Dornier Do 24 Units

[INM@RLM]

I may have been a little hard on earlier authors in text point 1 when I wrote: “Karl Born stated very clearly that these were the first two Do 24s to see Luftwaffe service with the Seenotdienst and Born never stated that these were the first and second Do 24s delivered during the German occupation.”
The clear statement in Born’s book on the matter of the first two Do 24 assigned to the Seenotdienst actually appeared on one of the photo pages, p.158 “Im Sommer 1940 kamen die ersten dreimotorigen Größflugboote Typ Dornier DO 24 in den deutschen Seenotdienst.” [In the summer of 1940, the first three-engine large flying boats, the Dornier DO 24, entered the German ASR service].
However, in the text on p.140 his statement was not quite so unambiguous: “Es war etwa Mitte Sommer 1940. Wir hatten gerade in Norderney die ersten beiden DO 24 aus Holland bekommen, die besagten weißgestrichen Erstlinge D-AEAV und D-APDA.” [It was around the middle of summer 1940. We had just received the first two DO 24s from Holland in Norderney, the white-painted first models D-AEAV and D-APDA.]

The whole of the paragraph in which this sentence appears is about the Do 24 in service with the Seenotdienst. However, if you put that context to one side, missed seeing the p.158 photo caption statement, and did not check that neither registration specified was assigned to the first Do 24 K-2 delivered to the Germans, you might have thought that in this sentence on p.140 Born was actually referring to the first two Do 24s delivered out of Holland to the Germans.
However, as the primary sources establish, this was not the actual case.

Enough now.

[INM@RLM]

Unfortunately I found another slip in my post #7. I missed pointing out that a second, different Stkz. had also been recorded for this same WNr. 5. So probably better I replace the whole of post 7 with the corrected version below.

Part Two is the two references to KD+BH as WNr. 5, both found in the February 1941 KTB (Bundesarchiv, BArch RM 6/187 Kriegstagebuch Oberquartiermeister: Bd. 18)
[There being no other Do 24s in the Mediterranean until the arrival of KK+UL & KK+UP - WNrn. 7 & 11 respectively - on 27th February 1941, and with the presence of KD+BH also being evidenced independently before that date in Flugbuch Tretter by a Platzflug at Syracuse on 24-Feb-41.]

KTB ---# -KTB -----KTB Entry --KTB -----WNr. ----Stkz.
----------Page No. --Date ----Entry Time
Feb-41 -5 -41 -----27-Feb-41 --0900 ----5 ----KD+GE
Feb-41 -6 -45 -----28-Feb-41 --1645 --- 5 ----KD+DE
The second record here lists the names of the crew i.e it came from the personnel side of the business, not the side that dealt with aircraft.

The reason that WNr. 5 is linked here with Stkz. KD+GE & KD+DE though can be quickly deduced.
This is another case of a contracted WNr. since KD+GE is almost certainly the Stkz. that had been painted onto (a photo exists) Avio 75 (which would have become RLM WNr. 2 had it survived long enough to make the transition, instead of becoming a total loss with 1.Seenotflugkdo at Brest on 28-Oct-1940).

As is evident from the second entry above, not all of the Stkz. recorded in the Kriegstagebuch Oberquartiermeister were entirely accurate.

[INM@RLM]

As a footnote to text point 6 of post #3 above, it might be helpful to explain where this quantity of 47 French Do 24s originated, as well as what makes up the difference between this figure and the correct total of 52.

The total of 47 deliveries of French wartime-assembled Do 24s can be found in German primary records in two different places. One of these is the Lieferplan LP 227/1, effective 15-Dec-44 (BA-MA RL 3/1045). The cumulative delivery figures in this Lieferplan are generally the gold standard for such data. However, there are exceptions and the Me 163 and Do 24 French production totals are amongst those that are demonstrably inaccurate. (By this time it was not possible to telex Sartrouville and obtain better information so the preparers of the Lieferplan simply used the best information they had to hand.)
This came from the other place where this total of 47 French Do 24s is found, which is in the C-Amts-Monatsmeldung for May 1944.

