By September 6, 1939, Luftwaffe aircraft were already masters of the Polish sky. Thanks to the appearance of the Fokker Zero, a long-range escort fighter, the Polish Air Force performed worse than it was historically, and the P.11 and P.7 could have relied on low- and medium-altitude agility to entangle with the BF-109. But now that he has encountered the king Fokker Zero, who can fight at medium and low altitudes, he will only be shot down.

So when Theodore. Feng. As Rear Admiral Shipper soared above the clouds in a Ju52 transport plane, he was not at all worried about the threat posed by the Polish fighters - if they existed, the 36 Fokker Zeros on escort duty would have dealt with them very easily.

However, he was still a little apprehensive about the airborne landing behind enemy lines this time. Because the destination of the airborne landing in Lviv is too far east - this airborne landing is more of a "strategic mission" than a "tactical mission". The purpose of bringing the war to the Free State of Poland Ukraine was to provoke Stalin and force the Soviet Union to declare war on Poland immediately, thereby greatly improving the strategic isolation that Germany was currently facing.

Therefore, the Airborne Forces will have to take a big risk!

The risk came not only from the fact that Lviv was geographically too far to the east, which prevented the German ground forces from meeting up with the Airborne Forces in a short period of time, but also from the fact that Germany did not have enough transport aircraft to drop enough troops to Lviv at one time.

At present, the most numerous transport aircraft in the Luftwaffe is the Ju52, a simple and robust aircraft that is easy to produce and relatively inexpensive. Therefore, before the war, it was favored by the Luftwaffe, more than 1000 were ordered, produced by the Junkers and the BF-FK complex, and more than 500 have been delivered. 394 of them will be involved in the Lviv airborne.

However, the carrying capacity of the Ju52 is not satisfactory, far inferior to the Ju90 and Fokker F.36 and other four-engine transport aircraft. One Ju52 can only carry a little more than 4 tons of cargo, 13 paratroopers or 18 infantrymen. In other words, the total of 394 Ju52s could only drop more than 7,000 paratroopers into Lviv - in the actual Lviv airdrop operation, these 394 Ju52s carried about 6,000 heavily armed paratroopers (from the 1st Paratrooper Regiment and the 1st Miuta Regiment) and 240 tons of cargo (mainly ammunition and supplies).

In addition, the Luftwaffe mobilized 232 He-111 medium bombers to tow the DFS-230 ******. With a net weight of only 860 kilograms, this ****** can carry up to 1230 kilograms of cargo or 8 heavily armed soldiers.

by Feng. The 1,856 officers and men of the Greater German Infantry Regiment under the command of SS colonel Stockhausen rode in these ******. These 1,856 men were not all the personnel and equipment of the Greater German Infantry Regiment, but only three infantry battalions of the Greater German Infantry Regiment. The regiment was not an ordinary infantry regiment, but a separate regiment with an artillery battalion (4 companies, 6 75mm infantry guns, 4 88mm infantry guns, 12 37mm anti-tank guns, 6 75mm mountain guns carried by special vehicles) and an assault engineering battalion.

As for the artillery battalions and assault engineering battalions of the Großdeutsch regiment, they were not in the sequence of the first wave of airdrop troops. According to the plan, they were to be airlifted to Lviv by Ju52 transport aircraft after the first wave of airdrop troops captured the Lviv airport. Moreover, before the German Panzer Corps (19th Panzer Army) broke through to the vicinity of Lviv, the more than 9,000 people of the "Miuta cluster" could only rely on airlift and airdrop to maintain the operation.

And their enemies are likely to be in the tens of thousands!

At this time, the loudspeaker on the plane suddenly sounded, and the voice of Captain Ju52 was heard: "We have reached the sky above the target!" ”

……

Lviv has arrived!

Theodore. Feng. Underneath Major General Shipper's plane is Lviv Airport, the only major airport in the Free State of Ukraine. Because the Poles concentrated all their aircraft on the western battlefield, there was not a single aircraft on this dual-use airfield, nor did there be any advanced anti-aircraft guns, only a few old anti-aircraft guns left over from the First World War, and a squadron of Zero Fokker threw 30 kg of bombs on the anti-aircraft artillery positions (a Fokker Zero can hang 2 bombs), and also used machine guns and machine guns to strafe indiscriminately for a while, and completely suppressed the fire on the ground.

The airdrop operation can begin.

