What we did have were clever, educated, very talented girls.”She died in 2013 when she was 91. Popova stated:“We flew in sequence, one after another, and during the night, we never let them rest. I loved to tango, fox trot, but I was bored. “We bombed, we killed; it was all a part of war,” she said in a 2010 interview with the Russian news service RIA Novosti. The Germans made up stories. I loved to tango, fox trot, but I was bored. Flying only in the dark, they had no parachutes, guns, radios or radar, only maps and compasses. I wanted something different.”At 15, Ms. Popova joined a flying club, of which there were as many as 150 in the Soviet Union. Nadezhda Popova, one of the first volunteers… who herself flew 852 missions… said in an interview for David Stahel’s book Operation Typhoon: Hitler’s March on Moscow, October 1941, published this year, “Almost every time we had to sail through a wall of enemy fire”. And I ask myself, ‘Nadia, how did you do it?’ ”If you have additional information or photographs to add to this Obituary please contact us. I wanted something different.” At 15, Ms. Popova joined a flying club, of which there were as many as 150 in the Soviet Union. This was nonsense, of course. “This, of course, was nonsense.” The Po-2 biplanes flown by the Night Witches had an advantage over the faster, deadlier German Messerschmitts: their maximum speed was lower than the German planes’ stall speed, making them hard to shoot down. Anything that challenged what you know — or thought you knew?• What messages, emotions or ideas will you take away from this film? If hit by tracer bullets, their planes would burn like sheets of paper.Their uniforms were hand-me-downs from male pilots. Each of them had to fly from ten to fifteen missions per night. Two would go in as decoys to attract searchlights, then separate in opposite directions and twist wildly to avoid the antiaircraft guns. Any German pilot who downed a “witch” was awarded an Iron Cross. Once, after being downed, she found herself in a horde of retreating troops and civilians. The Russian women who piloted those planes, onetime crop dusters, took it as a compliment. Planes flew in formations of three. They were among the world’s first female combat flight pilots.• What moments in this film stood out for you? Popova, standing, with other Soviet pilots in World War II. Ms. Popova, who lived in Moscow and worked as a flight instructor after World War II, is survived by her son, Aleksandr, a general in the Belarussian Air Force. “Almost every time we had to sail through a wall of enemy fire,” Nadezhda Popova, one of the first volunteers — who herself flew 852 missions — said in an interview for David Stahel’s book “Operation Typhoon: Hitler’s March on Moscow, October 1941,” published this year. Then, they took part in the campaign of aerial warfare over Kuban. The pilots’ skill prompted the Germans to spread rumors that the Russian women were given special injections and pills to “give us a feline’s perfect vision at night,” Ms. Popova told Mr. Axell. Growing up, Ms. Popova told Ms. Strebe, "I was a very lively, energetic, wild kind of person. Viktor F. Yanukovich, the president of Ukraine, announced her death. One of the most famous of the Night Witches, Nadezhda Popova, who herself flew 852 missions, earning her multiple medals and the title of Hero … Interview with Hero of the Soviet Union Rufina Gasheva, Hero of the Soviet Union Nadezhda Popova, Hero of the Russian Federation Aleksandra Akimova, Irina Rakobolskaya, Irina Dryagina, Olga Yakovleva, Klavdiya Ryzhkova (Deryabina), Raisa Mazdrina. In the crowd was a wounded fighter pilot, Semyon Kharlamov, reading “And Quiet Flows the Don,” Mikhail A. Sholokhov’s epic Soviet novel. In “Flying for Her Country: The American and Soviet Women Military Pilots of World War II” (2007), by Amy Goodpaster Strebe, Ms. Popova is quoted recalling the “smiling faces of the Nazi pilots” as they strafed crowds, gunning down fleeing women and children. Anyway, they also took on precision bombing missions against the German Army. “I was ordered to fly another mission immediately,” she told Russian Life magazine in 2003. The third would sneak to the target through the darkness. These technical features made it impossible for the aircrafts to fly at high altitudes, so they had to stay low. And I ask myself, ‘Nadia, how did you do it?’ ”  They eventually separated but saw each other again several times during the war. The third would sneak to the target through the darkness. “Almost every time we had to sail through a wall of enemy fire,” Nadezhda Popova, one of the first volunteers — who herself flew 852 missions — said in an interview for David Stahel’s book “Operation Typhoon: Hitler’s March on Moscow, October 1941,” published this year. Viktor F. Yanukovich, the president of Ukraine, announced her death.Growing up, Ms. Popova told Ms. Strebe, “I was a very lively, energetic, wild kind of person. They spread the rumor that we had been injected with some unknown chemicals that enabled us to see so clearly at night. Her delight at being accepted into the 588th Night Bomber Regiment gave way to steely seriousness after her first mission, in which a Soviet plane was destroyed, killing two friends.