How those C-Amt numbers were built up through 1944 also explains why they are incorrect, the quantities being reported to the C-Amt as below:
Cumulative SNCA-N Do 24 T-3 deliveries at 1-Jan-44 = 21
French Do 24 T-3 deliveries in 1944 by month:
January Month = 5, Cumulative = 26
February Month = 5, Cumulative = 31
March Month = 5, Cumulative = 36
April Month = 5, Cumulative = 41
May Month = 6, Cumulative = 47

When you compare these figures to those in the graph of deliveries included in the CIOS Report for Sartrouville the source of the difference immediately becomes crystal clear: the 2 delivered in June as well as the 2 delivered in July 1944 were never included in the new June and July equivalents of these C-Amts-Monatsmeldungen. (Starting June 1944, the Reichsministerium für Rüstung und Kriegsproduktion took over responsibility for this reporting, and the successor report series that replaced the C-Amt reports were titled as Beiträge zur Beschaffungsmeldung. The Jan- to Nov-44 reports are all on US NARA Microfilm Reel T177-42 and in the BA-MA at RL 3/3733.)

So four of the difference of five between 47 & 52 is down to the exclusion of these June/July 1944 T-3 deliveries, and the balance of the difference of one relates to the singleton Do 24 T-2 assembled and delivered first by SNCA-N. (The two mentions of 47 above both relate specifically only to counts of the T-3 variant delivered from French production.)

[In passing, William Green in his Warplanes of the Third Rech (1970 edition) quoted a total of 48 for wartime French Do 24 deliveries. This was clearly the sum of the 47 T-3s plus the one T-2. However, the breakdown that Green gave on p.135 for the composition of these 48 was entirely fanciful, and it would be just misleading to repeat it here.]

The correct total of 52 Do 24s from SNCA-N can then be found evidenced in one place in a German primary source but finding that required considerable further digging. However, in BA-MA RL 3/1109 are the Dornier (Sonderauschuess Flugzeugzellen F5) monthly status reports for March, May and July 1944 (a spacing which conveniently allows the delivery quantities in April and June to also be deduced). Each status report includes the figures for deliveries in the month and the cumulative deliveries for Do 24 Ts from SNCA-N, with the cumulative delivery figure for French Do 24 Ts in the July 1944 report being indeed given as 52. So QED from both French sources and a German source.

For those interested that do not have easy access to the CIOS Report on Sartroville here are the RLM Werk-Nummern, SNCA-N construction numbers (FS-series) and sub-types for the fifty-two Do 24 Ts listed there as delivered during the German occupation of France:
WNr. 991 (FS1) 1x Do 24 T-2
WNr. 992 (FS2) 1x Do 24 T-3
WNr. 1001>1010 (FS3>12) 10x Do 24 T-3
WNr. 1031>1035 (FS13>17) 5x Do 24 T-3
WNr. 1056>1065 (FS18>27) 10x Do 24 T-3
WNr. 1071>1075 (FS28>32) 5x Do 24 T-3
WNr. 1101>1108 (FS33>40) 8x Do 24 T-3
WNr. 1131>1137 (FS41>47) 7x Do 24 T-3
WNr. 1151>1155 (FS48>52) 5x Do 24 T-3
So an actual documented total of fifty-one T-3s plus the singleton initial T-2: total 52.
These were all extracted from a document dated 26-Feb-43 which undoubtedly came from Dornier at Friedrichshafen.

It is simple enough to deduce why 991 & 992 were so distinctively numbered:

• WNr.991 was built completely from sub-assemblies and parts manufactured in Holland, and had this aircraft been assembled by Aviolanda in the normal manner it would have become WNr.0044 and been assigned an Avio c/n. (So there never was a Do 24 with WNr. 0044. However, instead of being assembled at Papedrecht in Holland it was used to provide on-the-job training to the new Do 24 assembly plant in France, and all it retained of its origin was its Stkz., the c/n being assigned from the new French sequence.)

• WNr. 992 was similarly distinguished uniquely because this was the proof-of-capabiity example for the new French Do 24 plant, being built entirely of sub-assemblies and parts manufactured in France. To further distinguish it from any other Do 24, it seems to have been assigned a Stkz. from a sequence never used for any other Do 24.

(When these two aircraft were being planned in October 1942 during the preparation of LP 222/1, they were pencilled in as WNrn. 911 & 992. Again this plan can be found in BA-MA RL 3/1109.)

So there never were any Do 24 assigned the gap sequence from WNr. 992 to 1000. Those made-up identities were only ever the product of a writer's over-excited imagination.

