Operation Southwind begins. A fleet of B-17s bomb Wolf to disappate the cloud surrounding the Neuroi Core. A Strike Unit consisting of Wilcke, Barkhorn, Hartmann, Yeager, Miyafuji, and Bishop drop from the bay of a modified B-17 onto Berlin to attack the small core with the remaining members of the 501st staying back to the protect the bomber fleet. The Core lands in front of the Brandenberg Gate leading the witches into a trap as Neuroi walls drop from the sky circling Berlin and the strike team. With the B-17s taking heavy losses, Patton orders a withdrawal over Barkhorn's objections. Miyafuji, whose powerful shield abilities are seen as key to the capture of Berlin, is sent ahead back to base to preserve her magic power along with Hattori. They are soon overrun by the formation of new large Neuroi and Hattori stays behind to fight it off and destroy the Core hidden below the fuselage.
Back at base, Patton orders Miyafuji grounded until it is time for the final assualt on Berlin and discusses a new secret weapon with Bradley that he plans on using against the Neuroi Meanwhile, a new much larger Neuroi similar to the one Hattori fought during the retreat from Berlin heads towards Kiel. The Strike Witches sortie to destroy it, but are unable to find the Core which Hattori mistakenly assumed would be in the same location as the previous one. Hattori is wounded and crashes on the Neuroi's wing. With the Neuroi about to launch a kamekazi attack on Kiel and the Strike Witches being battered, Miyafuji escapes from Sakamoto and takes off in her Striker Unit. Deploying a massive shield, Miyafuji saves Kiel, Yeager rescues Hattori, and Litvyak destroys the Neuroi Core located in the tail.
Afterwards, the medical staff can find no trace of magic power coming from Miyafuji as she is taken away on a stretcher, and after hearing this Hattori collapses on the ground from a combination of shock and bloodloss.
Tropes in this episode:
- Big Damn Heroes: Twice Hattori is saved from certain death by Yeager flying in out of nowhere.
- Coincidentally, this episode aired just two days after the death of the real life Yeager.
- Call-Back: Back in the previous season, Yoshika used up all of her magic by wielding the Reppumaru to finish off the Neuroi holding Mio hostage. In this episode, she did the same thing by defending Kiel, though time will tell if this really sticks.
- Propaganda Machine: After the withdrawal from Berlin, the newspapers proclaim it a tactical victory which while failing to capture the city discovered vital information about the enemy and that the Allies escaped with minimal losses. Minna and Gertrud are well aware of the truth about the scope of their failure, with the latter outright referring to the reporting as censorship.
- Schmuck Bait: The unprotected Neuroi Core in the center of Berlin. The Witches do suspect something is up, but they have their orders so they blunder into the trap anyways.
- Wham Episode: Yoshika, being the Cowboy Cop and Military Maverick she is, ignored her given order and defended Kiel from the Neuroi's Suicide Attack at the expense of her remaining magic reserves, putting herself in a very serious risk of being unable to use magic or even fly since the medical staff couldn't find any traces of her magic. To make matters worse, it is heavily implied that all of this, as well as Yoshika (and Shizuka) passing out from exhaustion, was a Xanatos Gambit orchestrated by the Neuroi all along, giving the 501st a much harder time to take back Berlin.
