The German 52nd Fighter Wing, or JG52 for short, was a legendary unit in the Nazi Air Force. Its dizzying record of shooting down more than 10,000 enemy planes is unprecedented in the history of world warfare.

The three pilots who shot down the most planes in the history of air combat, Erich Hartmann (352), Gerhard Buckhorn (301), and Günter Rahr (275), were all born in this wing. In total, this unit has 31 super aces who have shot down more than 100 aircraft and 85 ace pilots who have shot down more than 5 enemy aircraft.

But it is a pity to say that such an ace army has not been well-known for a long time. It is not even as famous as the Dahan Royal Raptors Special Service Squadron that has just joined the European War, and it is not as famous as "Dragon and Phoenix Chengxiang". The main reason is that most of their achievements were achieved against the Soviet Air Force on the Eastern Front, and they are not well known to the mainstream world.

From the Battle of Poland in September 1939 to the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, which invaded the Soviet Union, the JG52 Nazi Air Force was just an ordinary wing, with a mediocre and lackluster performance in air combat.

Gerhard Buckhorn, one of the only two super-aces in the history of air combat to shoot down more than 300 aircraft, was only a second lieutenant when he joined the Western Front campaign with the JG52 against the RAF. At that time, his record was ...... Zero. He did not shoot down an enemy plane, but he was shot down, parachuted into the English Channel, and was fortunately rescued by a German U submarine.

The entire 3 squadron of the JG52 was shot down and killed in the Battle of Britain, and the total losses in the battle amounted to more than 50 aircraft, more than half of which were parachuted pilots as prisoners of war, and the only record was a Meteor jet fighter shot down by Sergeant Joseph Xavier Nieman, who was only a sergeant, not an officer.

The legend was transferred from JG52 to the Eastern Front, where operations against the Soviet Air Force began.

The air battle in the Caucasus, the air battle in the Crimea, the battle of the Don River, until the German attack on Kostalingrad, the JG52 has always belonged to the southern cluster, with the 52nd combat wing reequipped with the He-117 "Black Knight", the German fighter overtook the Soviet fighter in terms of performance, and a large number of Soviet rookie pilots were sent to the battlefield after a small amount of training, the JG52 began to shine. In the past three years, Erich Hartmann, who was called the "Black Devil of the South" by Soviet pilots, flew his black-painted "Black Knight" and shot down a total of 352 Soviet fighters of all kinds, almost single-handedly, shooting down three Soviet flight divisions.

In this star-studded collective, a number of pilots who were rated as the top ten kings in later generations were born. And there are dozens of super aces in JG52 who "only" shot down more than 100 enemy planes, all of whom have become unknown in the starlight of their comrades.

It was such a unit that was transferred to Bulgaria with the strength of a brigade. Forty-eight "Black Knights" of the 3rd Group of the 52nd Fighter Wing were to form an escort formation to cover thirty-six G0-229 Horton flying-wing bombers and ninety old-fashioned "Junker Aunt" bombers of the 1st Bomber Wing of the Nazi Air Force to carry out air strikes against the Soviet Red Banner Black Sea Fleet.

The task of the JG52 is to counter a possible counterattack by the Turkish Air Force and even from the Middle Eastern air bases of the Grand Alliance.

Lieutenant Colonel Johannes Steinhoff of the 3rd Group was unimpressed by the mission. "Turkish Air Force? What a joke, it's good that those old-fashioned planes of the Turks can still fly into the sky! As for combat, don't be funny! This operation was to appreciate the bombing accuracy of the bomber unit and the ability of the 'Aunt Juncker' to launch air-to-ship missiles. It's a shame that such a boring task should be done by our 52nd Wing, and when we return to the Soviet Union, we will definitely make the guys from the other two brigades laugh. ”

Captain Rupinsky, the super ace with more than 100 aircraft, quite agreed with the captain's statement, "Is there still an opponent of our German Air Force in this world?" If there is, I'm afraid it can only be the Royal Air Force of Han, but we are allies and have no chance to fight. Although they signed an armistice with the Russians in Siberia and were suspected of betraying the alliance, this did not prevent us from defeating the Russians alone. ”

……

Compared with the nervous mood of the commander of the Nazi Air Force, the super aces who had already added oak leaves and diamonds to the knightly medal really did not take this escort mission too seriously.

-- The Knight's Cross of the Diamond Medal is Germany's highest military honor.

It's just that they don't know that long before Stalin ordered the Red Banner Black Sea Fleet to leave the port, two fighter squadrons of the Royal Han Air Force were stationed at the Eskišell airbase, northwest of the Turkish capital Ankara.

The RAF was not the same as that of the Luftwaffe. The Nazi Air Force's fighter wing generally consisted of three squadrons, each with three squadrons, and each squadron consisted of three or four four-plane formations. Just like Lieutenant Colonel Steinhofer's 3rd Brigade, it has forty-eight "Black Knights".

And the standard configuration of each squadron of the Royal Air Force is six four-plane formations, that is, each squadron of the Royal Air Force will have twenty-four fighters. In naval aviation, the same is true.

