Junkers Ju 88
The Junkers Ju 88 was a German twin-engined combat aircraft, first flown in 1936, that served through the Second World War as a bomber, dive bomber, night fighter, reconnaissance aircraft and torpedo bomber. Designed to a high-speed bomber requirement, it stayed in production until 1945 and was built in almost 15,000 examples, the most of any German twin-engined type of the period. Only two complete wartime aircraft survive on museum display.
Why It Mattered
The Ju 88 began as a fast bomber, but its real importance lay in how many different jobs the same basic airframe could be made to do. Vintage Aviation News reports that aviation historians consider it one of the most versatile and adaptable German aircraft of the Second World War. It remained in production from 1936 until the end of the war, and almost 15,000 were built. Wikipedia counts it as the most-produced twin-engined German aircraft of the period. It served from the opening of hostilities to the war's final days.
Design Notes
The design grew out of a 1935 requirement for a three-seat high-speed bomber expected to exceed 298 mph. The Air Ministry's Schnellbomber concept asked for a crew of three, a modest bomb load and no defensive turrets, trusting speed for protection. Junkers' chief designer Ernst Zindel led the design, and the first prototype flew on 21 December 1936. Its engines wore annular radiators that gave them the look of radials. The ministry then changed the brief: the bomber also had to dive-bomb, so dive brakes were fitted and the wing structure strengthened. Through all the variants that followed, the basic structure stayed much as it began.
Operational History
The first production aircraft rolled off the line in September 1939. The type's first operation of the war came on 26 September 1939, against British warships in the North Sea; the crews reported hitting the Ark Royal and the Hood, but neither ship was damaged. Over Britain in 1940 it was faster and more manoeuvrable than the earlier bombers, yet it still took heavy losses in the battle. By the summer of 1941 it was the most numerous medium bomber in Luftwaffe service, and on 22 June 1941 it equipped nineteen bomber groups for the invasion of the Soviet Union. Germany also supplied the type to the air forces of Finland, Hungary, Italy and Romania. As a reconnaissance aircraft, in the D series developed from the A-4, almost 1,500 were built between 1941 and 1944, and they served on all fronts. Torpedo variants joined the family too: the A-17 could carry two torpedoes. The fighter versions ended the war as Germany's most important night fighter, with production peaking at 2,518 aircraft in 1944. In May 1943 a night-fighter R-1 landed in Scotland carrying the key German radar systems, which allowed the British to perfect their "Window" system. Late in the war, worn-out airframes were converted into pilotless Mistel flying bombs, flown toward their targets under a manned fighter; operations began in mid-1944. The Luftwaffe had received some 8,000 of them by the end of 1942. Final totals differ by accounting: History of War gives almost 15,000 built between 1936 and 1945, Vintage Aviation News says over 15,000, and Wikipedia gives 15,183.
Afterlife
France and Spain were the type's last active operators, flying their aircraft into the early 1950s. For all the thousands built, only two wartime examples survived to go on display, at the Royal Air Force Museum and at the National Museum of the United States Air Force. More recently, wrecked aircraft have been raised and recovered across Norway and Eastern Europe. At Gardermoen, the Norwegian Armed Forces Aircraft Collection is restoring an example recovered from Jonsvatnet Lake. A night fighter recovered from Hungary's Lake Balaton has also been restored, and its fuselage is now on display at the Deutsches Technikmuseum in Berlin.