posted May 15 @ 02:58 PM by Jason Kottke · gift link The Night Witches were an all-female Soviet bomber regiment that attacked Nazi forces during World War II. An attack technique of the night bombers involved idling the engine near the target and gliding to the bomb-release point with only wind noise left to reveal their presence. German soldiers likened the sound to broomsticks and hence named the pilots “Night Witches”. Some of the aviators were Jewish, like Polina Gelman : She would be among a half-million Jews who are believed to have served in the Red Army, according to Yad Vashem. They fought not only for the survival of the Soviet Union, but also against the annihilation of their people in Nazi death camps in Poland. “I have decided to go to the front,” Gelman wrote to her mother, adding, “I am a daughter of the Jewish people” with “a particular account” to settle with Hitler. The women were barely given proper aircraft — crop dusters!…