Servicing and refueling of a Luftwaffe’s Junkers Ju 88 before a mission. Location unknown, but the yellow color of the upper engine cowlings and the landscape suggest the Balkans around 1941 or 1942. Victor Sierra

Servicing and refueling

The first prototype of the Ju 89, seen here being prepared for a test at the Junkers airfield at Dessau, was designed to meet the specifications of the 'Ural Bomber' programme, although better then the competition (Do 19) it was still a sluggish machine capable of no more then 390km/h (242mph) without armament. It made its first flight in December 1936, a 2nd prototype being build in early 1937, powered with more powerful engines. With the programme cancelation on 29 April 1937 further tests were abandoned and the airframe of a 3rd prototype being build at the time was converted to serve as the forerunner of the Ju 90 commercial transport. Both prototypes built (V1 and V2) served briefly with the transport unit KGrzbV 105 during the invasion of Norway in 1940.  The aircraft in the background is the Ju88 V1 which was also undergoing tests at the time.

Ju 89 V1

The Junkers Ju 88 delivered to the Allied forces by a Rumanian defector on July 1943. The plane, a Ju 88D-1/Trop (later designated Ju 88D-3) for long-range photographic reconnaissance, built on 1943, was flown from Romania to Cyprus and captured intact by the Royal Air Force. Afterwards the RAF turned the plane to the U.S. Army Air Forces in North Africa. In this photo, from the collection of Francis E. Hudlow, 65th Fighter Squadron's official photographer, the former Rumanian Ju 88 in Tunisia, with the Allied markings (British on the fin and American stars on the fuselage and under the wing) added by the British Camouflage unit and Americans of the 26th Air Depot Group. The aircraft, called “Baksheesh” and overhauled by the American mechanics, was transferred, with a transatlantic flight, to the United States. After Wright Field test pilots flew the aircraft extensively, the USAAF stored it in the Arizona desert after the end of WWII. The plane is the same today displayed on the US Air Force’s Museum at Wright-Patterson. Victor Sierra