island until 31 August. While based at Langeoog, Dähne claimed his first aerial victory on 26 August when he shot down a Royal Air Force (RAF) Bristol Blenheim bomber north of Juist. On 23 September, I. Gruppe was withdrawn from the Western Front and was sent to the Eastern Front where it would be based at an airfield at Ponyatovka, located approximately southwest of Roslavl. War against the Soviet Union On 22 June, German forces had launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. Pror to its deployment on the Eastern Front, I. Gruppe was fully equipped with the Messerschmitt Bf 109 F-2. The Gruppe reached Orsha on 27 September before heading to Ponyatovka on 2 October. There, the Gruppe was initially subordinated to the Stab (headquarters unit) of Jagdgeschwader 27 (JG 27—27th Fighter Wing) and supported German forces fighting in the Battle of Vyazma as part of Operation Typhoon, the code name of the German offensive on Moscow. Here, Dähne claimed his first aerial victory on the Eastern Front on 18 October when he shot down an Ilyushin DB-3 bomber. On 20 October, the Gruppe moved to an airfield named Kalinin-Southwest, present-day Tver, and located on the Volga, and to Staritsa on 31 October and then to Ruza located approximately west of Moscow on 3 November. Here, Dähne claimed a Polikarpov R-5 reconnaissance bomber on 18 November. The failed assault on Moscow forced I. Gruppe to retreat to an airfield at Dugino, present-day Novodugino, on 15 December where they stayed until 31 January 1942. Here on 20 January, he claimed two I-61 fighters, an early German designation for the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-3. On 1 February 1942, I. Gruppe was withdrawn from combat operations and was moved to Smolensk and then further west to Orsha. From 8 to 12 February the Gruppe took a train to Jesau near Königsberg, present-day Kaliningrad in Russia, for a period of recuperation and replenishment where they received new Bf 109 F-4 aircraft. The Gruppe was ordered to Olmütz, present-day Olomouc in Czech Republic on 11 April. On 17 May, I. Gruppe relocated to Artyomovsk, present-day Bakhmut. From Artyomovsk, JG 52 supported the German forces fighting in the Second Battle of Kharkov. On 24 May, the Gruppe was ordered to relocate to Barvinkove located approximately west of Sloviansk. On 1 June, the Gruppe then moved to an airfield at Grakowo, located approximately halfway between Kharkov