The Red Army was planning an air attack on an unprecedented scale, and the main target of the air attack was the logistics depots of the 1st and 2nd tank clusters. At that time, the 14th Armored Division and the 10th Motorized Division, which were in charge of guarding and defending the warehouse area, were in recuperation.

Among them, the 14th Armored Division was responsible for the vigilance of key targets, and inevitably became the fish in the pond that was affected in the large-scale air raid. Of course, the 14th Panzer Division was not so innocent, for example, we can turn back the time to August 9, 1940, and see how beautiful the 18th Panzer Division was at that time:

The 14th Panzer Division was resting in Dresden, which was enveloped in a celebratory atmosphere and became a sea of joy. Colorful flags flutter on both sides of the street, and the bustle is crowded with fanatical crowds, and it is very lively.

So what kind of special day is this? It turned out that the 4th Infantry Division, a subordinate unit of the soldiers of Dresden and eastern Saxony, had just returned from the French battlefield on the Western Front and was marching in victory.

The neat procession of the 4th Infantry Division almost filled the five star-lined streets of the Old Town, and the march was directed towards Vienna Platz. Then the main forces of the division marched along Prague Street to the Old Market.

At that moment, on the embankment along the Elbe, some other motorized troops will also pick up their vehicles and go to the north of the city, and all kinds of armored mechanical vehicles will march forward in a neat queue.

The 4th Infantry Division wrote in its diary for the day: "The crowds on both sides of the streets excitedly waved flowers to welcome our return, and the atmosphere of celebration was too great to express in words. The whole city was inundated with flags and flowers. Our team even marched in the rain of flowers on both sides...... After the excitement of the celebration. We still have important work to do. In the coming time, we will begin to carry out the reintegration of the transfer into armored divisions......"

The elite 4th Infantry Division in Dresden was soon reorganized into the 14th Panzer Division, with one regiment in the 18th Panzer Division, which was to be the vanguard of Army Group Center and Army Group South into East Poland, Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. And in Russia, these damned German devils will enjoy the sanctions of the iron fist of justice of the Soviet people!

Incidentally, the 14th and 18th Panzer Divisions will soon be wiped out by the Red Army, and their hometown of Dresden, a thousand-year-old city, will be completely wiped off the ground by Allied air power!

On the afternoon of November 30, 1941. The head of the Air Force Operations Department of the Red Army, Arksnys, personally briefed the commanders of his subordinates on the mission: "Comrades, the targets of our air raid this evening have all been marked on the map behind me, and this mission will be related to the next counterattack operation of the Bryansk Front. The more targets you destroy, the less pressure your comrades will be, and I desperately hope that you will blow the enemy up and kill them! ”

Soon, similar scenes were played out almost simultaneously at various air bases around Bryansk, where the flight crews were ordered to end their rest, prepare their meals, and then concentrate on briefings on the mission.

This process does not seem to be any different from what it used to be. But the young pilots seem to have picked up a strange smell from today's visibly tense air, and it seems that today's air raid will be extraordinary.

Soon the crew was concentrated in the conference hall. The intelligence officer quickly walked to the front desk with his briefcase, and the pilots in the audience still did not know the contents of the briefcase. Soon, the curtain on the large blackboard was lifted, and the task diagram was clear at a glance. The intelligence officer took the baton and explained the mission in a flat tone.

At the same time, at various airports, it is a completely different scene from the conference room, all kinds of construction vehicles are constantly shuttling back and forth between the tarmac, and a large number of ground staff are busy checking the aircraft, refueling and hanging bombs, and all preparations are carried out in an orderly manner.

At five o'clock in the afternoon, at the busy airfields, the crews preparing to attack began to run to their respective planes, and then groups of heavy bombers and attack planes began to start their engines at about the same time, and then lined up to run.

In a short time, a huge group of bombers circled over Bryansk for the final build-up formation, and soon they would be heading straight for the German 1st and 2nd tank groups.

It was another tired and stressful afternoon for the crew members of the Red Air Force, and many young people were nervous about the next air raids: "Although the enemy was not far from us in a straight line, I felt that the formation flight was so long, every minute was as difficult as an hour, and the tension and anxiety accumulated with time. That's how I was, I felt much more nervous before takeoff. We were told that if the bomber was seriously injured in an air raid and had to parachute, please contact our brothers in the Army as soon as possible, they have a dedicated rescue unit responsible for 'retrieving' us. For this purpose, each unit was allocated a small radio station. But I've been praying that I don't need to skydive, and I don't need to use the radio......"

The young pilot was a little nervous, but not so much that he shrunk. For these young people who are determined to defend their families and country, there will be tension, but fear is non-existent. They are full of morale, they all know that they are fighting to defend their homeland, and the thought of being able to strike hard at the German Nazis makes their blood boil!

