Junkers Ju 52-3M

Although ungainly in appearance and considered technically obsolete at the outbreak of WWII, the Junkers Ju 52 provided Germany’s Luftwaffe with much-needed air-lift capacity. Defined by its corrugated metal skin, which provided immense airframe strength while reducing overall weight, and Junkers’ so-called “double wing,” which afforded extra lift, the aircraft was originally intended for airline use. Its rugged design and its performance flying from semi-prepared airstrips opened up air travel to the Canadian north, the Eurasian Steppe and even over inland South America, placing the Ju 52 amongst the most important commercial aircraft types in history. However, the Ju 52’s World War II service is what came to define the aircraft’s legacy.

In addition to the type’s more famous roles as a cargo and paratroop transport, Ju 52s also towed gliders for aerial assault missions against fortified Allied positions in the opening nine months of WWII. Furthermore, some Ju 52s, with their 3,300lb payload capacity, even served as bombers early in the war. However, the type’s lack of speed and maneuverability brought a swift end to this near-suicidal practice. 

During Germany’s invasion of Poland in September, 1939, Ju 52s flew more than 2,500 sorties, in which they carried 1,600 tons of supplies and 20,000 troops to forward staging areas. When the attack on Norway unfolded in April 1940, the Luftwaffe’s Ju 52s carried paratroopers to secure airports, bridges and other vital infrastructure. 

The Museum’s aircraft wears the markings of a Ju 52 serving in Kampfgeschwader zur besonderen Verwendung 1, a unit involved in the invasion of Crete. Five hundred Ju 52s took part in that mission, landing thousands of paratroopers on the Mediterranean island, but the well-entrenched defenders (Greeks, Britains, New Zealanders and Australians) savaged the invaders, leading to more than 7,000 German casualties, around a quarter of those dropped. Although ultimately successful, this somewhat Pyrrhic victory convinced Hitler that airborne operations were no longer viable, a miscalculation made starkly apparent by the successful Allied landings in France on June 6th, 1944. 

The Museum obtained its Ju 52 in 2010, purchasing her from the Commemorative Air Force, which had originally imported the aircraft into the United States three decades earlier. The group (then known as the Confederate Air Force) had organized a fundraiser to secure the $16,500 needed to acquire the airplane from the Spanish government. The CAF crew flew the Tante Ju on its 8,000-mile, transatlantic journey from Spain – in several stages – over the course of ten days during July 1980. 

Hugo Junkers: Junkers championed the monoplane concept at a time when biplanes were king; he believed monoplanes were the future of air travel. A forward-thinker, Junkers introduced his first all-metal airliner back in 1919, just months after Germany’s defeat in WWI. The Junkers F 13 was a tremendous leap forward in technology, its aluminum alloy construction allowing it to operate extensively in environments which were harsh on wood and fabric.

Although the Ju 52 permitted direct flights between Berlin, Germany and Stockholm, Sweden, and even enabled an air route over the Alps to Rome, Italy (a flight which took just 10 short hours), Hugo Junkers was forcibly removed from control of his own company in 1934 due to his opposition of the Nazis.