Hello,
I am trying to figure out how, how many and which He 162 were brought to the US after the end of WWII. Here's what I found out:
- T2-489: Red 1, W.Nr. 120077
- T2-493: White 7, W.Nr. 120222
- T2-494: Yellow 6, W.Nr. probably 30012
- T2-504: White 23, W.Nr. 120300
Yellow 6 was brought to Kassel before it went to the US. I suspect the others in above list as well, but that's a pure assumption from me (does anybody have any evidence that would support this assumption?).
Now,
www.indianamilitary.org states the following:
"The Americans, under the command of Col. Watson, claimed three machines as part of Operation Lusty, one of them being Lt. Hanf’s Red 1. The three He-162s were taken to Merseburg, an Allied collection point for captured equipment and then taken to Kassel (they may have been flown to these two locations by the Americans) where they were dismantled, crated, loaded on rail cars and sent to the French port of Cherbourg in June, 1945.
They were then loaded aboard the Liberty ship; Richard J. Gatling, along with a large amount of captured German material and shipped to the United States"
That leaves following questions:
- If only 3 were claimed by Op. Lusty and brought to the US by the liberty ship Richart J. Gatling, how did the 4th one arrive in the US?
- Does anybody have the list of aircraft on Richard J. Gatling? The "Sources" of above website mentions "USSAF in Europe memo, Shipment of GAF Equipment and Inventory List for the Richard J. Gatling."
- At least White 4 120067 and White 3 120028 were also at Kassel and another unknown one. That makes 7 in total that were in US hands. Most sources only state 3 He 162 that were handed over to the US. Can anybody explain the difference?
Cheers,
Roger