Hi Everyone!! This article will share Night Witches Questions & Answers.
In my previous posts, I have shared the questions and answers of The Master Artist, Homesickness and The Wolves of Cernogratz so, you can check these posts as well.
Night Witches Questions & Answers
Question 1: What were the disadvantages of the type of aircraft used by the female fighter pilots? What was the advantage?
Answer: The aircraft used by the female fighter pilots were built of plywood and canvas. It was because of their built up and small size, they were reserved for training and crop-dusting. One plane could carry only two bombs at a time, because of the weight of the bombs and at the low altitude at which they flew, they carried no parachutes. They had no radar to navigate their paths through the night skies. If hit by bullets, the plane could burst into flames. The planes had open cockpits, leaving the women’s faces to freeze in the chilly night air. A strong wind could even toss the plane.
However, the advantage of these small and flimsy planes was that they could be manoeuvred quickly and easily.
Question 2: Nobody could understand why the brave lad who had taken on a Nazi squadron wouldn’t drink vodka.
What mistake were the people in this situation making? What does this say about female fighter pilots-were they a common or an uncommon figure at that time?
Answer: The people in this situation were mistaken in thinking the brave pilot to be a man, who in reality was a female pilot. The situation here showed that people in those times would hardly think of a female fighter pilot in combat missions.
Question 3: How did the female fighter pilots earn the title ‘Night Witches’?
Answer: The Soviet female fighter pilots flew their planes mainly at night, and often quietly and secretly, running their engines slowly as they neared their targets, gliding their way to their bomb release points. Due to this, their planes made soft whooshing noises as they flew by. This noise reminded the Germans, of the sound of witch’s broomstick. So, the Nazis began calling the female fighter pilots Nachthexen which meant ‘Night Witches’. In this way, the Soviet female fighter pilots earned the title ‘Night Witches’.
Question 4: Which factors made the Night Witches’ missions particularly dangerous?
Answer: The aircraft used by the female fighter pilots were built of plywood and canvas. One plane could carry only two bombs at a time, due to which each plane flew multiple missions in a night. It was because of the weight of the bombs and at the low altitude at which they flew, they could not carry parachutes. They had no radar to navigate their paths through the night skies. If hit by bullets, the plane could burst into flames. The planes had open cockpits, leaving the women’s faces to freeze in the chilly night air. A strong wind could even toss the plane. All these factors made their missions particularly dangerous.
Night Witches Questions & Answers
Question 5: “Katya, my dear, we will live long”.
(a) Who said this to whom?
Answer: Pilot Nadezhda Popova said this to her navigator.
(b) What had happened just before this?
Answer: Just before this, Popova and her navigator had completed and survived a flight. After the flight, they found forty-two bullet holes their little plane, along with the holes in Popova’s map and helmet.
(c) Why do you think the speaker said this? What does this line say about her character?
Answer: The speaker sounded strong hearted, courageous and with a good sense of humour. They successfully completed and survived a dangerous mission with forty-two bullet holes in their plane, map and helmet, which meant that luck is on their side and surely, they are going to live long.
Question 6: And they did all that while decorating their planes with flowers and using their navigation pencils as lip colour.
What is referred to as ‘all that’?
Answer: ‘All that’ refers to the bravery and achievements of the female fighter pilots—the thousands of missions they flew, the bombs they dropped and the challenges they overcame.
Question 7: Which sentences in the text tell you these?
(a) The fight in 1943, in which Tamara Pamyatnykh was caught up, was sudden and unexpected.
Answer: 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.
(b) There were female pilots in other countries, but very few female fighter pilots.
Answer: 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.
(c) Nadezhda Popova’s death reminded the world of the Night Witches’ achievements.
Answer: 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.
(d) The pilots did not mind being called ‘Night Witches’– if anything, they enjoyed it.
Answer: The Witches (they took the name given by the Germans as a badge of honour) flew only in the dark.
(e) Behind the creation of the Night Bomber Regiment was a woman.
Answer: 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’.
(f) Marina Raskova trained the fighter pilots to face unfair attitude.
Answer: She also prepared them for an environment that preferred to treat women as bombshells rather than bomb.
So, these were Night Witches Questions & Answers.