Junkers Ju 88, Vol. 3. Day and Nightfighters. Development - Equipment - Operations 1940 - 1945.

[INM@RLM]

There is one other significant point worth mentioning. An extraordinary claim is made by the authors in the table on p.14 and the text on p.12. This is to the effect that all of the Ju 88s re-delivered during 1940 following repair by industry were retreaded to become additional Ju 88 C fighter conversions.
The words used are: in the table "Ju 88 C-1/C-2 (aircraft from the W.Nr.0021-0655 range that were repaired)" and in the text as "A further 68 damaged examples were repaired between February 1940 and October 1941 (a breakdown of monthly Ju 88 Zerstörer production figures is given in Table 1.3, see page 14)."

Unfortunately this is a major misinterpretation of the data. As the 'Meldeliste fertiggestellter Reparaturflugzeuge' sheets of BA-MA RL 3/2184 evidence, in fact these figures report the Ju 88s of all variants repaired by the aircraft industry, and happens these included only two Ju 88 C re-deliveries during 1940. (The 1941 figures do accurately portray the eleven repaired Ju 88 Cs.)

Except for the July 1940 figure the monthly totals of repaired aircraft deliveries in the table are accurate. However, their actual composition as documented in BA-MA RL 3/2184 was:

• 1 in April 1940: a singleton Ju 88 A-1 Aufkl [deliveries of the Ju 88 A-1 (F) conversion from JFM had begun in January 1940]
• 4 in May 1940, comprising: 3 x Ju 88 A-1 plus 1 x Ju 88 A-1 Aufkl
• 2 in June 1940 comprising: 2 x Ju 88 A-1
• 4 in July 1940 (mis-printed here as 3), comprising: 3 x Ju 88 A-1 Kpf plus 1 x Ju 88 A Zerst
• 2 in August 1940, comprising: 2 x Ju 88 A-1 Kpf
• 17 in September 1940, comprising: 17 x Ju 88 A-1 Kpf
• 12 in October 1840, comprising: 10 x Ju 88 A-1 Kpf plus 2 x Ju 88 A-5
• 9 in November 1940, comprising: 7 x Ju 88 A-1 plus 1 x Ju 88 A-5 plus 1 x Ju 88 C
• 7 in December 1940, comprising: 1 x Ju 88 A plus 4 x Ju 88 A-1 plus 2 x Ju 88 A-5

Hence, a total of 58 Ju 88 re-deliveries in 1940 rather than the 57 sum of the figures published here, but including only two examples of repaired Ju 88 Cs (one in July and one in November).

What is true is that the surviving evidence does indicate that at a minimum a further five Ju 88s bearing 01xx-series Werk-Nummern were converted into Ju 88 C fighters, and the probability is this took place during repair or major overhaul. But this work can only have been carried out in a Luftwaffe Werft, and since the first records for these identities only begin in the last half of 1940, undoubtedly all emerged Ju 88 C-2s.

So far from there being a significant Luftwaffe policy initiative to deliberately convert all Ju 88s repaired by the aircraft industry into Ju 88 fighters, all we actually see in the data is the low-volume return of Ju 88 fighters that had suffered damage and had now been repaired.