The Air Force actually flew 305 bombers that day, including 100 TU-3s, 50 Pe-8s, and the rest were Il-4s. Divided into two waves, about 1 hour apart, air attack on the Germans. Eventually, 293 bombers reached the target. In addition, there are nearly 500 attack aircraft to cooperate with the attack and nearly 200 combat escorts.

The air raid was first kicked off by 47 PE-8s, who were the first to ignite the German devils in the air, and the group used special low-altitude indication bombing tactics to carry out air strikes, and most of the members had participated in the air raids on Norway and had rich experience in low-altitude bombing.

"When I was about 10 kilometers away from the target, I could see the target on the ground through the gap in the clouds, and yes, it was these damn German mongrels, we found them!" -- Major Popov, bomber command aircraft leader of the 1st Guards Bomber Division.

The bombing guide immediately dropped the first red flare and about two minutes later the green flare were dropped in the area above the target. However, the weather was not particularly ideal that day. A large cloud of fog hangs over the target. Some of the bombers that followed up did not observe the target designation shells in the first place. The best time to bomb was missed.

But it didn't matter, the daring Red Army pilots began to lower their altitude, the ordinary fleet was reduced to 3,000 meters, and the target designator was even reduced to less than 300 meters, and then the red and green target indicator shells, which symbolized death, were dropped, and the target indicator shells like fireworks floated "quietly" and without interference over the German storage area for more than 10 minutes.

It was the last silence before the destruction, a glamorous prelude to the German warehouses being ruthlessly locked. The German anti-aircraft artillery units on the ground were only at this time hastily advancing into their positions and began to shoot sparsely.

At 8:10 p.m., the Red Army's large-scale bombing officially began, and at this moment, the bomber command plane, known as the "host of the celebration," hovered over the huge formation, responsible for the coordination and command of the entire air raid, and they were the decisive commanders in the course of the air raid, and the bombing of the entire formation would be carried out in strict accordance with their instructions.

At that time, the following voice record was left: "7th Squadron, ready to drop bombs into the area of the red indicator shell...... Note that a bomb was dropped too late and deviated far from the target...... Well done. The 9th Squadron, the bomb was delivered very accurately...... The 12th Squadron looked for green indicator shells. Now your bombs are a bit messy......"

As the flame corridors appear on the ground, new "fireworks" will continue to shine in the middle of these corridors.

The first wave of PE-8s dropped a total of 170 tons of bombs and incendiary bombs in fifteen minutes, and they covered the intended area very accurately, completely covering the No. 2 storage area of the German 1st tank cluster. The bomber group set fire to every corner of the target area perfectly, and this ultra-perfect bombing even made German ground observers mistakenly believe that they had been bombed by 500 enemy aircraft.

In this bombardment, the Red Army still used the tactics of two waves of bombing during the previous air raid on Norway. At 9 p.m., the second wave of Tu-3 began to form a formation, and then this huge formation flew to the target very smoothly. Because they received a strong escort. More than 150 fighter planes were on guard, smashing the few German interceptor fighters who rushed to hear the news.

The second wave of the formation only encountered a little trouble when it flew over the target, and the German anti-aircraft artillery units that had come to their senses opened fire fiercely, and some bombers were hit, so that the second wave of the pre-bombing formation encountered some trouble, and some squadrons were forced to delay.

At 9:25 p.m. that night, the second wave of bombers finally flew over the target, and the Tu-3 bomber group, which had always been in competition with the Pe-8 crew, was very impatient at this moment, because the fire caused by the first wave of air strikes allowed the crew to clearly observe the target with the naked eye at a very long distance, which also meant that their competing "opponents" completed the mission excellently.

At 9:30 a.m., the Tu-3 bombers in charge of guiding the group dropped their first target indicator bombs, and five minutes later, the follow-up bombers arrived over the target, and the burning warehouses made it difficult for them to see the target area. Two minutes later, the two bombing command planes began to work, and after exchanging views, they decided to expand the bombing area, and then carry out supplementary bombing of the previous bombing area.

After the bomb dropping officially began, the main task of the command aircraft was to correct those bombers whose bombs were dropped too far from the target area. The second wave was also extremely precise and intensive, dropping more than 500 tons of bombs, of which incendiary bombs accounted for almost half of the total bomb load.

In the summary report of the air raid analysis, the bomber crew wrote: "The visible flames rose to a height of 100 meters......

One bombardier also recalled: "When the bomb was dropped, I glanced at it, and a burning hell instantly came into view, and the ground was burning. When the wind occasionally blew thick clouds and smoke through the cracks, a melting pot was clearly visible, and the burning heat even affected our cabin! The heat wave seemed to spread directly into the cabin, and the entire sky was reflected in blood red, as if it were a sunset in autumn. On the way back, I could still clearly see the fire from about 200 kilometers away......"

