Employing their fast " lightning war" technique, called " Blitzkrieg, " Hitler's mighty tanks and high-tech air force, the Luftwaffe, swept across Europe.
The planes landed in the blockaded city and local volunteers provided support on the ground. Former mechanics of the Luftwaffe, the German air force, joined Americans in servicing the aircraft.
He was especially critical of the failure to create a new modern, well-appointed British air-force and the rapidity with which the German Luftwaffe overtook the British RAF from 1935 onwards.
An effort to join the Luftwaffe, the German air-force which had been constituted under the command of Herman Goering in the mid-1930s, was also rejected, as Skorzeny's height was an issue.
But he also points out that by forcing the Nazis to move squadrons of Luftwaffe fighters from Russia to defend the Fatherland, Harris's campaign allowed the Soviet air force to establish vital air supremacy.
By late 1940, Halifax was convinced that Britain was secure from invasion as the Royal Air Force prevented the Luftwaffe from gaining the air superiority required for an invasion fleet to cross the Channel.
Skorzeny was only one figure involved in the operation, one which was plagued by rivalry between competing factions within the SS, the SD, the Luftwaffe and the German land army to claim credit for it.
There was no hope to be set free, though, as they and all other prisoners were loaded onto cattle trains and sent to the Dutch labour camp of Vught, where they were forced to make radios for the Luftwaffe.