Mystery Ju 87-B Fuselage Section

[Andy Saunders]

The late 'Bill' Hamblen of Bournemouth had in his collection this rear fuselage section of a Ju87 B bearing the code letter 'D' in yellow.

This item was, evidently, an ex-scrapyard find and was for a time on display at Tangmere, and then on the IOW. It is now in a private collection.


Can anyone hazard a guess as to the origins of this interesting relic??

PS - I have been reminded on another forum of Ken West's 'identity' for this relic which he attrirubtes to a loss on 8 August 1940 "near Swanage" with the full codes A5+DN and a possible W.Nr of 1394, the aircraft being a machine of 5./StG 1. I had long ago discounted this identity as credible, but it is useful at least to be reminded of the full fuselage codes.

Any ideas - Peter C? Larry H?

[philippe1]

hello Andy, have you looked inside to find back a hand painted werknummer is there anything left from the tail or does it stops like on your picture?
cheers
phil

[Andy Saunders]

What you see in the photograph is all that exists of this fuselage section.

[philippe1]

its a pitty coz one of the main data plates is located in the tail section.

[Andy Saunders]

Yes, I know. There was also often a Weser Flugzeugwerke plate which usually had the W.Nr painted on the aircraft skin adjacent to the data plate.

This relic fuselage came back onto the radar for me when I put together part of the content of the Ju87 'special' which forms the basis of the current FlyPast Magazine. Chris Goss wrote another of the articles.

It may be of interest to you, Philippe.

[Larry Hickey]

Andy,

I don't have an answer for you on this one, but is it the presumption that this would have been a BoB relic, or could this source also possibly have acquired this on the continent?

Regards,

[Andy Saunders]

Larry

Everything points to this being 'sourced' from a UK crash - although therin lies the puzzle. Which crash? Could it have been pulled out of the sea and brought ashore?

I do wonder if it arrived in the UK (for examination) from France during early 1940 and ended up at Farborough and then the scrap heap. Unfortunately, there is no record of any such thing but I wonder if these codes crop up on any known French crashes?

The only other possibility is that it was brought back from mainland Europe in 1944/45 - but would they really have bothered?

There is one other possibility. Could it be the 5./StG 1 aircraft (0528) which was lost off Brightlingsea on 11/12 Feb 1941? This was reported as J9 + DL. The other codes don't match up...apart from the D.

[Larry Hickey]

Andy,

Is there any evidence that there is a black staffel letter after the "D." I tried to examine this more closely by enlarging it, but couldn't get enough resolution to work with.

Regards,

[Andy Saunders]

Yes, all other letters/numerals are black as far as I recall.

[Andy Saunders]

I am just bumping this query up one more time, in the perhaps forlorn hope that somebody will have a theory or an answer!