Junkers 288B

The dihedral is obvious in this photo of the Smithsonian’s He219 ( source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sarge_schultz/9189704888/ ).

Thank you folks. Mystery solved. I don’t know how I missed this one. I think I thought it was a bigger aircraft than it actually was. I’ve found that Revell did a plastic 1/32 kit of it with Werk number 310189, only 4 adrift of the wreck in the photo.

Ju288 and He219 are pretty close to same size.

The key to ID is the prominant dihedral in He219 tail.
Ju is flat.
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My last post was like an exploding cherry bomb, skyskooter.

Well I’m blowed. I never knew that. Thanks for your reply.

Skyskooter,

Maybe I’m showing my American upbringing here. A cherry bomb was a small firework which looked like a cherry and which packed a punch. From that fount of all knowledge (except where there are inaccuracies), wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_bomb

It says cherry bombs were banned in 1966 in the US, but even after this date we kids had a way of acquiring illegal goodies like cherry bombs and M-80s — another explosive for destroying model airplanes and ships — especially before the 4th of July celebrations each summer.

A cherry bomb story:

We had a bully in our Boy Scout troop who used to terrorize the youngest kids…until a mob comprised of just about all the kids in the troop who were sick of his mean tormenting scared the daylights out of him at summer camp. We surrounded him and chanted, “Honeydip Smith [not his real name]! Honeydip Smith!” Honeydipping was a summer camp threat, never carried out, against any Scout who didn’t do his assigned camp chores. The threat was that the lazy kid would be dipped feet-first through the outhouse pit toilet’s seat and into the slop below! Not dropped, just dangled.

Despite the fact that Smith was too pudgy to even fit through the hole, in a panic he realized that he’d lost his power, and for the first and last time in our troop, he knew what it felt like to be on the receiving end of a legitimate threat — and one of mob action, at that, with no adults around. So he hightailed it to another troop’s camping area, through brambles on a hot day (we let him escape). Now a broken wreck of a kid, allegedly with heat exhaustion, he begged for help. We never saw the SOB (Scout, Overweight, Bully) again, and nobody got in trouble — probably because the threat had not been carried out, and the adults likely thought it a good lesson, anyway (with smiles on their faces).

The following winter, at a Monday evening Boy Scout meeting, someone produced a newspaper cutting which stated that a cherry bomb had exploded in Smith’s hand, seriously injuring him. The callous youths of my troop, me included, had a laugh over that — you know, the “good riddance, couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy” reaction.

So a cherry bomb packed a wallop.

The above story does have a Second World War connection. On the day we turned the tables on Smith, we had been playing the boys’ game “Capture the Flag” — using an actual swastika-laden German flag brought home from the war by the GI father of one of the Scouts. I distinctly remember that it was not just the standard black swastika on a white circle, atop a red rectangle. It also had a black circle with cog teeth on it, surrounding the swastika.

I just googled and found that this was a Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAF) — German Labor Front — flag, as seen in the attached. Again, per Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Labour_Front

And now I know…after over fifty years.

Hmm! Not so mysterious I’ve looked at the photo again and it is 310185 not 9. My mistake copying it earlier.

I have found a reference to a Heinkel 219 that was taken to UK and flown from Farnborough. The Werk no. given for that aircraft was 310189 and was scrapped in 1946. Photos of that aircraft show it with the German markings over painted with RAF markings whereas my 310189 shows no signs of the German markings being obliterated. Another mystery?

What’s a cherry bomb?

I remember that Revell model — I built it, oh, 50 years ago, and I probably burned it, sort of like in the photo of 310185, while pretending that it was a war casualty. Other models (mostly a boyhood friend’s) were annihilated with cherry bombs and the like. Ship models blown up after being set afloat were a favorite. Just kid’s stuff, with no comprehension of tragedy and suffering.

I do wonder if anyone knows the circumstances behind the 310185 wreck.

Thank you folks. Mystery solved. I don’t know how I missed this one. I think I thought it was a bigger aircraft than it actually was. I’ve found that Revell did a plastic 1/32 kit of it with Werk number 310189, only 4 adrift of the wreck in the photo.

I just thought I’d compare a rear port fuselage profile drawing of an He219 (source: http://modellboard.net/index.php?topic=39099.0) with the photo, which shows the starboard side. I horizontally flipped the drawing. I didn’t take the time to look for an actual comparison photo from, say, the Smithsonian’s example.

For what it’s worth, the Werk nummer in the line drawing is 310188, three more than the 310185 seen on the wreck’s tail.

I don’t think I had really come across the Ju288. The fin shapes are very similar!

I bet, if you could find the same spot again, although the larger parts will have long gone that there would be some good finds to be had where the burnt-out forward section had lain.

Anon.

Werk looks like 310185 which falls in a batch of HE219 serials.

I can’t swear to the Werk Nummer. but it looks like an He219 to me. Note the bulge in the fuselage belly, and the night-fighter camouflage.

Looks like a Heinkel 219 to me, which would explain your difficulty in pinning it down to a particular Ju288!

Mark P