Nadezhda Popova RIIP: Night Witch

The word "witches" conjures up the many thousands of women burned at the stake during the "witch hunt" era, butt how many know about women awarded for exploits as "night witch".

Nadezhda Popova survived her stint as a "night witch" and many years after, passing  away just today at 91 years of age. Note the following from Wikipedia's Deaths in 2013 site:

Nadezhda Popova, 91, military female pilot, Hero of the Soviet Union

Note these excerpts taken from Popova's wiki page:

Unit	588th Night Bombing Regiment,

• After her house was taken over by invading German troops and her brother Leonid was killed at the front, she was sent by Marina Raskova to Engels to join the other women then being trained to become military pilots. She then joined a night bombing regiment, called night witches.

The Wikipedia article on the "Night Witches" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_witches), recounts their remarkable story and also reveals these two photo's:

Senior Lieutenant Yevgeniya Rudneva,
 air navigator

Captain Nadezhda Popova,
pilot, in 2009

The caption in the first photo provided a link in the name Yevgeniya Rudneva, so I clicked on it and was  escorted to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeniya_Rudneva, where I then noted the following:

• Evgeniya Maksimovna Rudneva, ... (December 24, 1920 – April 9, 1944) was a Soviet military air navigator, a Hero of the Soviet Union, a member of the Moscow branch of the Astronomical-Geodesical Society of the USSR, and head of the Solar Department. 
•  There she served in the rank of Guards Senior Lieutenant as a navigator of the all-female 588th Night Bomber Regiment

As it turns out, there were three women regiments-- 586, 587 and 588.  Both women were serving on the 588th regiment is meaningful given the twin 88 and the fact that it's an addition to the ever growing "Twin Number" Pattern-Cluster recorded in many of my posts, and it doesn't end there, note the following information regarding the day of Rudneva's death: 

April 9  is the 99th day of the year (100th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 266 days remaining until the end of the year.

Note the three sets of twin numbers involved in the above.  

The name/link, Marina Raskova, is also included in the excerpt from Popoova's wiki page as per the above, and so it's worthwhile following the link to her wiki page, note the following: 

• Marina Mikhailovna Raskova (March 28, 1912 – January 4, 1943).
• She was the first woman to become a navigator in the Soviet Air Force in 1933. 
• ...This military unit was initially called Aviation Group 122 while the three regiments received training.

Note the following information regarding her day of birth: 

March 28 is the 87th day of the year (88th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. 

Since 1912 was a leap year, she was born on the 88th day of the year.

Since we're on the topic of women bomber pilots, I decided to check out how many happened to be Flying Aces, so I Googled "women aces".  The first one brought up was: 

Lydia Litvyak - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Note the following from Lydia's wiki page:  

Lydia Litvyak

•  Her first kill was a Ju 88 which fell in flames from the sky after several bursts.
• On June 13, 1943, Litvyak was appointed flight commander of the 3rd Aviation Squadron within 73rd GvIAP.^[21]
• Litvyak flew her first combat flights in the summer of 1942 over Saratov.  On 10 September she moved along with Katya Budanova, Maria M. Kuznetsova and Raisa Beliaeva, the commander of the group, and accompanying female ground crew, to the regiment airfield, at Verkhnaia Akhtuba, on the east bank of the Volga river. But when they arrived the base was empty and under attack, so they soon moved to Srednaia Akhtuba.^[9] Here, flying a Yak-1^[10] carrying the number "32" on the fuselage, she would achieve considerable success.^[11]

The first excerpt above re Ju 88 is obvious enough with the occurrence of twin "88" once again!!  The second excerpt is meaningful to me personally given that the day she was made flight commander, June 13th, is my birthday.  The third excerpt is meaningful on two accounts: first, September 10th (9/10) is one off from "9/11", meaningful given the 2001 "twin" towers strike in NYC, hence falling into the prominent "Off By One" Pattern-Cluster... keep in mind as well, that as of 9/11, there are 111 days remaining in the year. The number on her fuselage re: 32 is one off... as in one off from 33.  

The other woman Flying Ace was Katya Budanova, note the following from her wiki page

• Yekaterina Vasylievna Budanova , also known as Katya Budanova, (6[3]December 1916 – 19 July 1943), was a fighter pilot in the Soviet Air Force during World War II. With 11 air victories,[4] along with Lydia Litvyak, she was one of the world's two female fighter aces.

Note the following information regarding her day of death: 

July 19 is the 200th day of the year (201st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar.

I can't help butt notice the audd and yet similar ending in each of their surnames: Popova, Raskova, Rudneva, Budanova... "ova" is also "egg" in english... and eva reminds me of Eve.

As it turns out, the Russian "ova" is the feminine whereas the "ov" ending is masculine.  Note their etymology:

Rask Means "healthy", "energetic", "speedy" in Danish.

Popov: Means "son of the priest" from the Slavic word pop. (Popova then must mean daughter of a priest... or perhaps Priestess.)

 I'm  reminded of Casanova... the etymology of which is:

Casanova literally means "new house".   

    "Flying Ace" status.