Plane ID please

[Bill Miller]

Axis or Allied? The guys I know... but an ID on the crashed plane may help me place the date and event. Thanks,

Bill.

[Wayne McGee]

With no references available to me, my guess is a Junkers 188. A late war "Schnell" bomber, I think, also employed as a night fighter. Definitely late war.

[phoenix]

I was going to say He-111, But on closer inspection a Junkers 188 or 288 is more likely as the engines on the He-111 have scoop intakes underneath.

By the looks of it the twin tail was lost in the crash landing.

a Ju-288 publicity photo.

[Wayne McGee]

The more I look at the photo the more convinced I am that it's an early version Junkers Ju 188A?-E? the wings and engine nacelles show its Ju 88 ancestry, the outboard bomb racks dissapeared in later versions to reduce drag, and just visible on either side of the nose are radar aerials which give it away as a night fighter. I'll stick with my origional guess of late war in spite of the fact that Wikipedia says the first versions were as early as mid-42, because of; the radar, the uniforms. It's not winter so... late fall '44 or spring '45 around 1345 hrs.
Further usless trivia: Wooden props show the German shortage of metals. Also, this landing appears to have been done with power as all the props are sheared off. I sure hope he just did'nt forget to put those wheelie thingies down. or he will catch proper hell.
(Just kidding about that 1345 hrs)
Hope I helped
Cheers

[Alex Blair (RIP)]

I'll go with the Heinkle 111....
The plexiglass and nose ring are the giveaway on this one...The single tail may be still intact but hidden by the camera angle..
Here is a video and good looking HE111 page..for comparison..

http://www.stelzriede.com/ms/html/su...apg1.htm#he111

[cletrac (RIP)]

I'll go with the 111 too. The 188 is a shoulder wing aircraft and the photo isn't.

[Grant Bowker]

I'm not sure of the true identity of the aircraft.
HE111 seems incorrect. The HE had Daimler Benz engines, if I recall correctly, and the engine cowls in the original photo are typical of the Junkers Jumo engine. The glass nose also seems to be too tall for its width to be a HE111.
My first thought, based on the cowls, was that it was a JU88 but the cockpit is completely wrong. To my eyes the JU188/288 with the taller canopy seems to fit the original photo. The height of the glass nose could explain the apparent shoulder wing of the crashed airplane.

[Bill Miller]

I felt a little silly asking, so I am glad I am not the only one not sure which plane it is. I think the photo illustrates an event that happened in may of 1945. The original participants in the photo identified it as a Junkers 188...

From the 123 LAD War Diary:

2 May 1945. Peheim, Germany.
Weather: Morning - cool and cloudy; afternoon - cool and cloudy; evening cool and cloudy.

"A" Sect., LAD moved to new location near Horn. A 100 hr check being carried out on a tank today.

A Junkers 188 landed in an adjoining field a little distance away about 6 pm this evening. Capt. Duncan and some LAD personnel went out to investigate. The five members of the crew were outside the plane and raised their hands in surrender at the approach of the LAD personnel. Sgt. Heil acting as an interpreter learned they had flown from Trondheim, Norway to surrender. They were given something to eat and taken under armed escort to RHQ.

S/Sgt. Heil has been identified as the one sitting atop the Canopy in the photo I posted. Mr. Heil is still alive at 91 and living on Vancouver Island. I have sent him this photo in hopes of a positive ID and perhaps a bit more detail to the story.

Capt. Duncan has also mentioned this incident and recalled it was a Junkers . However, neither the War Diary or Duncan himself mentioned anything about it being a "crash" landing however, as evidenced in the photo.

Thanks again,
Bill.

[cletrac (RIP)]

Phoenix's picture of the Junkers threw mw off track. That's a high wing Ju 288 and the Ju 188 is a low wing design. I guess that'll make it a 188.

[phoenix]

Sorry about that, to make amends, here is a Ju-188 pics

[sapper740]

Hard to tell from this pic whether the Ju 188 had the 20mm cannons mounted in a belly pack or if it still had the Schrage Musik gun mounted in the fuselage. Another possibility: many of the 188s acted as a "pathfinder" aircraft to direct other fighters without Lichenstein radar to the enemy.

I'd say its definately a Ju188


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Ju_188

quote

For all its good points, the Ju 188 was only a small improvement over the Ju 88 it was supposed to replace. The bombload and bomb-bay was no larger than the earlier plane, so although it could handle a larger load by mounting externally, doing so hurt performance. Even then the performance was rather poor considering all the effort – only 325 mph (523 km/h) or less. One has to wonder about the German armament designers as well, the fancy dorsal turret had only one gun in it, yet they retained the single-gun flexible position only a few centimeters away from it. In the meantime the various projects to finally provide the plane with real tail armament were all abandoned.

Delivery problems of the Jumo were never entirely sorted out, and the only model to be built in large numbers were the E series with the 801.

Even then so few were available that they were generally given out to Ju 88 units, who flew them on "special" missions where the longer range or better performance would be helpful.


unquote

[dsfraser]

The aircraft in question is most likely a Ju-188A-3 torpedo bomber or possibly a Ju-188D-2 maritime reconnaissance aircraft. The radar array indicates the installation of FuG 200 Hohentweil air-sea radar. That and the squiggly "Wellenmuster" camouflage are typical of late-war Luftwaffe maritime reconnaissance and attack aircraft. It is NOT a night-fighter!

If the aircraft did in fact come from Trondhdeim, it is probably a Ju-188A-3 from III/KG 26, based at Gardenmoen and Vaernes, which had the better part of three Staffeln (31 aircraft) on strength on 10 May 1945. The other possibility is that it is one of two Ju-188D-2 on charge with 1.(F)/120 at Sola.

It is impossible to say for sure from this photo. The Ju-188A-3 had a bulge along the lower starboard side of the nose to accomodate a torpedo and a forward-firing 20mm cannon under the cockpit. The D-2 dispensed with these, and had cameras fitted in the bomb bay, with "portholes" under the wing center section. Other than that they are identical. Without a second photo or information on the squadron code on the fuselage, III/KG 26 is my best guess.

Regards
Scott Fraser
Calgary

[Bill Miller]

Thanks to all who responded to my inquiry, but a big thanks to Scott who I think answered that quite definitively!!!

Scott since we are both located in Calgary, perhaps i can buy you a beer sometime?

Bill.