Some of the reasons why the production of the Do 24 makes such an interesting area for study.

[Jim Oxley]

Wonderful update info. I've printed it out and slipped it into my copy of the book.
Greatly appreciate, many thanks.

[INM@RLM]

Thank you, Jim

Well, on the principle that information, like muck and money, does most good when it is spread well around, to complete the picture here is a summary of Dutch wartime Do 24 deliveries to the Germans.

Previous writers have made some rather heavy weather here, but the ruling principle is actually simplicity itself. Excepting what became WNr. 991 assembled by SNCA-N in France and so allocated the airframe construction number of FS1 (for Frankreich Sartrouville maybe?), every other Do 24 airframe manufactured in Holland was assigned a unique, sequential Avio (Aviolanda) construction number. These ran in a continuous, unbroken sequence starting with Avio 74 for the first Do 24 K-2 completed by order of the new German occupiers, and ending with Avio 269 as the last Do 24 delivered to the Germans.
[Ironically, this key piece of information was pointed out long ago by Baart van der Klaauw in an article published in the November 1993 issue of Air International: "Going Dutch - the Aviolanda story", pp.250/3. These ultra-clear statements appeared there on p.253: "
"Dornier Do 24K-2 c/n 74-86 - for Luftwaffe (13)
Dornier Do 24T-1 c/n 87-269 - for Luftwaffe (183)"
Apart from changing Do 24T-1 to T-1/-2/-3, these statements have proved completely accurate and corroborate a total of 196 Do 24s delivered from Dutch production.]

Since the Germans could and did change how they assigned Werk-Nummern to Dutch Do 24 airframes as well as those they assigned to each of the different individual sub-assemblies - wing-sets, tailplane elements etc. - the unchanging sequence of the unique Avio c/n assigned to each airframe became the master reference number for every part of the Dutch Do 24 manufacturing process.
As pointed out above the difference between 269 and 73 is 196 and this identifies clearly the total number of Do 24s delivered to the German forces from Dutch production.

These finished aircraft were then assigned RLM Werk-Nummern in three different series:

First came:
WNr. 0001>0043 (43)
WNr. 0045>0100 (56)
Total 99

The sequences had then to be split into two as it became clear that for a regular six Do 24 deliveries per month every month from Dutch production a second final assembly site would be required. (With another four to come each month from French production, the Germans were aiming for a steady state of ten Do 24 deliveries per month. That was, until the roof fell in and on 20-Jul-44 the Germans instructed that all Do 24 production was be discontinued. That order brought French deliveries to an immediate halt - besides two of the plants producing key fuselage parts for SNCA-N Do 24 production were in Normandy near Le Havre, but in Holland Do 24 deliveries continued on into September as airframes already well advanced in construction at the time of the order were completed and delivered.)

The results of the split were:
three blocks in a new 2XXX series (all Do 24 T-3s)
1. 2101>2105 (5)
2. 2110>2115 (6)
3. 2125>2135 (11)
Total 22 (or something close to this structure, although the total of 22 is beyond any reasonable doubt)

and these nine blocks in the main 3XXX series (also all Do 24 T-3s)
1. 3211>3214 (4)
2. 3231>3240 (10)
3. 3261>3268 (8)
4. 3296>3310 (15)
5. 3331>3335 (5)
6. 3341>3350 (10)
7. 3381>3390 (10)
8. 3401>3408 (8)
9. 3431>3435 (5)
Total 75
Grand total 196 (=99+22+75)
The final example Do 24 T-3, WNr.3435, Stkz. VH+JM, subsequently becoming AM116 and RAF serial VN870 post-war.

Categorized by sub-type the overall picture of Dutch Do 24 production is:
12 Do 24 N (WNrn.0001 & 0002, 0004>0013)
1 Do 24 T - in effect this was the T-Serie Musterflugzeug/Pattern Aircraft (WNr.0003)
11 Do 24 T-1 (WNrn. 0014>0024)
37 Do 24 T-2 (WNrn.0025>0043, 0045>0062)
135 Do 24 T-3 (WNrn. 0063>0100 = 38, plus the 22 of the WNr. 2XXX series and all 75 of the WNr. 3XXX series)
Total 196

After that there are a couple of oddball aspects to the Dutch portion of the Do 24 story. Those are probably best dealt with in a separate post.