WTF? — Captured Enemy Aircraft
Over the past seven years of researching aviation stories on the web, I have kept a folder on my laptop dedicated to images of Second World War aircraft that had been captured and had suffered the indignity of being painted in the national markings of the enemy they were designed to fight and vanquish—like a Spitfire in the service of the Luftwaffe, a Zero in US Navy markings.
It has always struck me as undignified to see a Supermarine Spitfire wearing the hated Hakenkreuz (Swastika). Here was an aircraft which came to be the poster child for the strength of the British people and their ability to withstand the international bully that was Nazi Germany and now they had their hands and evil symbols all over it. To me, it was an outrage—like vandals spray-painting foul language on my mother’s car; as if some thugs had stolen Terry Fox’s van and painted 666 and neopaganist pentagrams on the sides.
But I soon learned that something I had originally thought was a rare exception was in fact a widespread, even systematic practice; not only in the Second World War, but from the very first time aircraft were pitted against each other in war.
One thing I know is that no fighter pilot relishes a fair fight. What they want above all is an advantage so that when they go toe to toe with the enemy, they are assured a much greater chance of the win than their opponent. Ever since David and Goliath, a fighter with a technological edge can triumph over a greater opponent. A Luftwaffe fighter pilot would rather engage a Fairey Battle than a Supermarine Spitfire, because the outcome would be weighted in his favour.
One of the simple ways to gain a technological advantage over an enemy is simply to know his weaknesses, be familiar with his blind spots, know what it is he can and can’t do. As the greatest war theorist of all time, Sun Tzu, wrote in The Art of War, “It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperilled in a hundred battles”. To this end, Allied and Axis nations alike in both World Wars slavered at the chance to take possession of one of their enemy’s flying machines and study it up close on the ground and in the air.
This folder of mine grew to hundreds of photographs and many links to the stories that explained the images. Over the years, I realized that many images that had been in this folder had long ago lost their links to the information I needed to explain them. But that didn’t stop me from putting together a pictorial essay. Here, for your enjoyment and edification, are nearly 250 of those images of captured aircraft wearing spurious markings. The truth is I could have made this a 500-image pictorial tribute, but one has to stop somewhere. These images have come from many sources over the years, and some links I have lost or have ceased to exist. I have written many of the accompanying texts, but in most cases, I have simply edited the texts that I found with the images (thank you Wikipedia). In each case I attempted to find additional sources on the web to back up the stories associated with each image.
In no way is this definitive. In no way is this a historical treatise or be-all and end-all of anything. In no way is this more than simply a visual tribute to all those aircraft that had to endure the indignity of enemy symbols. In many cases I may in fact have it wrong and I invite anyone to show me the correct information and I will update anything. In fact, for this I would be grateful. If anyone has issue with the use of any of this material if it is proprietary, let me know and I will remove offending images.
Let’s get the show on the road.
The First World War
During the First World War, advances in aviation were astounding... certainly greater than any “advances” on the ground. The difference between the aircraft at the outset and at the end of the war was nothing short of astonishing. It was easy for one combatant to gain air superiority over another with the simple application of a single new technology. The introduction of the Fokker Eindecker monoplane, with its ability to fire its machine gun forward through the propeller without deflectors on the propeller, was such an advance, the Allied air forces were at a distinct disadvantage for some months. The capture of an enemy aircraft on either side meant a chance to look closely at new technology like synchronizing propellers, new structural and engine technologies. The world of military aviation was advancing so fast that seeing what the other half was doing was as important as one’s own research.
When the First World War started in 1914, it was the habit of ground troops to fire on all aircraft, friend or foe, which “encouraged” the need for some form of identification mark on all aircraft. At first, the Union Flag was painted under the wings and on the sides of the fuselages of Royal Flying Corps (RFC) aircraft. It soon became obvious that, at a distance, the St George’s Cross of the Union Flag could be confused with the Iron Cross that was already being used to identify German aircraft—particularly from below and against the glare of the sky. After a Union Flag inside a shield was tried unsuccessfully, it was decided to follow the lead of the French air force which used a circular symbol resembling, and called, a “cockade” (a rosette of red and white with a blue centre). The British reversed the colours and it became the standard marking on Royal Flying Corps aircraft from 11 December 1914, although it was well into 1915 before the new marking was used entirely consistently. The Royal Naval Air Service meanwhile briefly used a red ring, without the blue centre, until it was sensibly decided to standardize the RFC roundel for all British aircraft.
