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Old 16th April 2011, 22:48
Larry Hickey Larry Hickey is offline
Alter Hase
 
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Boulder, Colorado USA
Posts: 2,982
Larry Hickey
Re: Bf 109 wr.nr.1289

Hello,

I've studied this one carefully and have photos of both a/c, including W.Nr.1289 on a French AF before it FL in Britain. The South Africa 109 apparently arrived in SA without a tail, which had been removed and attached to W.Nr.6313 to make it whole, after someone probably souvenired the swastica from the tail of W.Nr.6313. So to make it whole for display purposes, someone removed the tail from the SA example (1289), and installed it on the one headed for the USA, which explains why to this day, the SA plane has no tail. Apparently there was no tail available for the SA one and it was sent without one.

Regards,
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Larry Hickey
Eagles Over Europe Project Coordinator
http://airwar-worldwar2.com
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