Changing an aircraft's Werknummer

[Richard T. Eger]

Dear All,

Jim West alerted me to the following which is quoted verbatim from the Smithsonian's NASM website.

"Focke-Wulf Fw 190 F-8/R1

...

Nicknamed the Würger (Butcher Bird), the Fw 190 entered service in 1941 and flew throughout World War II on all fronts. It was the only German single-seat fighter powered by a radial engine and the only fighter of the war with electrically operated landing gear and flaps. Some served as fighter-bombers with ground attack units, but the Fw 190 is best known for defending against Allied daylight bombing attacks.

This Fw 190 F-8 was originally manufactured as an Fw 190 A-7 fighter. During 1944 it was remanufactured as a fighter-bomber and issued to ground attack unit SG 2. After Germany's surrender it was shipped to Freeman Field, Indiana, then transferred to the Smithsonian in 1949. Its 1980-83 restoration revealed a succession of color schemes. It now appears as it did while serving with SG 2 in 1944.

Transferred from the United States Air Force.

The NASM Fw 190 left the production line in late 1943 as a Fw 190A-7 fighter. After suffering damage during operations it was repaired and remanufactured into an
Fw 190F-8 fighter bomber. The conversion involved fitting a new wing and bomb racks to the original fuselage and adding armor plate around and beneath the cockpit. Reissued to the Luftwaffe, the aircraft flew on the Eastern Front during late 1944, probably on strength with SG 2 (Schlachtgeschwader or Ground Attack Wing 2) based in Hungary. The exact circumstances of its capture remain obscure but it was probably flown, during the war's final days, to an airfield in western Germany and handed over to Allied forces.

After Germany's surrender on May 8, 1945, "Watson's Whizzer's" commanded by U. S. Army Air Forces (AAF) Col. Harold Watson, prepared this Focke-Wulf and a number of other German aircraft for shipment to the United States. In June, the NASM aircraft was loaded aboard the British aircraft carrier HMS Reaper in Cherbourg, France. The carrier sailed for Newark, New Jersey, where eager hands offloaded her war prizes and shipped them to Freeman Field, Indiana, a collection point for captured enemy aircraft. NASM's Fw 190F-8 received the foreign equipment code FE-117 and by September 1945, eleven other Fw 190s had joined it at Freeman Field.

The end of war in Europe rendered further testing unnecessary and technicians at Freeman Field remanufactured FE-117 during 1946 and immediately put the airplane in storage. Unlike many captured German jet aircraft, FE-117 never flew in the United States. By 1949, the Air Force had transferred it to the Smithsonian Institution, joining the collection of other military aircraft in storage at Park Ridge, Illinois. NASM's Fw 190 fortunately escaped the scrap pile when war in Korea forced the Park Ridge facility to close. The airplane arrived at Suitland, Maryland, sometime during the 1950s and Smithsonian personnel placed it in outdoor storage.

Restoration began in 1980 when specialists began sanding through layers of postwar paint applied in the U. S. to uncover the original German Luftwaffe paint and markings. The sanding process exposed something of the rich history of this artifact. It flew first as a Fw 190A-7 fighter but Focke-Wulf later rebuilt it as a F-8 ground-attack fighter-bomber. The aircraft wore at least three different camouflage schemes and a manufacturer's data plate found inside the fuselage indicated that its first Werk-Nummer (serial number) was 640 069. Infrared photographs of the aircraft's vertical stabilizer revealed that after rebuild, Focke-Wulf assigned the airframe a new Werk-Nummer 931 884. Restoration concluded in 1983. The final paint and markings applied were historically accurate for this specific airframe: SG 2 (Schlagtgeschwader or Ground-Attack Squadron 2) during October 1944."

The last paragraph is the one of interest, highlighting that, at least for Focke-Wulf, we have an example of an upgraded aircraft receiving a new Werknummer. If Messerschmitt also followed suit, then Werknummern 110305 and 110306 applied to Me 262B-1a/U1's, might be new assignments applied by the aircraft converter. These Werknummern are not on the currently available assignment lists.

Regards,
Richard

[John Manrho]

Richard,

The Smithsonian information is rubbish. There is no 640069 Werknummer for a Fw 190A-7. See also page 440 of Rodeike's work on the Fw 190. The werknummer 640069 is for Sach.-Nr. 190 140, the Behälterraum mit Rumpfhinterteil and this Wnr. shield has nothing to do with the WNr. of the a/c.

John

[Harold Lake]

Unless I miss my guess, airframe werknummern were NEVER changed for obvious reasons. Not to diminish the good folks at the NASM, but their conclusion that "640069" was the airframe's serial number was a hasty one. In checking, it appears NO Fw 190 A-7s ever used the prefix "640" and for that matter it doesn't appear that this prefix was used by ANY Fw 190 productiion batch. Few things aeronautical are ever cast in stone, but I suspect airframe werknummern may be one such example.

[Richard T. Eger]

Dear John,

I thank you for educating me on this. Apparently, the major component Werknummer was confused as an aircraft Werknummer. I wonder how prominent it was compared to the aircraft's Werknummer.

There have been other discussions of aircraft with 2 Werknummern. This just looked like such a clean case of it that I thought it worth sharing.

Regards,
Richard