Captured German Aircraft

[Gunny Hartmann]

A captured Jagdgeschwader 3 (JG 3 Udet) aircraft by the look of it. They saw action during Barbarossa in the period 22 June - 5 December 1941. The unit destroyed 1,298 Soviet aircraft, in return for 58 losses in aerial combat and 10 aircraft on the ground. Safe bet this is one of them.

Eagle eye Ned, i didn't spot the unit insignia!..

[canti44]

This is a fascinating thread and what a hangar display that would make, captured aircraft in the colours of their enemy!

[Scout]

This is a fascinating thread and what a hangar display that would make, captured aircraft in the colours of their enemy!

Thanks.
Indeed - what a display that would be.

Seems the F4U Corsair was also captured.

At least one by the Germans in Norway.

Supposedly the Japanese also captured one. Details are sketchy though.

Speaking of sketches, the colour sketches of the F4Us with enemy markings are just that - sketches. I assume, they are made with 'artistic lisence,' as there most likely does not exist much detailed evidence of how they would have looked (the Mustangs supposedly are the real deal).

B&W pic supposedly of Japanese inspecting a F4U.

On 18 July 1944, a British Corsair F4U-1A, JT404 of 1841 Naval Air Squadron, was involved in anti-submarine patrol from HMS Formidable en route to Scapa after Operation Mascot (an attack on the German battleship Tirpitz). It flew in company with a Fairey Barracuda. Due to technical problems the Corsair made an emergency landing in a field on Hamarøy north of Bodø, Norway. The pilot, Lt Mattholie, was taken prisoner and the aircraft captured undamaged. Luftwaffe interrogators failed to get the pilot to explain how to fold the wings so as to transport the aircraft to Narvik. The Corsair was ferried by boat for further investigation. Later the Corsair was taken to Germany and listed as one of the captured enemy aircraft (Beuteflugzeug) based at Erprobungsstelle Rechlin, the central German military aviation test facility and the equivalent of the Royal Aircraft Establishment, for 1944 under repair. This was probably the only Corsair captured by the Germans.

In 1945, a F4U Corsair was captured near the Kasumigaura flight school by U.S. forces. The Japanese had repaired it, covering damaged parts on the wing with fabric and using spare parts from crashed F4Us. It seems Japan captured two force landed Corsairs fairly late in the war and may have even tested one in flight.


The below from:
Germany capture F4U-1A

...the Japanese learned form analysis of aircraft shot down or captured. American intelligence received a shock in the summer of 1945 when an aerial photo taken late that May over the Japanese base Tachikawa revealed a large four-engine bomber, dubbed the "Tachikawa Field 104." After the war investigators discovered the plane had actually been an American B-17 Flying Fortress. The plane was a product of Japanese air technical intelligence. Tachikawa happened to be the location of the Army's Aviation Technical Research Institute. Yokosuka, of course, housed the Navy's 1st Air Technical Research Arsenal. Both units sent specialized teams right in behind the Japanese assault troops. From Clark Field the Japanese recovered the turbo-supercharger of a B-17 plus other kinds of spare parts. Eventually an entire B-17E was put together from the collection. Another would be recovered in the Netherlands East Indies, put together from the remains of fifteen B-17s wrecked on airfields there, and a third was found in pretty good shape in the same area. Designer Kikuhara Shizuo, who had originated the [Kawanishi H8K] Emily flying boat, noted how impressed he was that the United States had perfected the B-17's subsystems to such a degree that a minimum of controls were needed in the cockpit.

What the Japanese did with the B-17 they tried with many other planes, studying crashed aircraft, making photos and drawings, salvaging parts, and so on. This effort, like so many others, began as early as the China Incident, where the Japanese recovered a P-40E fighter and an A-20A twin-engine bomber. Within the JNAF these studies were conducted by the same people who did the design work for Navy planes. Thus, of 327 personnel at the Yokosuka main office of the Research Technical Arsenal and 186 at the branch office in Isogo, it has been estimated that roughly 10 officers, 10 civilian designers, and 150 enlisted men worked on studies of foreign aircraft.

