Were there He111s at Farnborough?

Biggin Hill BoB September 1961.

What a treat for a teenage enthusiast, first sight of the RAF’s long rumoured axis collection, plus other historics.

Mark

He 111.

There was an He 111 at Cosford in the seventies. I was there on an Airframes course for ATC and we were allowed to have a look at the Museum they were at that time building up. One amusing thing we were shown and memory fails a bit here, I think it was a Bristol high speed experimental and they told us that had an original high temperature patina, a rich golden brown. A Flight Sergeant who is best forgotten, came in with a fatigue gang, saw the brown colour, said it was just dirt and set them on it with dura glit and brasso and took it back to its original stainless steel finish. No one was very much amused, I think they said they took him round the back of the hangar and shot him!! Incidently, the HE 111 was in very good condition.

Ken

I was at the R.A.E. Farnborough from 1978 to 1985 and I did read the same section of the same book! I can assure you that there were no whole WW2 aircraft left there. There were lots of interesting “bits” lying around the airfield mind you. The largest being the Comet 1 fuselage that is now at the Dehavilland museum. If the MOD knew the significance of that and were willing to donate that they would not have scrapped any WW2 aircraft.
The RAE did have regular clear outs of the main scrap dump so I suspect any crated airframes would have gone during one of these in the fifties

Rgds Cking

That was part of the problem, every time the aircraft was moved it was dismantled, crated, moved, then rebuilt. A lot of the time the guys who were tasked with the job had no real interest in the aircraft from an enthusiasts point of view, so they were not overly careful how it was handled. Bits got lost and in many cases any old bolts were used to put the aircraft together. A lot of the fairings on the He111 were held in place by tape!

When the Ju-88 arrived from storage is was also in a poor state, it took me and my boys the best part of a year to put it back into a reasonable condition for display, but by the time it was dismantled and re-assembled at Hendon it had been pretty bashed about again. I just about made me cry when I saw it after the move.

They weren’t known as ‘Crash & Smash’ for nothing…

As for missing parts, I remember going through aircrew selection at Biggin Hill after applying for an ATC flying scholarship. One evening, we were allowed to visit the exhibition hangar, and to my great delight, were told that we could climb into any aeroplane we fancied. Naturally, we took full advantage, as you don’t get a chance like that every day. All very nice, but looking back, I wonder how many bits were damaged or went missing along the way.

And no, I don’t have any Heinkel or Junkers instruments!

That was part of the problem, every time the aircraft was moved it was dismantled, crated, moved, then rebuilt. A lot of the time the guys who were tasked with the job had no real interest in the aircraft from an enthusiasts point of view, so they were not overly careful how it was handled. Bits got lost and in many cases any old bolts were used to put the aircraft together. A lot of the fairings on the He111 were held in place by tape!

When the Ju-88 arrived from storage is was also in a poor state, it took me and my boys the best part of a year to put it back into a reasonable condition for display, but by the time it was dismantled and re-assembled at Hendon it had been pretty bashed about again. I just about made me cry when I saw it after the move.

When the Heinkel was at Biggin Hill it was definitely in one pice along with the CR42, an ME-109 and posiibly others. They were all displayed in the hangar on the RAF side of the airfield at the 1967 Battle of Britain display.

How long it was in a crate before leaving Farnborough was not recorded on the aircraft record card, it could have been quite a long time, or just weeks before the move. When I was trying to locate components for it in the 70’s, most of the internals, such as the instrument panel were at Cardington in the RAF museum store. It was in a pretty sorry state by the time it came to St Athan, all the moving between storage sites had done it no good at all. Anyway attached is a photo I took of it back in 1974.

Thanks for that post. So the ‘Hendon’ He111 was crated at Farnborough.

It’s easy to see how these rumours get started. 🙂

I looked after Heinkel 701152 while it was at St Athan, prior to it’s move to Hendon. It was at Farnborough for a short period. In fact it’s last flight was from Heston to Farnborough on 3 November 1945. It remained at Farnborough until May 1947 when it was crated and moved into storage at Sealand. It later went to Stanmore Park, Wroughton, Fulbeck, Biggin Hill, Henlow, St Athan, then finally to Hendon.

I’ve been reading Heinz Nowarra’s “Heinkel He111 – A documentary history”. It was published over 20 years ago but at the end of the book, talking about survivors, he passes the remark’

That book is chock full of serious mistakes (like most of Nowarra’s books). One I can mention without even getting the book off the shelf is in a caption which goes something like: “shot down by a soviet fighter”. Looking at the shot-down bomber in the pictute one can see, according to its markings, that it was shot down on the western front, most likely during the battle of France. I never knew that soviet fighters got that far!

The He111 crates are stacked at the back of a hangar…

…between the crates containing the Short Stirling and the Focke-Wulf Condor! 😀

Seriously, no, I don’t think there are/were any ‘crated’ He111 at Farnborough.