It was no coincidence that the Ju 87 was selected to carry out the first aerial attack of World War II in Europe. The easternmost province of Germany, East Prussia, was cut off from the rest of the Fatherland by the Polish Corridor. “This hotly disputed strip of territory, which afforded the landlocked Poles access to the Baltic Sea,” said Weal, “was another product of the Treaty of Versailles, and a contributory factor in Hitler’s decision to attack Poland.” A single railway across the Polish Corridor connected East Prussia directly to Berlin. The weakest point of the rail line was a bridge over the Vistula River near the town of Dirschau (Tczew). The Poles understood the bridge’s significance – and they had preemptively rigged it with explosives, ready to detonate should the Germans ever attack. Thus, the bombing target was not the bridge itself, but the detonation site located at the nearby Dirschau station. By destroying the detonation site, Germany could prevent the Poles from destroying the bridge, and thus preserve East Prussia’s lifeline to the Reich proper.
At exactly 4:26 a.m. on September 1, 1939, three Stukas from
III./StG 1, led by pilot Bruno Dilly, lifted off from their air base in East
Prussia en route to the Dirschau station. With their 250kg bombs attached
firmly to their wings, the Stukas climbed in unison before separating, one by
one, into their signature dive patterns. Within minutes, each pilot delivered
his bombs with pinpoint accuracy onto the Dirschau station. Although the first
dive-bomb run of World War II was a tactical success, it did not preserve the
railway bridge. Undaunted, Polish Army engineers managed to destroy the bridge
before the first German troop trains could arrive.
The same day, elements from I./StG 2 launched a raid on the
enemy airfield at Krakow, only to find it deserted. As it turned out, most
Polish Air Force units had vacated their peacetime airbases and relocated to
secret, carefully secluded fields in the near countryside. After returning from
their unfruitful mission at Krakow, these same Stukas spotted one of the secret
airfields near Balice, just as a pair of PZL P.11c fighters were scrambling
from the runway. The lead Stuka, piloted by Frank Neubert (who went on to earn
the Knights Cross of the Iron Cross) shot down the P.11 piloted by Captain
Mieczylaw Medwecki, making Neubert’s kill the Luftwaffe’s first air-to-air
combat victory of World War II. According to Neubert, his shot caused the P.11
to “suddenly explode in mid-air, bursting apart like a huge fireball – the
fragments literally flew around our ears.”
Later on September 1, the Luftwaffe’s vanguard Stukas
engaged the Polish Navy at Hela in the first of several attacks on that naval
base. In this engagement, four Stukas plummeted from 7,000m to attack the
enemy’s naval stronghold. However, Hela was defended by one of the largest
anti-aircraft batteries in Poland, and the diving Stukas got their first taste
of enemy fire. Bracketed by the intense anti-aircraft fire, two of the four
Stukas were downed by Polish guns – the first Ju 87s lost to enemy fire. Two
days later, the Stukas were in action again over Gdynia, where they sank the
Polish destroyer Wicher and the minelayer Gryf.
After disrupting the enemy’s air and naval defenses, the
Stuka could now perform its primary role in the Blitzkrieg campaign: to act as
“flying artillery,” disrupting the enemy ground forces and clearing a path for
the oncoming Panzer and mechanized formations. Around noon on September 1,
aerial reconnaissance reported a large concentration of Polish horse cavalry
massing along the northern flank of the German XVI Armeekorps near Wielun.
Major Oskar Dinort, the Gruppenkommandeur of I./StG 2 (and the first Stuka
pilot to win the Knights Cross with Oak Leaves), recalled how his Stukas met
the Polish horsemen on that fateful day:
We cross the border at a height of 2500 meters. Visibility
is far from good; hardly a kilometer. Although the sun is now shining,
everything is swimming in an opalescent haze. Suddenly a group of buildings –
either a large estate or a small village. Smoke is already rising. Wielun – the
target!
I stuff my map away, set the sights, close the radiator
flaps; do all those things we’ve already done a hundred times or more in
practice, but never with a feeling so intense as today. Then bank slightly,
drop the left wing and commence the dive. The air brakes screech, all the blood
in my body is forced downwards. 1200 meters – press the bomb release. A tremor
runs through the machine. The first bomb is on its way.
Recover – bank – corkscrew – and then a quick glance below.
Bang on target, a direct hit on the road. The black snake of men and horses
that had been crawling along it has now come to a complete standstill. Now for
that large estate, packed with men and wagons. Our height scarcely 1200 meters,
we dive to 800. Bombs away! The whole lot goes up in smoke and flames.
By mid-afternoon, the Wehrmacht confirmed that as a farm
complex just north of Wielun housed the entire headquarters of the Polish
Wolynska brigade. In response, 60 Ju 87s belonging to the I and II./StG 77
destroyed the headquarters outpost and the Germans occupied Wielan that night.
In the following days, the Stuka squadrons performed over
300 bombing runs on civilian and military targets as the Wehrmacht sped towards
the Polish capital, Warsaw. In the European tradition of conventional warfare,
it was understood that once the enemy’s capital had fallen, the game was over.
The Poles obviously understood this as well as the Germans did. Indeed, the 24
infantry brigades and six mounted brigades defending Polish borderlands put
every ounce of strength they had into preventing the Nazis from reaching
Warsaw. Yet, Poland’s defenses gradually eroded under the relentless
bombardment (and the terrifying wails) of the Stuka dive-bomber.
As the Poles retreated towards Warsaw, however, many of
their number invariably became separated from the main retreat. One such
contingent included six Polish divisions that were trapped between Radom and
their fallback point near the Vistula River. As the Panzer forces surrounded
the beleaguered Poles, more than 150 Stukas arrived overhead to pound the enemy
troops into submission. After four days of enduring the relentless 50kg fragmentation
bombs, and hearing the dreadful scream of the Jericho Trumpet, the encircled
Polish units finally gave up.
A few days later, the Stukas participated in the battle of
Bzura. The Polish Poznan Army (consisting of four infantry divisions and two
cavalry brigades) had moved southeast across the Bzura River, trying to reach
the Vistula in attempt to break through the frontline screen of the German
8.Armee. The ensuing battle of Bzura, which was essentially an
“air-versus-ground engagement,” effectively broke the back of the remaining
Polish resistance. During this battle alone, the Stukas dropped over 388 metric
tons of ordnance on the beleaguered Polish defenders.
Following the collapse of Poland’s defenses, the Stuka units
turned their attention to Warsaw proper. The enemy capital, however, with its
few remaining air defense batteries, put up a valiant last stand against the
invading Stukas and other Luftwaffe aircraft. In fact, one Ju 87 pilot recalled
how tight the Polish defenses were around the capital city:
I had just recovered
from the dive and was corkscrewing back up to altitude when the Polish 40mm
flak caught me fair and square in its crossfire. The ‘red tomatoes’ which this
dangerous weapon spewed out were flying around my ears. Suddenly there was an
almighty crash in the machine. There I was, 1200 meters over the middle of
Warsaw, and I could immediately tell that the machine was no longer
maneuverable.
My gunner reported
that the elevator had been shot off and there were only a few scraps left
fluttering in the wind. Quick decision: the airfield just south of Warsaw was
already in German hands…I had to make it. The machine was steadily losing
height, but I slowly coaxed it along, gently slide-slipped and got safely down
on the first attempt.
But despite the Poles’ best efforts against the Luftwaffe, the air defenses around the city eventually collapsed. Warsaw fell to the Germans on September 27, 1939 – less than one month after the start of the invasion. Throughout the campaign, only 31 Stukas had been lost to enemy fire.
