2 They treated us with ridicule, but they exploited us mercilessly.” The crews of these aircraft carried out missions in almost any weather conditions, when no other type of aviation could get off the ground. They flew bombing, day and night reconnaissance, landing and discharging reconnaissance personnel, supplying encircled troops and partisans, evacuating the wounded: they carried out communications flights and transporting command personnel. This entire range of tasks fell on the shoulders of the pilots and navigators of the low-speed biplane, which flew at an extremely low speed by modern standards. Only real professionals, pilots and navigators who did their own thing, could cope with this entire range of tasks, which replaced each other even within one day. a work that has been largely undeservedly overlooked. Paying tribute to the courage of the pilots of the 46th Guards Aviation Regiment, we must remember that during the war more than a hundred night bomber regiments were created, of which only one was female. It was on the shoulders of men, such as these twelve people, whose memories are collected in the book, that the brunt of the war fell on a small plane that did big things.

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