With ground troops and pilots on both sides attuned to identifying friend from foe based on these new national markings displayed on aircraft, it behooved pilots who were test flying enemy aircraft to mark them in the manner of their own armed forces. This had two benefits. Firstly, all test flights were conducted over friendly territory where ground troops would not take kindly to the flight of a single enemy-marked aircraft doing loops and rolls overhead. Marking the aircraft as friendly was simply common sense. Secondly, should a pilot testing an enemy aircraft, through disorientation, find himself over enemy territory and forced down, it would not result in a good outcome should he be flying an aircraft in the markings of the men who captured him. He would, no doubt, be considered a spy, and despite whatever he did to convince them otherwise, the pilot would likely be shot for wearing the markings of his enemy, much as ground troops posing as their enemies to gain superiority would be treated.
During the First World War, engine technology was still in its infancy. Rotary, in-line and radial engines could and often did, under many situations, simply stop in flight, either packed in, mishandled or roughly handled. Aerial battles were always conducted over enemy territory for one side or another. Aircraft in perfect condition, except for engine trouble, quite regularly were forced down and captured. In scouring the internet for photographic evidence of captured and remarked aircraft from the First World War, I was surprised at the wealth of spectacular images of both British and German aircraft in the hands of their adversaries. The internet is an amazing place to do a walkabout in search of information on a specific thing. The truth was that after just a few hours, I came across dozens of well documented cases of Sopwiths in Iron Crosses or Fokkers with roundels. I chose just ten of the dozens I found. Here, in no particular order, is a short visual tribute to the first military pilots and the captured aircraft they came to fly.
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The Second World War
At the beginning of the Second World War, both for the Europeans and for the Americans (when their turn came two years later), the Allies were caught off guard by the ruthlessness, the seemingly unstoppable momentum and the new weapons of the enemy for which they had not yet found answering technologies. In Europe, the Fairey Battles, Hampdens, Lysanders, Whitleys, Gladiators and Ansons were simply not the equals of the Messerschmitts, Heinkels and Dorniers. The French, British, Dutch, and Belgians found themselves reeling backwards under the technological tsunami that was the blitzkrieg.
After Pearl Harbor, the scourge of the Mitsubishi Zero lashed the Pacific and South Asia from the Aleutians to Papua New Guinea and from Hawaii to Burma. The Hellcat and Corsair were still at least a year away from their debuts. If only the US Navy could get their hands on a single intact Mitsubishi Zero, not so they could copy or benefit from the technology, but so they could test fly it, understand its strengths and, more importantly, find its weaknesses. The Zero was fast, wickedly manoeuvrable and its pilots were battle tested in China and trained more rigorously than any in history. American and Allied pilots were just as courageous, but half a year into the Pacific war, they had not yet found the right tactics to fight the Zero on an equal basis. Then along came the Akutan Zero.
The Akutan Zero
In the summer following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, far, far out on the Aleutian Island archipelago, a young Japanese Petty Officer by the name of Tadayoshi Koga was fighting his rising fear and an overheating Nakajima 12-cylinder radial engine that was about to seize up on him. Just 15 minutes before, he had been strafing Yankee Catalina flying boats at the remote American fishing outpost of Dutch Harbor and just a few hours before that, he was drinking tea with his squadron mates aboard the mighty carrier Ryujo.
Over Dutch Harbor, he heard the metallic clank of something hitting his engine, perhaps a bullet or flak. Immediately, he smelled smoke and saw his oil pressure gauge start to drop. His oil line had been hit and he had just minutes to nurse his aircraft to safety. Trailing smoke, he made for a prearranged emergency landing spot on then-uninhabited Akutan Island, a remote, cold and mountainous island 25 miles further up the Aleutian chain from Dutch Harbor towards Unimak Island. There, if he landed safely, he would climb out of his fighter, destroy it and work his way to the coast where a Japanese submarine was standing by to rescue him. His section mates Chief Petty Officer Makoto Endo and Petty Officer Tsuguo Shikada stayed with him all the way and he could see them circling around him as he set up for his final landing in a grassy valley on a northeastern cape of Akutan. At the last minute, Shikada saw the sun glint off water hidden beneath the grassy surface of the valley. He knew instantly that Koga should have made a wheels up landing, but it was too late.
