On the night of 4 July 1943 there was no rest for the Luftwaffe. Operation Citadel, the offensive against the Soviet salient at Kursk, was scheduled to commence at 03:30 the following day. The Luftwaffe was to put 1,700 aircraft into the air to bomb and strafe the Red Army’s defences. In the north, General Walter Model was supported by the 1st Air Division with 730 aircraft based around Orel under Major General Paul Deichmann. He was responsible for the 6th Air Fleet’s combat operations. In the south under General Hans Seidemann, 1,100 bombers, ground-attack and fighter aircraft, drawn from the 4th Air Fleet, were to fly from airfields around Kharkov and Belgorod in support of Field Marshal Erich von Manstein.
Luftwaffe tipped off
The Luftwaffe’s bases were scenes of organised chaos as row upon row of aircraft stood at cockpit readiness. The plan was that the slower bombers would take off first and circle around while they waited for their fighter escorts to get airborne. However, the Red Air Force had other ideas. Its intelligence showed that Seidemann’s 8th Air Corps, with its extensive experience of flying close air support, had redeployed from the Crimea to the Kharkov-Belgorod sector.
Denne historien er fra Issue 122-utgaven av History of War.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra Issue 122-utgaven av History of War.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
NAUMACHIA TRUTH BEHIND ROME'S GLADIATOR SEA BATTLES
In their quest for evermore novel and bloody entertainment, the Romans staged enormous naval fights on artificial lakes
OPERATION MANNA
In late April 1945, millions of Dutch civilians were starving as Nazi retribution for the failed Operation Market Garden cut off supplies. eet as In response, Allied bombers launched a risky mission to air-drop food
GASSING HITLER
Just a month before the end of WWI, the future Fuhrer was blinded by a British shell and invalided away from the frontline. Over a century later, has the artillery brigade that launched the fateful attack finally been identified?
SALAMANCA
After years of largely defensive campaigning, Lieutenant General Arthur Wellesley went on the offensive against a French invasion of Andalusia
HUMBERT 'ROCKY'VERSACE
Early in the Vietnam War, a dedicated US Special Forces officer defied his merciless Viet Cong captors and inspired his fellow POWs to survive
LEYTE 1944 SINKING THE RISING SUN
One of the more difficult island campaigns in WWII's Pacific Theatre saw a brutal months-long fight that exhausted Japan’s military strength
MAD DAWN
How technology transformed strategic thinking and military doctrine from the Cold War to the current day
BRUSHES WITH ARMAGEDDON
Humanity came close to self-annihilation with the Cuban Missile Crisis, Broken Arrows’ and other nuclear near misses
THE DEADLY RACE
How the road to peace led to an arms contest between the USA and USSR, with prototypes, proliferation and the world’s biggest bomb
THE MANHATTAN PROJECT
Einstein, Oppenheimer and the race to beat Hitler to the bomb. How a science project in the desert helped win a war
