The first bombing raids from Okinawa began at dawn.
Do 217s rose into the sky in tight v-formations, escorted by packs of Messerschmitt Bf 109s that climbed higher still, like hawks riding the cold currents above the Pacific.
Their engines snarled through thin air, exhaling black smoke trails that stitched the heavens with grim portents.
From the ground below, on the fishing hamlets and naval yards of southern Kyushu, the sound arrived first as a distant, rolling growl.
Like thunder crawling across the horizon, hesitating before it struck.
By the time the Japanese anti-air batteries spotted them, it was too late.
Shells blossomed in ragged black puffs all around the bombers, but the flak was scattered, uncoordinated. Japanese crews were firing blind.
Radar installations had been systematically destroyed by German saboteurs landed weeks earlier.
Fire control was improvised, desperate.
And the German pilots… they did not waver
And somewhere near Kagoshima
