The German operations plan envisaged the rapid linking up of East Prussia with the Reich. Supplies for the 3rd Army were to start coming up by rail as soon as possible. But there was one particularly vulnerable bottleneck : the Vistula crossing at Dirschau. On no account must this bridge be blown. An army task force under Colonel Medem was to push forward from Marienburg by armoured train, take the bridge by surprise and secure it, while the Luftwaffe pinned the Poles down by repeated attack, and stopped them blowing the bridge before Medem arrived.
It was this on which Dilley was engaged. His target was not the bridge but the ready-prepared detonation points close to the station. A microscopic target ; just a dot on the town plan. For days his squadron had been rehearsing this attack against a dummy target near its base at Insterburg. Further, they had several times boarded the Berlin-Königsberg express, and, crossing the Dirschau bridge, established that the detonating leads ran along the southern slope of the railway embankment between the station and the bridge. On this they built their plan : they would attack at low level and let fly with their bombs at closest possible range.
For this special mission they had yesterday been sent forward from Insterburg to Elbing. And now this accursed fog. It hung over the airfield at scarcely 150 feet, trailing patches right down to the ground.
All the same Dilley was willing to risk it. From Elbing to Dirschau is but a stone's throw : eight minutes' flight. He would go in first, followed by Lieutenant Schiller and then an experienced N.C.O. Taking off in the half-light at 04.26 they turned south and raced close over the tree-tops through the fog patches.
At 04.30—exactly a quarter of a hour before the official outbreak of hostilities—they caught abrief glimpse of the dark ribbon of the Vistula ahead, and Dilley turned north to follow its course. Now he knew that he could not miss the bridge. His fears were groundless : there it was already in the distance. The great steel construction was unmistakable.
04.34 : on all sides the country seemed wrapped in peace. But three Stukas raced over the ground at thirty feet towards the embankment left of the Dirschau bridge ... three Stukas , each with a 500-lb. bomb under the fuselage and four 100-lb. bombs under the wings.
Just short of the embankment Dilley pressed his release button, jerked back the stick, and had already cleared the railway with a mighty leap as his bombs exploded behind him. Following in echelon to port and starboard the other two pilots also hit the target.
It was the first Stuka attack of World War II, and took place fifteen minutes before "X-hour".
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