As soon as the aircraft’s weight was on them, Koga’s Zero’s wheels immediately dug into the boggy ground. From high above Shikada saw it flash in the sun as it dug in and snapped onto its back. The last thing that Koga saw was the flashing, tall, green grass, the mountains in the distance and the sun on the mists in the valley. His neck broke when the aircraft flipped onto him. Endo and Shikada were required to strafe and destroy the Zero to prevent it from falling into enemy hands, but could not bring themselves to do so as they were not sure whether Koga had survived and had just been knocked out.
He hung there in his straps until the heat left his body. He hung there while his mates landed back aboard Ryujo. He was still hanging there under his Zero more than a month later when Lieutenant Bill Thies’ PBY Catalina overflew the spot on his way into Dutch Harbor after being off course. He and his crew circled Koga’s aircraft with its bright red Hinomaru roundels on its wings and knew they had found something important.
Within just a few weeks, the Zero had been removed from Akutan to San Diego and in another month, it was ready to fly. While Koga’s body lay buried on an uninhabited island in a frozen corner of the world, his aircraft was flying in the sunny South Californian sunlight, its beautiful, serene and elegant Hinomarus replaced by the hated white stars on blue circles of the enemy.
The Akutan Zero was the first intact enemy aircraft to be acquired, repaired and flight evaluated by the newly formed Technical Air Intelligence Unit, whose job it was to recover Japanese aircraft to obtain data regarding their technical and tactical capabilities. The Akutan Zero became TAIU No.1. The tests immediately bore fruit. Lieutenant Commander Eddie R. Sanders took the Akutan Zero up for its first test flight and reported: “The very first flight exposed weaknesses of the Zero which Allied pilots could exploit with proper tactics... immediately apparent was the fact that the ailerons froze up at speeds above 200 knots so that rolling maneuvers at those speeds were slow and required much force on the control stick. It rolled to the left much easier than to the right. Also, its engine cut out under negative acceleration due to its float-type carburetor. We now had the answer for our pilots who were being outmaneuvered and unable to escape a pursuing Zero: Go into a vertical power dive, using negative acceleration if possible to open the range while the Zero’s engine was stopped by the acceleration. At about 200 knots, roll hard right before the Zero pilot could get his sights lined up.”
The Akutan Zero was just one of literally hundreds of aircraft that fell into the hands of the enemy on both sides during the Second World War, but it was the best known—at least after the war. By the start of the Second World War, the Germans and the British had special units formed and waiting for enemy aircraft to fall into their hands—the British had test facilities and units like 1426 Enemy Aircraft Flight (EAE), while the Germans had the Zirkus Rosarius and their test facility at Rechlin plus Special Operations units like Kampfgeschwader (KG) 200. The Japanese and the Americans both sought to acquire enemy aircraft for evaluation and the Germans and Japanese even used captured aircraft on operations—both clandestine and tactical.
While both sides had systems for retrieving captured aircraft and for testing them, ordinary field commanders and flying units would often mark captured aircraft for themselves and operate them as squadron instructional machines or as squadron hacks. The result was hundreds of captured aircraft usually used for the enjoyment of the pilots and as war trophy motivators.
Here, now, are some of the thousands of images we found and some of the stories of their capture and subsequent fates:
Captured Messerschmitts of the South African Air Force.
Thanks to South African-born Yuri Maree, we have these two captured 109s from the North African campaign.
In the flicks!
While most aviation cross-dressing was done to make captured aircraft, not all strangely marked aircraft were captured or if they were, they did not necessarily have enemy markings. Some aircraft were dressed to look like the enemy for feature films or captured aircraft might be put into the sky for propaganda purposes. The discerning aerogeek is on the lookout for these discrepant aircraft and is often disappointed at their use. Witness these next four images from the motion picture business.
