The Night Witches —

Think Indiana Jones meets Hidden Figures, with the soul of a Western and the thunder of a barnstormer.

“Before the war, this place was all I knew. I could never bring myself to venture outside of it.

I guess before the world called, everything I needed was right here. I spent a great part of those days in the fields helping my father and (like a child) trying not to be underfoot . . . And the rest, locked deep in my imagination, my father called it “woolgathering”, dreaming and drawing a place where my brothers didn't have to watch over me, and inventing a means to liberate my parents from the worry that I would never find my way. I was sure there was a place, far beyond the north fence and the Crawfordville county line, where I could free the thoughts and images from my head and paint them across the landscape.”

It's mostly a jumble of faded pictures in my head, more like daydreams. Memories of 11 new-found brothers and sisters, who risked their lives to save complete strangers. Vague images of the magic and trickery, of making a handful of men look like hundreds, and the illusion of tanks and airplanes made from rubber and paint. But clear in my mind is the memory that, at the height of the great World War, in the midst of battle and chaos, a handful of artists, actors, and designers didn't fire on the enemy or capture the beach, but saved the lives of their fellow soldiers by deceiving the enemy and winning... at the Art of War.

- Nash McCloud