I wanted to get as much I could this week so I can focus on the texture transfer next week.
Example of pages:
I wanted to make the research docs look like military documentation - in a similar fashion to what I did for my year 3 research document.
Results below:
The 'Night Witches'
A part of the feedback I got for my presentation at the beginning of the month was to look at the Night Witches.
The Night Witches: Who were they and what did they do?
The Night Witches was an all-female squadron of pilots for the Soviet Union. The name 'Night Witches' was the nickname the Nazi's gave them as the Night Witches tactic during bombing was setting their plane engines to idle and gliding over targets when they dropped bombs and the only thing the Germans heard was the whooshing of the planes as they glided. These women were apart of the 588th Night Bomber Regiment.
These women ran bombing raids in very old wooden and canvas bi-planes that were meant to dust fields - none of these women were not under any illusions and were well aware how outdated their planes were. In addition to these old planes, they had no radio contact and up until 1944, they had no parachutes.
The first slogan for the Night Witches was 'you are a woman, and you should be proud of that' as quoted by Irina Rakobolskaya.
After all of their missions, only 30 women died in the Night Witches. If they were shot down, they walked backed to their HQ and continued their mission (regardless if they were hurt).
The most famous Nigth Witch was Nadezhda Popova. In one single night, she flew in 18 bombing missions.
Research Links:
The Little-Known Story of the Night Witches, an All-Female Force in WWIINight Witches: The Female Fighter Pilots of World War II
Aditional Research this week:
To get the context to what the Spitfire was up against, I wanted to look at the Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter plane and the Stuka
.
The Messerschmitt was the most produced plane for the Luftwaffe and in total there was around 33,000 Messerschmitt produced. Also out of all the planes, the Messerschmitt took down the most Allied planes than any other plane during the war. The longevity and success of the Messerschmitt were credited to the fact the designers made sure the plane had the biggest engine with the smallest frame. This made it easier to produce and repair (unlike the Spitfire, which was harder to repair). The first flight of the Messerschmitt had a Rolls-Royce Kestrel engine that was imported.
The Stuka (Junkers Ju 87 Stuka) was a large angular monoplane and always managed the strike fear due to their dive-bombing.
The first Stuka flight was in 1935 and by 1939 began to bring terror to people.
Note: Also, whilst research the sound people associate with a plane flying straight to the ground doesn't make the sound we instantly think of. It was only the Stuka that makes that sound the 'Stuka Scream'. The 'Stuka Scream' was because of the noisy engines. Whilst designing the Stuka, German's ended using this to their advantage and added fans in front of the landing gear and made the sound into a siren - Basically to scare the hell out of anyone who heard the 'Stuka Scream'.
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