Hurricanes were badly damaged by ground fire. One of the squadron was shot down by a Fiat G.50 and bailed out — the Italians disappeared before they could retaliate. In the afternoon, he was briefed to strafe the heavily defended Fieri airfield. It was an unpopular sort of mission. At 25,000 feet, they were intercepted and a dogfight began with G.50s and Macchi C.200s. Only Pattle and one other Hurricane attacked the airfield. Furious, Pattle berated the pilots for not carrying out their primary assignment. He had claimed one enemy fighter as a probable and proceeded to the airfield to claim another victory — his 25th — and claimed another three on the ground. Battle for Greece On 6 April 1941, Adolf Hitler resolved to end the conflict in the Balkans and subjugate Allied-sympathetic states. The Invasion of Yugoslavia began in the morning. The German Wehrmacht also intervened in Greece thus beginning the Battle of Greece. Italian failures had allowed another British foothold on the continent too close to the Romanian oilfields — Germany's ally. No. 33 Squadron was immediately put on alert. At noon, Pattle was ordered to fly a fighter patrol over the Rupel Pass, Bulgaria, another Axis partner. Here he had his first encounter with the Luftwaffe. No. 33 Squadron attacked 20 Bf 109s and claimed five without loss. Pattle claimed two victories over Bf 109Es over the Rupel Pass —Oberleutnant Arno Becker was killed and Leutnant Klaus Faber was captured. These successes represented his 26th and 27th aerial victories. Thereafter, details vary as to his score as all records were destroyed. The following day, he acted as escort for No. 11 Squadron RAF. Only one enemy aircraft was sighted by Pattle, though none of the squadron could see it. He left them in order to deal with the intruder. Thirty seconds later, they witnessed an explosion and a CR.42 fall to the ground while Pattle rejoined them. It is believed he attacked a reconnaissance Dornier Do 17 from Sturzkampfgeschwader 2 ("dive bomber wing 2") which he claimed destroyed, though it appears it made it back to German lines damaged. On 8 April, despite bad weather, Pattle led an attack on Petrich in Bulgaria and left a number of enemy aircraft destroyed on the ground. The air war intensified after a period of bad weather and the Luftwaffe began exerting severe pressure on communications and Allied ground