Navy Lieutenant Toyoda Takago was one designer who worked in the foreign-technology program. He reports that the Japanese Army sent out most of the field teams, subsequently supplying the JNAF with copies of their reports and lending them aircraft as desired. The single team Takogo remembers the JNAF dispatching went to Burma to study a crashed Mosquito light bomber. But the Navy center would be sent aircraft recovered in the Southern Areas and would send teams to crash sites in the Empire area, including Okinawa, where an F6F Hellcat was recovered after raids in October 1944. British carrier raids in the Netherlands East Indies earlier that year yielded a TBM-1C Avenger. Yokosuka's specialists were surprised at the "extremely strong construction." When an F4U Corsair was captured near the Kasumigaura flight school, "we were surprised there were places on the wing covered with fabric." The JNAF recovered the flight manual for the B-24 Liberator in the summer of 1944, and flew a captured F6F Hellcat. The comparable Army unit also flew the Brewster Buffalo, the Hawker Hurricane, the B-17D and E, and the PBM Mariner.

Flying experience and ground studies were used to compile reports on the foreign aircraft, but because the specialists were preoccupied by their own design work, the studies of foreign planes were fairly basic. Only very late in the war was a special section of three officers and twelve to fourteen men formed just to track foreign technology, first under Commander Nomura Suetsu, then under Iwaya Eichi...

[lithgow]

Both sides ended up with numbers of the other side's planes-types not encountered before or with new features were evaluated and often tested to destruction or used for developing tactics, others used in theatre as squadron hacks until the spares ran out and a few used for operational tasks like recon or agent para drops-actual combat use was pretty rare for the obvious reasons of folks shooting first when seeing the shape of an 'enemy' plane and lack of spares for long term use-the only real exception to this were the Finns who were so short of modern planes that anything that was captured flyable was used in combat.

[Scout]

actual combat use was pretty rare for the obvious reasons of folks shooting first when seeing the shape of an 'enemy' plane

Right.

Hence the writing on this captured Bristol:

'Dont Shoot! - Good People.'

[big ned]

Two of the captured B-17's that the Japanese used for technical purposes such as combat counter tactics. No trace was found of either after the war, it's thought they were broken up for the vital materials they contained near the end. First is a B-17D and secondly, an air to air of a B-17E.

[Scout]

We have branched out to all kinds of captured aircraft and thats fine with me. Interesting subjects.

Speaking of which:
Technical Air Intelligence Units (TAIU) were joint Allied military intelligence units formed during World War II to recover Japanese aircraft to obtain data regarding their technical and tactical capabilities.

Technical Air Intelligence operations were fully developed by the time of the invasion of the Philippines. Considerable instruction was given to the troops on the equipment likely to be found and the importance of its preservation. The TAIU-SWPA moved from Australia to the Philippines in early 1945 and gained an appreciation of the state of enemy technological and economic development essential to the build-up for the planned invasion of Japan. Aircraft acquired there included examples of the Mitsubishi A6M Zero, Mitsubishi J2M "Jack", Kawasaki Ki-45 "Nick", Kawasaki Ki-61 "Tony", Kawanishi N1K "George", Nakajima Ki-44 "Tojo", and Nakajima Ki-84 "Frank" fighters; the Nakajima B5N "Kate", Nakajima B6N "Jill", Yokosuka D4Y "Judy", and Mitsubishi G4M "Betty" bombers; the Showa L2D "Tabby" transport, and the Mitsubishi Ki-46 "Dinah" reconnaissance aircraft.

Below:
A6M2 and A6M5

Mitsubishi J2Ms

Nakajima Ki-43 'Hayabusa' over Brisbane

[Adrian Stevenson]

All interesting stuff. Keep it coming!

[Scout]

As you wish

Zirkus Rosarius (also known as the Wanderzirkus Rosarius) was an Erprobungskommando-style special test unit of the Luftwaffe, specifically of the Luftwaffe High Command, tasked with testing captured British and American aircraft, all of which were repainted in German markings.

The purpose of testing allied aircraft was to discover any strengths or vulnerabilities in their design or performance. This information was highly useful in enabling German service personnel to develop tactics designed to counter strengths and exploit any vulnerabilities.

