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Re: Dornier Do 24 Units
Thank you, Jim
Well, on the principle that information, like muck and money, does most good when it is spread well around, to complete the picture here is a summary of Dutch wartime Do 24 deliveries to the Germans.
Previous writers have made some rather heavy weather here, but the ruling principle is actually simplicity itself. Excepting what became WNr. 991 assembled by SNCA-N in France and so allocated the airframe construction number of FS1 (for Frankreich Sartrouville maybe?), every other Do 24 airframe manufactured in Holland was assigned a unique, sequential Avio (Aviolanda) construction number. These ran in a continuous, unbroken sequence starting with Avio 74 for the first Do 24 K-2 completed by order of the new German occupiers, and ending with Avio 269 as the last Do 24 delivered to the Germans.
[Ironically, this key piece of information was pointed out long ago by Baart van der Klaauw in an article published in the November 1993 issue of Air International: "Going Dutch - the Aviolanda story", pp.250/3. These ultra-clear statements appeared there on p.253: "
"Dornier Do 24K-2 c/n 74-86 - for Luftwaffe (13)
Dornier Do 24T-1 c/n 87-269 - for Luftwaffe (183)"
Apart from changing Do 24T-1 to T-1/-2/-3, these statements have proved completely accurate and corroborate a total of 196 Do 24s delivered from Dutch production.]
Since the Germans could and did change how they assigned Werk-Nummern to Dutch Do 24 airframes as well as those they assigned to each of the different individual sub-assemblies - wing-sets, tailplane elements etc. - the unchanging sequence of the unique Avio c/n assigned to each airframe became the master reference number for every part of the Dutch Do 24 manufacturing process.
As pointed out above the difference between 269 and 73 is 196 and this identifies clearly the total number of Do 24s delivered to the German forces from Dutch production.
These finished aircraft were then assigned RLM Werk-Nummern in three different series:
First came:
WNr. 0001>0043 (43)
WNr. 0045>0100 (56)
Total 99
The sequences had then to be split into two as it became clear that for a regular six Do 24 deliveries per month every month from Dutch production a second final assembly site would be required. (With another four to come each month from French production, the Germans were aiming for a steady state of ten Do 24 deliveries per month. That was, until the roof fell in and on 20-Jul-44 the Germans instructed that all Do 24 production was be discontinued. That order brought French deliveries to an immediate halt - besides two of the plants producing key fuselage parts for SNCA-N Do 24 production were in Normandy near Le Havre, but in Holland Do 24 deliveries continued on into September as airframes already well advanced in construction at the time of the order were completed and delivered.)
The results of the split were:
three blocks in a new 2XXX series (all Do 24 T-3s)
1. 2101>2105 (5)
2. 2110>2115 (6)
3. 2125>2135 (11)
Total 22 (or something close to this structure, although the total of 22 is beyond any reasonable doubt)
and these nine blocks in the main 3XXX series (also all Do 24 T-3s)
1. 3211>3214 (4)
2. 3231>3240 (10)
3. 3261>3268 (8)
4. 3296>3310 (15)
5. 3331>3335 (5)
6. 3341>3350 (10)
7. 3381>3390 (10)
8. 3401>3408 (8)
9. 3431>3435 (5)
Total 75
Grand total 196 (=99+22+75)
The final example Do 24 T-3, WNr.3435, Stkz. VH+JM, subsequently becoming AM116 and RAF serial VN870 post-war.
Categorized by sub-type the overall picture of Dutch Do 24 production is:
12 Do 24 N (WNrn.0001 & 0002, 0004>0013)
1 Do 24 T - in effect this was the T-Serie Musterflugzeug/Pattern Aircraft (WNr.0003)
11 Do 24 T-1 (WNrn. 0014>0024)
37 Do 24 T-2 (WNrn.0025>0043, 0045>0062)
135 Do 24 T-3 (WNrn. 0063>0100 = 38, plus the 22 of the WNr. 2XXX series and all 75 of the WNr. 3XXX series)
Total 196
After that there are a couple of oddball aspects to the Dutch portion of the Do 24 story. Those are probably best dealt with in a separate post.
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