Wednesday, December 09, 2015

approximately 40 B-17s were repaired and put back into the air by the Luftwaffe, I did not know that... even the Japanese fixed and flew them



And Kim wrote in to let me know "The German use of B-17s effectively made her the 3rd largest operator of that type, after USA and Great Britain. They were mainly used for teaching fighter pilots which angles the bomber's gunners couldn't cover. During WW2 a good number of B-17s landed in neutral Switzerland and Sweden, where they too were put to use by the local air forces." 

Found on https://www.facebook.com/groups/103715686627022/?fref=nf

Macin sent me links to a couple webpages that fill in information about the German use of captured B 17s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kampfgeschwader_200  about a secret wing of the Lufftwaffe, the 200. A book was written about the 200 Geoffrey Thomas: KG200: Luftwaffe’s Most Secret Squadron, Hikoki Publications, August 2004, ISBN 1902109333
and http://www.2worldwar2.com/kg200.htm



KG 200 was a unique unit, which operated a wide variety of aircraft–from the Blohm und Voss Bv-222 Wiking (the largest flying boat of the era) to the Junkers Ju-52, Ju-90, Ju-290 and Ju-188, the Heinkel He-111, and even captured British, Russian, and American aircraft such as the Consolidated B-24 Liberator and the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress. The majority of the captured allied aircraft were repaired, repaired, maintained and flown by the Zirkus Rosarius


https://www.facebook.com/groups/103715686627022/


Force-landed at a Luftwaffe airfield in France on Feb. 4,1944. Repaired and flown by KG200 as A3+KB. She was recaptured at Salsburg,Austria in May 1945.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/dougsheley/4235540555/

3 comments:

  1. The German use of B-17s effectively made her the 3rd largest operator of that type, after USA and Great Britain. They were mainly used for teaching fighter pilots which angles the bomber's gunners couldn't cover.

    During WW2 a good number of B-17s landed in neutral Switzerland and Sweden, where they too were put to use by the local air forces.

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    Replies
    1. I'll be... well, I guess the problem was once they were down, it wasn't worth the effort to get them back in the game for the yanks, and were abandoned. I wonder how many still are out there in Switzerland and Sweden...

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  2. Seeing that the war was over, nobody needed them for bombing, so they were converted for a number of other uses. The Danish air force used the for aerial mapping of Greenland*, and one was converted into a passenger plane. What Sweden and Switzerland did with theirs, I don't know.

    In South America I know of one being used for meat transport (probably in Argentina), and in the US they were used as fire bombers - and at least one was converted into a crop sprayer. But then I've seen a Grumman Hellcat converted for crop spraying too...

    * If you ever see the movie 'Dr. Strangelove', note the shadow on the ground, when Major Kong's B-52 flies low to avoid enemy radar: The shadow on the ground distinctly shows the Danish B-17. They just speeded up the film to match the higher speed of the jet bomber.

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