Junkers Ju 88

The Ju-88 certainly was the most versatile aircraft of the Luftwaffe. Apart from the British Mosquito, no other airplane in history has been subject to so many versions and purposes. Though it made its maiden flight in 1936, it entered service in 1939, and it wasn’t shipped to the front lines before 1941.

Though operating for a nation whose bomber squadrons are rarely the cause for general discussion of the air war in World War 2, the Junkers Ju-88 stands out as a formidable and successful flyer that provided German war planners with a versatile performers and equally terrified the leaders of opposing countries.
 

The Junkers Ju-88 is considered to be one of the most flexible and all-around aircrafts during the Second World War. It was designed by Ernst Zindel. On the Allied forces, the Mosquito and the Beaufighter were its counterparts. Like the Mosquito, it was also a fast bomber. It was very efficient and useful even though it was huge and slow.

The Junkers Ju-88 is an outstanding fighter aircraft. It is maneuverable, gentle and easy to fly. It was used as a night fighter, a torpedo bomber, a reconnaissance aircraft and more. There were 104 prototypes that were made on 60 different versions.

Junkers Ju-88

The Junkers Ju-88 was used by the Luftwaffe throughout World War II in a wide-ranging role. Its operational debut was in 1939 and it was still an effective aircraft in 1945 when the war ended. Its original function was as a Schnellbomber, a medium bomber with the speed of a fighter, but the original design was easily adapted and frequently called upon to perform a variety of tasks. The widespread flexibility of the Ju-88 permitted its employment in variant forms as bomber, day-fighter, night-fighter, intruder, reconnaissance aircraft, torpedo bomber, conversion-trainer and ground strafer. It was especially lethal to tanks.

The greatly modified Ju-188 bomber and reconnaissance aircraft was a development of the Ju-88 and an adaptation of the Ju-188 resulted in the Ju-388 photographic-reconnaissance and Stortebeker night-interception aircraft. Two further prototypes were built of yet another extension of this fertile family, the Ju-488 high-altitude bomber-reconnaissance machine; both were destroyed by Allied bombing before flight-testing.

A full listing of the Ju-88 variants would take considerable space, but all the major variants were the bomber and night-fighter models of the basic Ju-88 type. Its merit as a bomber on operations as compared with other bombers lay with its speed. As a night-fighter the Ju-88 shared the distinction with the Messerschmitt Bf-110 of being one of the two pillars of Germany's Nachtgeschwader (night-fighter force). Some 15,000 Junkers Ju-88s were constructed of which 9,000 were bombers. This total exceeded the combined production numbers of all other German bombers. The maximum speed was 273 mph and the aircraft was powered with two 1,400 hp Jumo 211J-I engines.

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