25th June
Having left the megalomaniac general Turanec to his schemes for annexing the Black Sea coast, Tiso and Tuka attempted to continue with the service by service review. General Malar was explaining why they, in fact, couldn't.
"I'm afraid the Chief of the Air Force is unavailable." He said.
"Unavailable? Why? What's more important than briefing the government?" Tuka shouted.
"We'll its rather embarrassing but we appear to have misplaced the air force."
"Sorry, did you say 'Misplaced'?" Tiso asked.
"Yes, we did have one but now we can't find it."
Tiso fought bravely to resist the call of the drinks cabinet, while Tuka handled the yelling and shouting part of the government's official reaction. As the noise died down he re-entered the conversation.
"I'm not sure which is more surprising, that we had an air force or that we managed to lose it." He said, pausing to consider his own question. "On balance I'd say it's having an air force at all that surprises me most, the fact we lost it seems about par for the course."
Tuka nodded in agreement. "How did we even get an air force given our best scientists and engineers all think building armed flying machines is impossible?" He asked.
General Malar looked relieved, this was a question he could answer!
"We got given it by the Germans, a fine fleet of aircraft to serve on the Eastern Front!" He said proudly.
"Given? Our German puppet masters actually gave us something?" Tiso questioned.
"OK we might technically have brought them back in 1942, but 0% deposit and five years interest free credit is basically giving them away." Malar admitted.
Tuka considered replying to correct Malar, but from all he had seen there was almost no chance of either Slovakia or Germany still existing in 1947, so any future repayments were of purely academic interest. Malar continued.
"I do hope we find the air force soon. Thus far we've managed to avoid being bombed by the Allies, but once they find out our 109 are gone they'll be back to level Bratislava! Without that squadron we are defenceless!" Malar warned.
Tiso and Tuka wondered, was Malar's continuing delusion about Slovakia's global importance more or less of a flaw than his belief that a single squadron of fairly obsolete Messerschmitts was enough to deter the might of RAF Bomber Command and the US 8th Air Force?
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Bonus Fact - By mid 1944 Slovakia did have a squadron of old Bf-109Es and even a few newer 109Gs to show off with, they even had some pilots and mechanics to go with them. Sadly these planes didn't make it into HOI3 for some reason, leaving Malar confused and slightly embarrassed and Slovakia air force less.
