South of Moscow stood a German airfield. Though dawn had not yet broken, the airfield was already ablaze with lights. A squadron of dive bombers, a squadron of ground-attack aircraft, and a squadron of FW-190 fighters were making preparations for takeoff.
This was a large airfield, originally belonging to the Russian Air Force. But after the German military arrived, the Russian forces abandoned the airfield and fled. After taking it over, the German military repaired and expanded it. Now, it had become an important German Air Force airfield on the Moscow front. More than two hundred aircraft of various types were parked across the airfield.
Inside the operations room, the pilots crowded together to receive their combat briefing.
"Gentlemen, your target this time is a train. The train will travel from Moscow to Vladimir, then from Vladimir to Nizhny Novgorod. We still do not know exactly where the train is at the moment. However, once day breaks, it should be somewhere between Vladimir and Nizhny Novgorod. You will need to find it."
"Once you find the train, you are to destroy it. Blow it to pieces completely. A great many people will surely escape from it. When that happens, you are to attack those people. If possible, kill every last one of them."
"Additionally, there is a Russian unit both ahead of and behind the train. If you have any bombs and ammunition left over, you may attack them as well."
"Finally, good luck!"
A German Air Force major general began assigning the combat mission.
"General, are we going to kill some important Russian figure? No matter how you look at it, it seems like some big shot is fleeing Moscow and trying to escape eastward!" a squadron commander said.
"Yes. But I don't know who our target is either.