Chris, I'm so glad you caught on to the Night Witches. That's what drew me to the Po-2 in the first place (plus of course the general "biplane-ness" of it; much like the Boeing Stearman, the German Focke Wulff Steiglitz, and others - only simpler, more down to earth). Thanks also for providing links to publishers & Wikipedia. That's the kind of thing which makes visiting the site a pleasure.
I saw a Russian documentary about the Night Witches, featuring interviews with surviving women pilots. It turns out they started in the middle of the night, and navigated without any external help in the dark to their target.
Then one of the team of aircraft drew the attention of the searchlights and anti-aircraft guns - and conciously kept it. Meanwhile others cut their engines, and glided down over the target to drop their bombs.
Survivors had to navigate back to their base, still in the dark. They might have timed their attack so they had help from the dawn light, I don't recall. But I seem to recall they could make several attacks like that on a single night, so some of them must have been in total darkness - and cold, in the winter.
Leif
PS. By the way, did you ever watch - and listen to -
the YouTube clip of a Po-2 linked from the Wikipedia site? If not, go find out why the aircraft was called a sewing machine by the Germans! While there,
here's another one, which includes detailed shots of the interior plus details; and
yet another good one. The last one seems to be a passenger flight with a veteran, perhaps an old Po-2 pilot himself? The last one is almost ten minutes, with several cameras onboard, and in an accompanying aircraft, so you get a lot of airtime in a Po-2!