The unit was formed by Theodor Rosarius in 1943 and was part of the 2./Versuchsverband Oberbefehlshaber der Luftwaffe. The Zirkus also toured operational airfields showing Luftwaffe pilots the captured aircraft and training them in techniques to counter these aircraft. The Zirkus Rosarius seemed to have merited the use of its own Geschwaderkennung ("Geschwader code") of "T9", with a few of the unit's aircraft coming from KG 200, which already used the "A3" identification code of that wing.

Zirkus Rosarius - list of known captured aircraft:

Lockheed P-38 L (F-5E) 44-23725 T9+MK ex 354th Air Service Sq-Delivered intact by USAAF deserter Martin James Monti 13/10/1944
Lockheed P-38 G 43-2278 T9+XB (duplicated) 15th Air Force—accidentally landed at Capoterra Italy 12/061943.
Supermarine Spitfire LF.IX MK698 T9+EK ex-No. 412 Squadron RCAF
Supermarine Spitfire PR.XI possibly MB945 T9+BB ex 14th Photo Squadron/7th PRG USAAF
North American NA-64 Armée de l'Air No. 44 DR+XD
North American P-51 Mustang B or C T9+CK
North American P-51 Mustang B 43-24825 T9+HK "Jerry" Ex 334th Fighter Squadron. captured 6 June 1944
Hawker Typhoon Ia EJ956 T9+GK Ex "SA-I" No. 486(NZ) Sqn.
Hawker Typhoon JP548 T9+GK Ex No. 174 Sqn.
Republic P-47 Thunderbolt D 42-22490 T9+FK ex 358th Fighter Sq/355th FG-captured 7/11/1943
Republic P-47 D-16-RE 42-75971 8+6 then T9+LK ex 301st Fighter Sq/332nd FG-captured 29/5/1944
de Havilland Mosquito B Mk IV T9+XB (duplicated)
Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress F 41-24585 A3+AE "Wulf Hound" from KG 200; ex 360 Bomb Sq/303rd BG captured 12/12/1942
Boeing B-17 F 42-30713 "Phllis Marie" ex 568th Bomb Sq/390th Bomb Gp. Captured 8/3/1944
Boeing B-17 F 42-30048 A3+CE "Flak Dancer" ex. 554th Bomb Sq/384th Bomb Gp. Captured 26/6/1943
Boeing B-17 F 42-5714 DR+PB "Old Faithful" ex 332nd Bomb Squadron. Captured 14/10/1943
Boeing B-17 G 42-39974 "Punchboard" ex 731st Bomb Sq/452nd Bomb Gp. Captured 9/4/1944
Bell P-39 Airacobra GE+DV
Curtiss Kittyhawk Mark III 10+KH
Consolidated B-24 Liberator D 41-23659 I-RAIN "Blond Bomber II" ex 343rd BS, 98th BG, USAAF 20/2/1943
Consolidated B-24 Liberator G 42-78106 NF+FL "Sky Pirate" ex 758th Bombardment Squadron USAF captured 9/6/1944
Consolidated B-24 Liberator G 42-78247 CL+XZ ex 765th BS, 461st BG, USAAF 4/10/1944
Consolidated B-24 Liberator H 41-28641 A3+KB ex 735th BS, 453rd BG, USAAF 4/2/1944
Consolidated B-24 Liberator H 42-52106 "Sunshine" ex 719th BS, 449th BG, 47th BW, 15th AF, USAAF 29/2/1944
Short Stirling Mk.1 N3705 6+8 ex No. 7 Squadron RAF

Below captured Zirkus Rosarius P-47 're-captured' in Göttingen, Germany.

[Scout]

Farnborough

The Captured Aircraft Exhibition, Farnborough, November 1945: Some eighty German aircraft were gathered at Farnborough after the war ended. During October/November 1945, the public was given access: a 'German Aircraft Exhibition' was held from Monday 29 October to Friday 9 November 1945, with the main flying display taking place on Sunday 4 November.

I find these pics very very VERY interesting. Not leat because of the fascinating Dornier Do-335 'Pfeil.'

I'd like to think, its the sole survivor currently on display at the Smithsonian/Udvar-Hazy (and why wouldnt it be)