Unknown He 51 Emblem

[sidney]

All,

I have just come across of something what appears like an emblem on the starboard side of a He 51 A-1/B-1 aircraft coded "White 5". Source: An expired eBay auction.

Can someone help me to identify the unit and He 51 model (i.e., A-1 or B-1)?
Could this be the emblem that from a distance was identified as the "seahorse" emblem of I./136 in Prien, Stemmer and others JFV der Deutschen LW 1934-45, Part 1?

Any assistance in the matter will be greatly appreciated.

Regards,
Sinisa

[ouidjat]

Dear Sidney,

At least and to make it quick, this very aircraft has been identified as belonging to 1./JG132 by Jochen, JFV 1, page 24. A B-1.
Not the same photo but, whitout doubt, the same machine. ...
I'll be back!

[ouidjat]

Oups! I./JG136.
I'm sorry Sidney.
...
But you sure to see a Seahorse when I see an eagle?

[Seaplanes]

The most produced version by far of the He 51 was the He 51C model.
The a and b versions being prototypes that was later given V (Versuchsträger)
designations. My source is repair and maintenance statistics for the period
from 1934 up to end of 1940. I believe the aircraft on Your photo is a
He 51C.

[sidney]

Gentlemen, thank you for your feedback.

Franck, providing that this indeed is a I./136 aircraft... it is the authors (i.e., Prien, Stemmer, and others), who interpreted the motif as possibly being a "seahorse". This is I believe because the photo of the I./136 aircraft sporting this emblem in their book was taken from a certain distance. Otherwise, I tend to agree with you - the motif does appear to me more like a diving eagle.

Seaplanes, I am certainly not an expert on the He 51 models. What I read in the literature is that the He 51 C-1 model was developed following the successes of the Jagdgruppe’s 88 dedicated ground attack Staffel (that would be 3.J/88) on the central and northern fronts in Spain. Some twenty-eight of these He 51 C-1 aircraft, equipped with racks to carry four 50 kg bombs, and intended primarily for the Spanish Nationalists, were diverted to the Legion Condor (that is 4.J/88 (2nd formation)) in early autumn 1937.

Thus, my understanding is that the He 51 C-1 was primarily export variant of the fighter, while the Jagdwaffe were busily converting onto the Ar 68 E/F and Bf 109 B aircraft. I would disagree on especially the He 51 B-1 - I do not think that it was a He 51 prototype.

Regards,
Sinisa

[Seaplanes]

Please remember that the two He 51 prototypes, He 51a and He 51b, both were delivered from Heinkel in February 1934, at a time when this way of designating prototypes was still common. Later Versuchsträger (test aircraft) were given designations with the letter V followed by a number.
Like He 51V-6 D-IBYI W.Nr. 995 was actually a D-version production aircraft and the He 51V-7 D-ILGY W.Nr. 1485 was actually a He 51C production aircraft.
The series production of the He 51 did not start until
a year later, in February 1935. In addition to Heinkel in Rostock-Marienehe, the factories of Arado, Erla, Fieseler and AGO were all involved in the final production that ended in May 1937.
All repair and maintenance statistics I have seen, all at Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv in Freiburg, list the He 51C as the main land-plane version. Actually they do not mention the A and B version at all. He 51D being the
float-plane version built in 33 examples.

[sidney]

Although I have immense respect for your research work at Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv in Freiburg, I took my reference from Prien, Stemmer and others, Jagdflieger Verbande der Deutschen Luftwaffe 1934 - 1945, Teil I. There they mentioned He 51 A-1, B-1, B-2 (the floatplane) and C-1 variants. Somehow I doubt that they could get their references that wrong to mistake the A-1 and B-1 models for the prototypes. Nevertheless, I propose that we put our difference on the He 51 aircraft model aside for the time being, and try to concentrate on the unit (believed to be I./136), time when the photo was taken and, of course, the emblem motif interpretation.

[Andreas Brekken]

Hi, all

The interpretation (or should we say version) of the truth presented by an author or authors will always represent the knowledge of said author(s) at the time of conception for a publication.

I have the utmost respect for the work done by Prien et al - but I also know that they have the same understanding expressed in discussions here and elsewhere - the last word is not said on each and every topic they cover in their excellent book series - simply because there are still discoveries of new nuggets of reference gold even today and because their ground breaking work cover such an immensely large number of them - 70 or even in the case of the He 51 production mentioned here - 80 years later.

I doubt there are many people that have used more time and money on trying to understand the pre-war German aircraft production complex than seaplanes - and your dismissal of his work I find quite rude.

So - do an effort and try to verify which version is the correct one (by for example visiting the Bundesarchiv, The Heinkel archives or the National Archives - which in this case seaplanes has already done on several occasions) - or just keep your opinions on who is right or wrong to yourself, and politely say thank you for the additional information presented to you on a plate in this forum.

Regards,
Andreas B

[Clint Mitchell]

Bye

[Andreas Brekken]

Hello, Franck

I am not telling anyone, I merely stated that a plain dismissal of information voluntered on this board underbuilt by original documentation referencing a publication can be perceived as rude.

It is not a big deal - and I do not know if Sidney was misinterpreted. I thought that communities like this was created to share knowledge, not only on specific data and established facts, but also on methodology used to obtain these facts.

My intention, and my native language as for a lot of people here not English, was merely to say to Sidney that it is possible to think what he did in this instance without stating that new information must be wrong as it was not the same as has been published earlier.

We have numerous examples of books, articles etc being published with the same erronous information because the authors use reference works which are outdated.

I do not believe that to be the case for the Jagdverbände series, but there is a reason publications have errata! (And a reason why those of us that put out publications try to read our manuscripts over and over - and get colleagues to do the same)

I also do not quite get the full meaning of your message, but have problems seeing what I have done to be told to go to hell?

I lived in Hell, Norway - close to Værnes airfield in Norway - as a child, but have no plans to visit in the near future.

Regards and take it easy - I was only asking for some respect with regards to the work of a friend,

Andreas B