As a footnote to text point 6 of post #3 above, it might be helpful to explain where this quantity of 47 French Do 24s originated, as well as what makes up the difference between this figure and the correct total of 52.
The total of 47 deliveries of French wartime-assembled Do 24s can be found in German primary records in two different places. One of these is the Lieferplan LP 227/1, effective 15-Dec-44 (BA-MA RL 3/1045). The cumulative delivery figures in this Lieferplan are generally the gold standard for such data. However, there are exceptions and the Me 163 and Do 24 French production totals are amongst those that are demonstrably inaccurate. (By this time it was not possible to telex Sartrouville and obtain better information so the preparers of the Lieferplan simply used the best information they had to hand.)
This came from the other place where this total of 47 French Do 24s is found, which is in the C-Amts-Monatsmeldung for May 1944.
How those C-Amt numbers were built up through 1944 also explains why they are incorrect, the quantities being reported to the C-Amt as below:
Cumulative SNCA-N Do 24 T-3 deliveries at 1-Jan-44 = 21
French Do 24 T-3 deliveries in 1944 by month:
January Month = 5, Cumulative = 26
February Month = 5, Cumulative = 31
March Month = 5, Cumulative = 36
April Month = 5, Cumulative = 41
May Month = 6, Cumulative = 47
When you compare these figures to those in the graph of deliveries included in the CIOS Report for Sartrouville the source of the difference immediately becomes crystal clear: the 2 delivered in June as well as the 2 delivered in July 1944 were never included in the new June and July equivalents of these C-Amts-Monatsmeldungen. (Starting June 1944, the Reichsministerium für Rüstung und Kriegsproduktion took over responsibility for this reporting, and the successor report series that replaced the C-Amt reports were titled as Beiträge zur Beschaffungsmeldung. The Jan- to Nov-44 reports are all on US NARA Microfilm Reel T177-42 and in the BA-MA at RL 3/3733.)
So four of the difference of five between 47 & 52 is down to the exclusion of these June/July 1944 T-3 deliveries, and the balance of the difference of one relates to the singleton Do 24 T-2 assembled and delivered first by SNCA-N. (The two mentions of 47 above both relate specifically only to counts of the T-3 variant delivered from French production.)
[In passing, William Green in his Warplanes of the Third Rech (1970 edition) quoted a total of 48 for wartime French Do 24 deliveries. This was clearly the sum of the 47 T-3s plus the one T-2. However, the breakdown that Green gave on p.135 for the composition of these 48 was entirely fanciful, and it would be just misleading to repeat it here.]
The correct total of 52 Do 24s from SNCA-N can then be found evidenced in one place in a German primary source but finding that required considerable further digging. However, in BA-MA RL 3/1109 are the Dornier (Sonderauschuess Flugzeugzellen F5) monthly status reports for March, May and July 1944 (a spacing which conveniently allows the delivery quantities in April and June to also be deduced). Each status report includes the figures for deliveries in the month and the cumulative deliveries for Do 24 Ts from SNCA-N, with the cumulative delivery figure for French Do 24 Ts in the July 1944 report being indeed given as 52. So QED from both French sources and a German source.
For those interested that do not have easy access to the CIOS Report on Sartroville here are the RLM Werk-Nummern, SNCA-N construction numbers (FS-series) and sub-types for the fifty-two Do 24 Ts listed there as delivered during the German occupation of France:
WNr. 991 (FS1) 1x Do 24 T-2
WNr. 992 (FS2) 1x Do 24 T-3
WNr. 1001>1010 (FS3>12) 10x Do 24 T-3
WNr. 1031>1035 (FS13>17) 5x Do 24 T-3
WNr. 1056>1065 (FS18>27) 10x Do 24 T-3
WNr. 1071>1075 (FS28>32) 5x Do 24 T-3
WNr. 1101>1108 (FS33>40) 8x Do 24 T-3
WNr. 1131>1137 (FS41>47) 7x Do 24 T-3
WNr. 1151>1155 (FS48>52) 5x Do 24 T-3
So an actual documented total of fifty-one T-3s plus the singleton initial T-2: total 52.
These were all extracted from a document dated 26-Feb-43 which undoubtedly came from Dornier at Friedrichshafen.
It is simple enough to deduce why 991 & 992 were so distinctively numbered:
- WNr.991 was built completely from sub-assemblies and parts manufactured in Holland, and had this aircraft been assembled by Aviolanda in the normal manner it would have become WNr.0044 and been assigned an Avio c/n. (So there never was a Do 24 with WNr. 0044. However, instead of being assembled at Papedrecht in Holland it was used to provide on-the-job training to the new Do 24 assembly plant in France, and all it retained of its origin was its Stkz., the c/n being assigned from the new French sequence.)
- WNr. 992 was similarly distinguished uniquely because this was the proof-of-capabiity example for the new French Do 24 plant, being built entirely of sub-assemblies and parts manufactured in France. To further distinguish it from any other Do 24, it seems to have been assigned a Stkz. from a sequence never used for any other Do 24.
(When these two aircraft were being planned in October 1942 during the preparation of LP 222/1, they were pencilled in as WNrn. 911 & 992. Again this plan can be found in BA-MA RL 3/1109.)
So there never were any Do 24 assigned the gap sequence from WNr. 992 to 1000. Those made-up identities were only ever the product of a writer's over-excited imagination.
Some of the reasons why the production of the Do 24 makes such an interesting area for study.