Battle of the Bzura, also...

history · 09 September 1939 · 85 years ago

Battle of the Bzura, also known as Battle of Kutno to the Germans, began; it was to become the largest battle in the Poland campaign. Elsewhere, German forces captured Lodz and Radom. South of Radom, Stuka dive-bombers of Colonel Gunter Schwarzkopff's St.G.77 finished off the great Polish attempt to cross the Vistula River, crushing the last pockets of resistance in conjunction with tanks; "Wherever they went", reported one Stuka pilot after the action, "we came across throngs of Polish troops, against which our 110-lb fragmentation bombs were deadly. After that we went almost down to the deck firing our machine guns. The confusion was indescribable." At Warsaw, German attempts to enter the city were repulsed. In Moscow, Russia, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov informed the German ambassador that Soviet forces would be ready to attack Poland within a few days. 

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