Junkers Ju 87 attack of the war. The Stukas attacked 11 minutes before the official German declaration of hostilities and hit the targets. The Ju 87s achieved complete success. The mission failed as the German Army delayed their advance allowing the Poles to carry out repairs and destroy all but one of the bridges before the Germans could reach them. A Ju 87 achieved the first air victory during World War II on the morning of 1 September 1939, when "" "Leutnant" Frank Neubert of I./StG 2 "Immelmann" shot down a Polish PZL P.11c fighter while it was taking off from Balice airfield;
Junkers Ju 87 Secretary of State for Aviation Erhard Milch, feared that such high-level nerves and skill could not be expected of "average pilots" in the "Luftwaffe". Nevertheless, development continued at Junkers. Udet's "growing love affair" with the dive bomber pushed it to the forefront of German aviation development. Udet went so far as to advocate that all medium bombers should have dive-bombing capabilities, which initially doomed the only dedicated, strategic heavy bomber design to enter German front-line service during the war years — the 30-metre wingspan He 177A — into having an airframe design (due to Udet examining its design details in