He 59 WNrn 532 and 538

[Adam]

Does anyone have any information such as units, Skz or Vkz, etc on either He 59 Wnr 532 and/or 538? Would I be correct in assuming that both of these aircraft were part of an initial batch produced by Heinkel?

Thanks

[Seaplanes]

Hi Adam,

both aircraft were a part of a batch of 16 He 59C produced by Heinkel 1934/1935.
W.Nr. 532 suffered a 100% accident on 06.12.1939 at Bug auf Rügen. Crashed during take-off due to loss of power. The aircraft served with an unspecified flying school.
W.Nr. 538 was taken over in October 1934 and given registration D-ABAZ. Last mentioned in December 1936. Then no further info.

[Adam]

Hi Seaplanes,

Thanks for the information. According to Roba and Ledet, Volume 1, 538 was damaged by bombs on 30-31/12/38 whilst serving with AS/88, while an unreferenced note in my files similarly suggests 532 flew with the unit. (The same note mentions 534, TW+HH, as also involved with the unit.)

As far as training units go, what little I've looked at training schools, only Parow and Putniz seemed to have had quantities of the type on strength..?

[JoMe]

Hi all

He 59 C / 532: In Jet&Prop 1/99, page 61 I read, this He 59 was destroyed by an crash-landing at Pollensa/Spain on 28/29.08.1938. At this time the plane belonged to AS/88 (Legion Condor).

best wishes
JoMe

[INM@RLM]

The information in the post from JoMe whilst completely accurate can easily be misinterpreted so as to draw an incorrect conclusion. (As I did myself until I cross-checked the point.)

There is unfortunately a partial overlap between the ‘tail numbers’ (individual aircraft identity numbers) allocated by the (Nationalist) Spanish Air Force to the He 59 and the Werk Nummern of the first (main) He 59 C batch built by EHF at Warnemünde.

The He 59 destroyed on 28-Aug-38 landing at Polensa in rough seas after carrying out a night raid was ‘tail number’ ‚532’. It may also have been W.Nr. 532 but overwhelmingly the probability is that it was not.

Teasing these two aspects apart, this is what I have pieced together so far:

1. The He 60 and He 59 allocated early on to the Legion Condor in Spain were most likely all drawn from this part of the EHF sequence of manufacturers’ Werk-Nummern:

1.1 He 60 D (17 examples) W.Nr. 485 > 501 (Heinkel Werke, Warnemünde, 1934 production batch) [ordered under the Rhineland LP?] - production batches reconstruction from Günther Ott: He 60 in Jet&Prop 2/92.21

1.2 Intervening batch possibly/likely 26 He 46 B

1.3 He 59 C (16 examples) W.Nr. 528 – 543 (Heinkel Werke, Warnemünde, 1934/5? production) [ordered under the Rhineland LP]

2. Tail Numbers allocated to the aircraft of AS./88 are tabled in Appendix 5 ‘Aircraft Numbers’ on pages 186/7 of Rafael Permuy López & César O’Donnell: ‘Sea Planes of the Legion Condor: The Story of AS./88 Squadron in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939’ (Schiffer Publishing Ltd, 20 Feb 2010):

Assigned to AS./88 1936-37
511 to 515 He 60
521 to 526 He 59
527 Ju 52/3m (W)
528 to 530 He 59

Assigned to AS./88 1938-39
531 to 548 He 59

So some of the He 59 carrying tail numbers 521 to 526 and 528 to 548 carried Werk-Nummern from the W.Nr. 528 to 543 block. The possibilities for confusion are self-evident and - without complete precision - endless.

That the He 59 destroyed on 28-Aug-38 was reported as tail number 532 and not W.Nr. 532 is made crystal clear in the text and photos on pages 128/9 of this Schiffer title („this was aircraft number 532“).

This treatment seems abberant and rather parochial but is consistent with practice in accounts of the Do 24 in its Spanish service. Indeed one began to wonder whether the Spanish Air Force ever even recorded Werk-Nummern. Subsequently José Luis González Serrano in his invaluable (expensive but worth every penny) ‘Las Unidades y el Material del Ejército del Aire Durante la Secunda Guerra Mundial’ has proved W.Nr. were indeed recorded. So one day we just may even have the full story by W.Nr. of which German aircraft were transferred to Spain or the Spanish forces. However, the Werk-Nummern seem only to have been used by the engineers. Spanish AF units and users only ever identified individual aircraft by tail numbers.

[Adam]

Thanks for the detailed response. Much appreciated.