Captured German planes, not from eBay

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by David E. Brown

Nick,

Good things come in threes.

I found the following photo of a third Ju 188 D-2 in my files. This is from the late (and sorely missed) Jim Crow and identified as "Ju 188 at Innsbruck Austria in 1945" (Holmberg #10161). It is a poor quality image but the wellen of RLM 76 sprayed on the forward fuselage under the canopy differentiates it from the two other machines at Innsbruck-Hötting.

It appears the last two letters of its V-kenn are "CP". If so, it is possibly another Italian refugee from 6.(F)/122, hence “F6+CP. Like “DP” and “PP”, the FuG 220 antenna is visible on the nose canopy, and it is fitted with the straight Eberspächer flame suppressors. Unfortunately, the wing-mounted FuG 216 antennas cannot be discerned.

Cheers,

David

That reminded me that I had the same photo from Jim Crow. Here it is after a bit of adjustment. F6+CP is quite possible (the unit had one with those codes in January 1945) and maybe +GP (they lost a GP at the end of December but I don't know if they received a replacement). It looks like there's a four-digit number below the cockpit but no chance of reading it.

I can't make out any tail-warning radar antennae either. Worth noting though that a decrypt of 26 March 1945 complained that increased Allied night fighter activity was making operations from Bergamo (base for the Ju 188s of FAGr. 122 and KG 200's Kdo. Carmen) impossible and ops would only resume after tail-warning FuG 217 had been fitted.