last-ditch effort to stop Allied bombing runs over the Reich. This program, known as Selbstopfer ("self sacrifice"), was intended to use the Fieseler Fi 103R Reichenberg, a manned version of the V-1 pulsejet cruise missile, to attack enemy bombers and ground targets. Several test flights were carried out by Leonidas Squadron KG 200, and mass production of the converted pulsejet-propelled missiles had begun, but the program was stopped due to intervention from Baumbach who felt that these missions would be a waste of valuable pilots. As part of the Aktion 24 operations, Dornier Do 24 flying boats were modified and loaded with explosives, with the intention that they would be landed on the Vistula River and exploded against river bridges used by Soviet forces. Experienced pilots were to be used to fly the aircraft to a point upstream where it would be left to a "suicide pilot" to ensure a collision with the bridge and ignite the explosives. The assumption that Soviet forces would not react and the unlikelihood of the aircrew managing to return to German-held territory after delivery made the concept highly dubious. The modified aircraft were destroyed on the ground during air raids. Special missions On 1 December 1943, a lone B-24 joined a bomber formation from the 44th Bomb Group. It was reported to have been a machine carrying the markings of a 392nd Bomb Group aircraft. However this unit did not become operational until 9 December. On 27 June 1944, a B-17 of KG 200, with Luftwaffe Geschwaderkennung code A3+FB, landed in Manises airport (Valencia) and was interned by the Spanish government. Parachute troops In July 1944 para-trained commandos of II./KG 200 carried out a parachute assault in July 1944 against French partisan forces on the Vercors Massif plateau in the French Alps where hundreds of partisans had created a stronghold from which they were mounting operations against the German occupiers. These para-trained commandos of II./KG 200 remain a little-known arm of Germany's World War II parachute forces and were listed on II./KG 200's ORBAT (Order of Battle) as the 3rd Staffel. It is possible the paratroopers were actually Waffen SS paratroopers from the 500th SS Parachute Battalion assigned to Kampfgeschwader 200 for this particular mission. KG 200 in the Middle East Beginning in early 1944 (perhaps as early as November 1943) the short-lived Operations Dora and Bunny-Hop took place in the Gulf of Sirte,