Another pilot recalls his feelings more simply: "This is the only time I feel sympathy for the Germans below!" But the pilot randomly added: "But this feeling was quickly replaced by a sense of urgency in the mission, our task was to fight the enemy, which had to be done!" ”

In this bombing, the Red Air Force adopted a combination of ordinary bombs + incendiary bombs: first drop ordinary bombs to destroy or destroy the enemy's warehouses. This was followed by the dropping of incendiary bombs. These include napalm and white phosphorus incendiary bombs. This would fully destroy the German reserves.

It should be said that the combination of ammunition selected for this air raid was successful, for example, ordinary aerial bombs generally kill or destroy buildings and fortifications through fragments and shock waves generated by explosions, but have limited lethal effect on well-concealed targets (such as bomb shelters dug by the Germans).

Incendiary bombs, on the other hand, can supplement the blind spots that ordinary bombs cannot reach, such as 50-kilogram incendiary bombs with a white phosphosphor rubber mixed solution, or napalm, and even a small amount of cloudburst bombs.

All in all, the Germans were mistreated!

However, the key reason for the excellent effect of the air raids was that the Germans did too poorly in air defense. The anti-aircraft artillery units on the ground seemed to be frozen and unresponsive. The Air Force was so far out of reach that it dispatched less than 50 fighters that night to intercept them, and while half of them were still on the way, the Red Army's bomber group had already returned home, which was equivalent to a pounce.

Let's go back to the ground and experience the devastating air raid from the perspective of the Germans. At about 7:40 p.m. that night, the German air defense command began an early warning and five minutes later notified the 1st and 2nd tank clusters to sound the air defense alarm, but the German ground forces seemed indifferent to the air defense alarm. considered himself unlikely to be the target of air strikes by the Red Army. Even some German soldiers slept with their heads covered after hearing the air raid siren.

It is also worth mentioning that the Germans lacked bunkers to hide from air raids. Most of the anti-artillery holes can only withstand 150 mm heavy guns, and are useless against aerial bombs above 250 kg. Of course, it is not that the German army does not want to repair, but the materials are too tight, and most of the engineering materials are used to support the construction of warehouses, and individual protection is naturally not taken care of.

At 8 o'clock in the evening, when the first "fireworks" bloomed in the night sky, the Germans realized that something was wrong tonight, and with the roar of more and more bombers, red and green target indicator shells also bloomed in the air.

It was only about 15 minutes from the official landing of the first bomb to the end of the first wave of air raids, and it was this short 15 minutes of carpet bombing that plunged the officers and men of the 14th Panzer Division into a sea of fire.

Just as the 14th Panzer Division and the 10th Motorized Division were looking at the Pe-8 in the sky in horror and relieved, ready to start extinguishing the fire, the second wave of bombardment came. The effect of this wave of bombardment was even more terrifying (more incendiary bombs), and a number of small and originally independent sources of fire were soon connected, forming a more devastating firestorm (the conditions for the firestorm to occur were weather conditions, housing materials and results, and building forms in addition to carpet bombing).

Alexon, a survivor of the air raid, recalled after the war: "The chances of escaping from the firestorm were slim, and after being bombarded with a high concentration of intensity, everything began to burn violently, and the air above the burning area was quickly heated to very high temperatures, forming a violent convection current, pushing the flames explosively in all directions!" ”

The Germans were in a state of extreme confusion after the first wave of bombardment, with a large number of soldiers struggling to escape the flames, and the few warriors who tried to extinguish the flames were quickly engulfed in flames and burned to ashes.

The terrifying flames quickly swept through the storage area, and then spread towards the surrounding tents and forests. Everything is burning, houses, furniture, cars, tanks, everything you can see is burning!

The power of the flames was terrifying, the window glass and even the steel began to melt in the heat, and the asphalt flowed on the road and then slowly ignited. A large number of personnel were engulfed in flames, and the heat and lack of oxygen soon became even more ferocious killers.

As flames swept through the trenches and fortifications, the Germans who hid in trenches, fortifications and anti-gun holes were suffocated, baked, burned, and then had to die in despair and helplessness. Many of them had no chance of escaping at all, and even if they did, they would soon be swept away by a firestorm.

German Corporal Lothar, who witnessed all this. "A tank tried to burst out of the flames, but it soon began to burn from the inside out, and in less than thirty seconds it became a burning iron coffin...... Some people can't stand the heat and the lack of oxygen, and they start jumping into rivers or wells, but it doesn't work, and the flames stick to you like maggots on tarsal bones until they burn you to ashes! ”

This is not wrong at all, once white phosphorus is ignited and then mixed with water, then not only will it not be extinguished, but it will burn more violently! So these people who dived into the water were roasted and died like eggs in a steamer!

Haier continued: "I saw a group of burned people in the bombed sd.kfz.251 half-track armored vehicle, they were charred black, some had curled up in small balls, and many more were directly reduced to ashes! ”

According to the inventory after the bombing, more than 2,000 people died as a direct result of the air raids and fires! The loss of equipment and supplies is innumerable, and it can be said that this air raid completely broke the backbone of the first and second tank clusters! (To be continued......)

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