difference and give the attack time as 05:40; he also cites an eyewitness account giving the attack time as "shortly before 6 a.m." and notes that the eyewitness testimonies are likely unreliable as they were collected in 1961, two years after a commemorative plaque was put up in the town, giving the time as 04:40. He concludes the eyewitnesses were likely influenced by the plaque, which "corrected" their memories. In 2004 the Polish Institute of National Remembrance stated that there was no time difference between Poland and Germany and gave the time of initial bombing as 05:40. Even if the time 04:40 was to be correct, several historians identify the first (aerial) action of the war as the bombing of the key Tczew bridge in the Pomeranian Corridor by bombers from Sturzkampfgeschwader 1 around 04:30. Events On 1 September 1939, 29 Junkers Ju 87B Stukas of I group Sturzkampfgeschwader 76, under command of Captain (Hauptmann) Walter Sigel, took off from Nieder-Ellguth airfield. Half an hour later they reached Wieluń unopposed and dropped 29 500-kilogram bombs and 112 50-kilogram bombs. One of the first places hit was the hospital, which likely had Red Cross markings; 32 persons in the hospital were killed. After the hospital began burning, German pilots strafed patients trying to escape the building. Within the hour all 29 aircraft landed back at Nieder-Ellguth, where Sigel reported "no noteworthy observation of the enemy." German pilots reported "blue skies" during the attack and gave detailed descriptions of buildings bombed. After the initial attack, German pilots reported no enemy presence in Wieluń. Two Dornier Do 17 reconnaissance planes that had surveyed the area between 04:50 and 05:02 for Polish military units, reported locating several, the nearest to the town being in a forest southwest of Wieluń. Several more waves bombed the town; sources vary as to the number. One of the latter waves, described by Piątkowski as the second, of Stuka bombers of I./Sturzkampfgeschwader 77, was commanded by Captain Friedrich-Karl Freiherr von Dalwigk zu Lichtenfels. Książek describes the second wave, which bombed the town at 05:08 (or 06:08, according to the IPN, which does not name its commander, only the unit: I/StG 77), as being commanded by Captain von Schönborn, likewise of Sturzkampfgeschwader 77. II./Sturzkampfgeschwader 77, was actually commanded by Hauptmann Clemens Graf von Schönborn-Wiesentheid. At 13:00 hours (or 14:00) a third wave of 29 Stukas of Sturzkampfgeschwader 2, commanded by