.com/
#courage #grit #girlpower #whenthegoinggetsthough #leadingbyexample
Women in Aviation International The Ninety-Nines, Inc, International Organization of Women Pilots Federal Aviation Administration