In addition to the "Raptor" fighter squadron stationed in the Middle East, there is also a "Swift Dragon" squadron and a "Flying Dragon" squadron, both of which have just been transferred from Africa. Even more intriguing is the Royal Air Force gold livery on the "Swift Dragon" and "Wyvern" fighters, which have been replaced with the dark gray livery of the Turkish Air Force.

A total of six radar stations were set up in a matter of days in the eastern side of the Turkish Strait, in Taikirda and in the Edirne region on the Turkish-Bulgarian border.

Together with a Y-41 Spinosaurus II AWACS aircraft that every Raptor squadron in the Royal Air Force must match, they will form a radar alert network on both sides of the Turkish Strait.

It can be said that the first head-to-head confrontation between the German and Han air forces took place in all kinds of strange situations: the Han emperor and the Führer had long regarded each other as mortal enemies, diplomats continued to argue, and the officers and men of the grassroots troops still regarded each other as allies.

Even the pilots of the Royal Air Force, before taking off, believed that the arrangement in the Turkish straits was aimed at the Soviet Navy. Even they are wondering why there is no squadron of "Weilong" attack aircraft in this operation. You must know that whether it is a Raptor, which is good at long-range strikes, a "Swift Dragon" that is good at high-speed volleys, or a "Flying Dragon" that is equipped with "Fairy Penguin" short-range combat missiles, their ability to attack on the ground is extremely limited.

Seizing air supremacy is their basic task! However, the air supremacy over the Black Sea was all owned by the Nazi Air Force, the Soviet Air Force? Do they still have the ability to fly over the Black Sea?

With such a large formation, is it possible to start a war against the Nazi air force?

Thinking of this, Major Leng Dacheng, the squadron leader of the "Flying Dragon", laughed himself, isn't this nonsense? Although His Majesty has announced his withdrawal from the Iron Alliance, it is not even possible for Britain to start a war with Germany before the war is over, right? How can it be said that the Reich and Germany have cooperated for so many years, this is like a friend who has made a conflict, how can it be said that it will be fought?

When Vice Admiral Wang Jingyi, commander of the Royal Air Force in the Middle East who came to command Turkey in person, announced that this combat mission was to escort the Soviet Red Banner Black Sea Fleet and allow him to shoot down all enemy planes that invaded the airspace of the allied Turkish countries, Major Leng clearly heard that his brain was "buzzing" -- it turned out that he could really say that he could fight and fight!

The Red Banner Black Sea Fleet docked in the port of Istanbul for three days, and the efficiency of the officials of the Turkish Navy was really ...... It's a pain in the egg.

Vice Admiral Ryuchenkov, who had a fiery temper, wanted to jump up and curse several times, but if you seriously think about the current situation of the Black Sea Fleet, it will be impossible to deal with Turkey in the future. "Hey...... Bear with me! ”

After more than a dozen hours of grinding, the vice admiral, who had roared several times on the flagship battleship Paris Commune, finally received the news that the Turkish Navy had allowed him to transit.

After giving another middle finger in the direction of the eastern shore of the Bosphoruk, Ryusekov gave the order for the whole fleet to pull anchor and set sail, with the light cruiser Red Crimea as the lead, inserting a destroyer with strong anti-aircraft and anti-submarine capabilities in the middle of each capital ship, plus a sweeper/minelayer to sail through the narrow Bosphoruk Strait in turn.

Contrary to the fury he showed, the commander of the Red Banner Black Sea Fleet was quite calm before the most dangerous crossing of the strait. Even when several submarines that had sneaked through the strait and sailed into the Sea of Marmara ahead of schedule sent back "safe" telegrams, they were still on sufficient alert.

Turkey was once an enemy, and even the Han state, which cooperated with the Soviet Union after the Treaty of Harbin, could not fully convince Ryuchenkov.

As commander of the fleet, he was responsible for the lives of tens of thousands of sailors. If this is a conspiracy, then there is no doubt that these sailors and the Black Sea Fleet will go to the abyss under his command.

Fortunately, the process of entering the Sea of Marmara is not dangerous. The heavy cruiser Red Caucasus almost collided with a Turkish guide ship, leaving Ryucchenkov's little heart hanging for a long time.

The Sea of Marmara, between the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea, is the smallest sea in the world. From the Bosphorus to the Daniels, only 270 kilometers from east to west, it takes less than ten hours for the Red Banner Black Sea Fleet, which is traveling at a speed of twenty knots, to cross the Sea of Marmara.

Although the Sea of Marmara is small, the average water depth can reach nearly 200 meters, which is very suitable for submarine activities. Chyyukov's brain had always been tense with a string. More than 100 kilometers to the northeast is the territory of enemy Bulgaria. It was impossible to hide such a large-scale operation of the Red Banner Black Sea Fleet from the Germans.

In such waters, if you are attacked, you can't even escape, but fortunately, it is getting dark, and the Germans should not attack in the dark, right?

Admiral Kuznetsov, the commander of the Navy, wanted to "work closely" with the Grand Alliance Navy, and standing in the bridge command room of the "Paris Commune", Vice Admiral Ryuchenkov secretly took out a silver flask and took a large sip of vodka at a high level.

The sea breeze is strong and the spirits keep warm.

In fact, among the Han people, it is often said that wine can not only keep warm, but also ...... Courage.