The Evaluators—No. 1426 (Enemy Aircraft) Flight, RAF
Text via Wikipedia
No. 1426 (Enemy Aircraft) Flight RAF, nicknamed the “Rafwaffe”, was a Royal Air Force flight formed during the Second World War to evaluate captured enemy aircraft and demonstrate their characteristics to other Allied units. Several aircraft on charge with the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) Farnborough section were also used by this unit. The RAE facilities at Farnborough were utilized for the flight testing of German and Italian aircraft during the war. Many crash-landed airframes were brought to Farnborough for examination, testing and cannibalization of spare parts to keep other airframes in serviceable condition.
The main flight testing work was carried out by the Aerodynamics Flight of the Experimental Flying Department and the Wireless & Electrical Flight (W&EF), the latter responsible for evaluation and examination of radar-equipped aircraft later in the war. The unit was established in November 1941 at RAF Duxford, made up of a small group of pilots who had previously been maintenance test pilots with No. 41 Group RAF. Initially, it operated a Heinkel He 111 (AW177) that had been in British hands for two years, a Messerschmitt Bf 109 that had been captured during the Battle of France (AE479) and a Junkers Ju 88A-5 (HM509). The Ju 88 was a more recent British acquisition after the pilot landed at night at RAF Chivenor in the belief it was an airfield in France—the crew had made a navigational error after being deceived by a Meacon; decoy, navigational radio beacons set up by the British to mimic German ones.
The aircraft in the unit changed throughout the war as further later marques came into the RAF’s hands in various ways, including capture by Allied troops, forced or mistaken landings by German pilots, and defections. They were then passed to the Air Fighting Development Unit (RAF Duxford 1940–1943) where they were extensively tested before passing them on to the Flight. Several aircraft were lost to crashes, or damaged and then cannibalized for spare parts. Others were shipped to America for further evaluation. The unit later moved to RAF Collyweston. The Flight ceased operations at Collyweston on 17 January 1945, reforming at RAF Tangmere on the same date, with unit codes EA as the “Enemy Aircraft Flight” of the Central Fighter Establishment, which finally disbanded in December 1945.
The Evaluators—The Luftwaffe’s “Zirkus Rosarius”
Tex via Wikipedia
Zirkus Rosarius (also known as the Wanderzirkus Rosarius) was an Erprobungskommando-style special test unit of the Luftwaffe, specifically of the Luftwaffe High Command, tasked with testing captured British and American aircraft, all of which were repainted in German markings.
The purpose of testing allied aircraft was to discover any strengths or vulnerabilities in their design or performance. This information was highly useful in enabling German service personnel to develop tactics designed to counter strengths and exploit any vulnerabilities.
The unit was formed by Theodor Rosarius in 1943 and was part of the 2./Versuchsverband Oberbefehlshaber der Luftwaffe. The Zirkus also toured operational airfields, showing Luftwaffe pilots the captured aircraft and training them in techniques to counter these aircraft. The Zirkus Rosarius seemed to have merited the use of its own Geschwaderkennung (“Geschwader code”) of “T9”, with a few of the unit’s aircraft coming from KG 200, which already used the “A3” identification code of that wing.
The Evaluators—Allied Technical Air Intelligence Units
Technical Air Intelligence Units (TAIU) were joint Allied military intelligence units formed during the Second World War to recover Japanese aircraft to obtain data regarding their technical and tactical capabilities.
The first such unit, known later as Technical Air Intelligence Unit–South West Pacific (TAIU–SWPA), was formed in November 1942 by the United States Navy (USN), United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) and Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) at Eagle Farm Airbase, Brisbane, Australia.
During 1943–44, three other TAIUs were formed in the other Allied theatres of the Pacific War.
South East Asia: ATAIU–SEA; British Royal Air Force (RAF) / USAAF
Pacific Ocean Areas: TAIU–POA; USN
China: Republic of China Air Force
Crashed and captured aircraft were located, identified, and evaluated (often in or near the front lines), before being recovered for further tests. Aircraft that were not too badly damaged were rebuilt for test flights that revealed vulnerabilities that could be exploited. Examination of the materials used in the construction of aircraft allowed the Allies to analyze Japanese war production. The unit also absorbed a small team who developed the code name system for Japanese aircraft, and produced aircraft recognition charts and photographs.