AEROspeciál 18 Letecká válka 22.června 1941, 1. část Předehra – Šnajdr Miroslav (2024)

On Sunday, June 22, 1941, the Wehrmacht launched an attack on the USSR under the code name Barbarossa. The conflict is unparalleled in modern military history in terms of the scale of military operations, the degree of destruction, and the number of casualties. Ground battles were accompanied by significant air activity. An extraordinary number of clashes occurred, in which the Soviet military aviation faced attacks from German and Romanian air forces from the morning. This introductory part of a series of publications presents the deployment of Soviet military aviation during the period between September 1939 and the summer of 1940, during the journey of Stalin's Soviet Union towards the fateful June 22, 1941. We will explore the engagement of Soviet pilots and their aircraft during the attack on Poland, during the so-called Winter War against Finland, during the occupation of the Baltic states, and in the eastern part of the Kingdom of Romania. These often overlooked campaigns significantly influenced the development of Soviet military aviation immediately before the German attack and also prepared the geographical backdrop for the gigantic clash of the summer of 1941. The air battles on June 22 actually took place largely over territories that just a short time before were not under Stalin's control: these were territories that belonged to the Second Polish Republic, Estonia, Latvia, before the outbreak of war...