A Thousand Sisters by Elizabeth Wein

Not many people are familiar with the brave Night Witches, a group of pilots who flew countless bombing missions during WWII. This is most likely due to these reasons - they were all women, Russian and they were told not to discuss what they did during the war and the pivotal role they played. Stalin needed pilots and agreed to a risky plan to train a select group of young women who would fly into enemy Germany and run nightly bombing missions. The work was difficult, required great aviation skill as many times they could add fog to the already dangerous night flying and was extremely dangerous. Stalin was also clear on something else - you could not be captured nor could you retreat or your family would suffer the consequences. As with all of Elizabeth Wein's books you are completely immersed into what these almost unheard of inexperienced women went through. In a world filled with and run by men, the 588th Night Bomber Regiment outperformed their male counterparts without complaint. This makes a great companion book to Kate Quinn's THE HUNTRESS coming out in February.