It happened immediately after StG77 under command of major count Shenborn has landed after their first flight that day (22.06.1941) - Soviet bombers has appeared from nowhere. Nobody knew where they came from - from some distant airfields, from the ones that just were attacked or from some undetected ones.

But still, they were coming - waves of 10, 20, 30 twin-engine bombers in close formation. They even were able to drop some bombs - but not many, very soon appeared Luftwaffe fighters and all of the bombers were destroyed. It were strange, hopeless attacks, bombers were holding straight on course, without any manoeuvres to avoid AA or fighters. They had awfull losses, nobody came back home. But when German fighters were destroying 10 bombers, it were coming 15 more.
Squadron commander capt. Herbert Pabst from 6/StG77 has reported: “They were coming till the end of the day. Only near our airfield we saw 21 bombers crash sites. Not a single bomber survived.”

Source: Cajus Bekker “The Luftwaffe War Diaries”

About 20-30 crews from KG2, KG3 and KG53 had a special order. All of them had experince of blind flights. By the 3:00, when bombers were crossing border, they had 5700 meters altitude - maximum available. Their task was to strike three Soviet airfields far away behind lines exactly at 3:15, till that moment to stay undetected.

Unlike a year ago, when Western operation has started, this time “Zero” hour was set by the ground forces, not by the Luftwaffe. Ground forces wanted to attack with sunrise, but they wanted to be protected against enemy air forces. Luftwaffe was able to operate only when sun is up, so ground troops would have to wait.
So was found decision “in the middle” - several bombers crew in the dark has crossed the border, all other units has joined them later. The task was fullfilled completely - bomb strike was absolutely unexpected.

Totally it was 4 air fleets, alltogether they counted 1945 planes, 1280 of them were ready to fly. It were: 510 bombers, 290 dive bombers, 440 single-engine fighters and 40 twin-engines fighters, plus 120 longe-range recon planes.

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