The plane in which Rear Admiral Hipper was flying was shaking, and all the paratroopers had already stood up and checked their equipment one last time. The Miuta special forces and paratroopers were the elite of the German army, but their current equipment was limited in terms of advanced equipment compared to ordinary infantry. Most people use Mauser 98K rifles and MP-38 submachine guns, but the Mauser 98K is not carried when parachuting, and these rifles are airdropped in a "weapon container" along with MG-34 machine guns and 81mm mortars. And what paratroopers carry with them, in addition to the MP-38 (only experienced paratroopers can carry the MP-38 for parachuting), are pistols and grenades.

In addition, recoilless guns and anti-tank guns for paratroopers are still being developed. As a result, the 1st Paratrooper Regiment and the 1st Miuta Regiment did not carry artillery other than mortars - these two units were also attached to artillery battalions, but mountain artillery battalions drawn from mountain units and ordinary anti-tank artillery batteries, armed with 75mm mountain guns and 37mm anti-tank guns.

They will be airlifted over with Ju52 after the Airborne Forces have captured the Lviv airfield.

The red indicator light on the plane starts flashing, which is the signal that the airdrop has begun.

A second lieutenant standing at the door of the aircraft cabin commanded loudly: "Check the equipment one last time!" All confirm the parachute! Begin! ”

"Number one! Complete! "Number two! Complete! "Number Three! Complete! ”“……”

The green light came on, and the major pushed the hatch open with all his might, and the cold wind poured in, blowing everyone to a staggering motion.

"Start skydiving!" Then the captain shouted, "One! Jump! ”

The first Miuta fighter stepped out of the cabin in one step. The Miuta unit has a very long history, dating back to the end of the First World War, and its twenty-one years of development have made it synonymous with the elite of the Wehrmacht. The paratroopers that now belong to the Air Force and the Marine Special Forces that belong to the Navy are actually derived from the Miuta troops.

Parachute drops are just a piece of cake for these elite in the military.

Countless parachutes like white flowers soon appeared in the sky, blooming one after another, and soon the entire sky was covered. And the Ukrainian defense forces around the Lviv airport never seem to have existed, and in the face of dense parachutes, there is little firepower on the ground.

Soon, the German soldiers landed on the ground in broad daylight and began to form temporary combat clusters, pounced on important targets near the airfield.

……

6 September 1939, 6pm UK time.

By this time, nearly 8,000 elite German troops had occupied the Lviv airfield and a large area around it - a very big event, which meant that the Soviet Union would soon attack Poland!

However, as the Polish government was on the way to flee, the entire Polish army was in chaos again. So this crucial news was not reported to London in time.

Therefore, the plan to bomb Berlin "by way" the Netherlands was not canceled - if the Soviet Union had declared war on Poland in a few days, it would have been a very stupid thing to undermine the neutrality of the Netherlands!

However, the British government did not know about this, and the commander of the 5th Bombardment Group, who was in charge of the bombardment of Berlin, Arthur Browning. Traverse. Maj. Gen. Harris even less aware that he was doing something very stupid.

At this time, he was gathering the leaders of his eight bomber squadrons and giving them flight routes and bombing Berlin.

"What? Flying over the Netherlands? Immediately the squadron leader disagreed, "The Netherlands declared war on Germany? ”

"Nope."

"Then the Netherlands declared war on us?"

"Not either."

"So what's the matter with us? Flying 96 bomb-laden Wellington bombers over a neutral country? ”

"Yes!" Major General Harris nodded, "This is an order!" ”

"So...... What should we do if we were discovered by the Dutch? ”

"They won't find out," Harris said, "and the Netherlands doesn't have radar, so it's hard to spot bombers in the sky at night." Moreover, they don't have night fighters, so even if they do, they won't be able to take you down. ”

"But they have a Fokker D.21, which is a very good plane, and if it takes off to intercept it, maybe they can spot us in the air."

One squadron leader voiced his concerns. Although the Netherlands did not have radars and night aircraft, the Fokker D.21 could also fly into the sky at night and could fight with ground searchlights.

"What if a Fokker D.21 shoots at us?"

"Then shoot back!" Major General Harris said, "This is nothing remarkable, the Dutch are originally pro-German!" ”

There was no official order to "return fire" -- "borrowing" the Netherlands was "mistakenly entering," and the flight instruments of the 96 bombers were malfunctioning at the same time, so they flew into the air of the Netherlands.

But the Chief of Staff of the Royal Air Force, Admiral Neuwall, gave a "hint" when giving the order that the British Empire did not mind that the Netherlands was on the side of Germany!

Because the Dutch had no force, anyone could easily defeat them. In the event of war with the Netherlands (Belgium joins Britain and France), the Allied forces would certainly be able to enter Germany through Dutch territory by the end of September. In this way, Germany had to transfer the main forces back from Poland...... Germany will be caught in the dilemma of a war on two fronts! (To be continued.) )