H5N1 Junkers Ju 52 3mg4e moving the supplies inward grooming for Unternehmen Merkur (Operation Mercury), May 1941. Shortly earlier dawn on twenty May twenty 1941, a flying of 500 carry planes took off from 7 airstrips on mainland Greece. As they climbed upward, the tri-motor aircraft emerged from reddish-orange clouds of dust into bluish sky. The dust clouds were generated yesteryear the propeller launder from hundreds of engines sitting on unpaved runways equally the planes prepared for takeoff. Inside each aircraft, a dozen High German paratroopers sat hunched on sail benches sweating profusely within their heavy uniforms. Each 1 welcomed the cool air that swept through the cabins 1 time the aircraft were aloft. The planes lumbered inward tightly packed formations at depression height over the pale bluish waters of the Aegean Sea toward their objective. Once they crossed the coast of enemy-held Crete, they were greeted yesteryear a tempest of flak that rocked the planes equally if they were trees inward the wind. Ignoring the turbulence, the veteran paratroopers stood up, shuffled toward the cargo door, as well as flung themselves spread eagle toward the Earth below. Once the flying crews had delivered their human cargo to its destination, they turned their aircraft dorsum toward the mainland to charge the adjacent wave. Operation Mercury, the largest airborne invasion the Earth had nevertheless seen, was without incertitude the finest threescore minutes of the Junkers Ju-52 transport, known to its crews equally “Tante Ju,” or Auntie Junkers.
Source :
https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/daily/wwii/iron-annie-the-junkers-ju-52/
https://weaponsandwarfare.com/2017/06/17/merkur/