[Marcel Hogenhuis]

Dear all and hello (again) Kim

First of all, the planned A-5, 3 seat He219 was never built in any substantial quantities as suggested by several publications but...

1) from the very beginning, the design of the He219 envisaged an emergency seat (Notsitz) in the rear fuselage as can be seen in the He219A-0 handbook.
2) the first unit who tried a field modification, was the II./NJG 1 in Deelen. In some of the He219's received from the I./NJG 1 in Venlo, the aft entrance door (behind the weapons bay alias Waffenwanne) was replaced by a plexiglass panel (and perhaps a short barreled MG too, the documents I have are not very specific about that).
3) Heinkel also envisaged a 3 seat cockpit, one in a tandem configuration, one in a wider concept and the assignment of a He219 for this planned V-34 was no sooner than February 1944 (Wnr. 190112). The second planned 3 seats He219 (V-23) effectuated not earlier than April 1944 but the modification job was started in June 1944.
4) as far as I can recollect from a recent mail to Kim, almost all accidents with 3 and in one case even 4 victims are not related to any operational 3 seats He219 but during a rapid movement of a Staffel. I would like to remember the honourable members/readers of this discussion board that not every Fw190 that crashed with two victims was a two seater: sometimes pilots took their 1th technician with them if a rapid tactical movement was neccessary.

What remains is a most interesting find of a He219 in Danish waters for which no documentary evidence or loss report has popped up so far. So an identification of the wreckage will hopefully a new addition for the still expanding database of known He219's.

All the best, Marcel Hogenhuis / Venlo