What happened to the Axis planes after WW2? (2 Viewers)

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Watanbe

Senior Airman
526
4
Apr 24, 2007
Adelaide
This has always puzzled me. What happened to the surviving German and Japanese planes after WW2? Were they simply scrapped in their native countries or were they flow back to America/Britain/Russia etc. Obviously some would of had flight tests conducted, designs studied (particularly jets) etc, but what happened to the vast majority.

I remember seeing at one stage a picture of a load of US fighters that were made redundant by the close of WW2. Was their a similar place were German or Japanese planes were placed in storage? Its a real shame these planes have been lost, as they are now amongst the rarest of warbirds.
 
I assume that the "extra" Axis a/c were scrapped, particvularly as they weren't many raw materials left in many of the Axis contries after the War since they were all geared up for the armaments industry. I know that's how Ferruccio Lamborghini got a lot of materiel after the War in Italy; he went around the country collecting wrecked and abandoned war equipment, and recycled them for his tractor factory, Lamborghini Trattori.
 
The majority were scrapped and destroyed. Man examples were captures and flight tested. Many of those that were flight tested were eventually scrapped. Some were put in museums when they were no longer needed.
 
There's a bunch of photos I have seen in the past that shows the Luftwaffe aircraft shoved into scrap piles by bulldozers...it's heart-breaking to a certain degree, not because of what they could do, but because of what they're worth today...
 
Since the Germans had made some aircraft which were a good deal ahead of anything that the Allies possesed, these German a/c were put on aircraft carriers and shipped to the US and thuroughly examined and flight tested. The British simply flew them over as they weren't such a long way off :)

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Dang, there's 262s, some 190s...a Do335 in the back....a beautiful sight!

Just imagine if someone had run around and stashed a bunch of those away in the days following the close of the war, and they were pulled out today...
 
One of the 190's is a Dora-13, capable of 770 km/h. Notice the enlarged supercharger intake on the right side.

There's a regular Dora-9 at very bac of the pack, to the left.
 

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Very interesting...these were the kind of photos I was expecting. Did the scrap metals go to the Allies or the Axis countries?

On that aircraft carrier photo. I can't believe they would wreck all those ultra rare aircraft. I find it hard to believe that nobody had an eye for history, or even future potential profits. I suppose at the time anything Nazi was detested and despised!

What a shame!
 
Very interesting...these were the kind of photos I was expecting. Did the scrap metals go to the Allies or the Axis countries?

On that aircraft carrier photo. I can't believe they would wreck all those ultra rare aircraft. I find it hard to believe that nobody had an eye for history, or even future potential profits. I suppose at the time anything Nazi was detested and despised!

What a shame!

Actually, most of those planes did end up going to a good home; that was the HMS Reaper, and she had a good proportion of the aircraft that Watson's Whizzers had managed to round up at the end of the War (incluiding several flying examples of the Me 262). For instance, the Do 335 you see on the back of the ship eventually ended up (after a convoluted history) at the Smithsonian Air Space museum. In the '70's, it was temporarily returned to Dornier GmbH, who totally restored the aircraft, then returned to the US and put on permanent display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center of the SA&SM in Washington DC, where it can be seen today.
 
Actually, most of those planes did end up going to a good home; that was the HMS Reaper, and she had a good proportion of the aircraft that Watson's Whizzers had managed to round up at the end of the War (incluiding several flying examples of the Me 262). For instance, the Do 335 you see on the back of the ship eventually ended up (after a convoluted history) at the Smithsonian Air Space museum. In the '70's, it was temporarily returned to Dornier GmbH, who totally restored the aircraft, then returned to the US and put on permanent display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center of the SA&SM in Washington DC, where it can be seen today.

Actually how fascinating, I think I have seen that plane in person.
 
I read on Wiki where the Do-335 sits they also have other "unique late-war German aircraft such as the only known example of the Arado Ar 234B-2 Blitz jet recon-bomber, and the only surviving Heinkel He 219A Uhu"

Hell, it would be worth going just to see these three planes.
 
It really is a shame that so many types, not just axis, were scrapped after the war. But, I suppose after more than five years of war, the last thing on people's minds was the preservation of aircraft for history.
Sadly, it's still happening now. About four or five years ago, I was amazed, and slightly puzzled, to see a Tornado F3 in the museum at Duxford. This aircraft was/is a type still in service with the R.A.F., so my immediate reaction was 'What's it doing here?!' But at least it shows that some people have the foresight to preserve current, or soon to be out of service, aircraft types for future generations. It might mean very little, today, to see a modern jet in a museum, but in 50 or 60 years time, it'll be the equivalent, to the generation then, of us seeing, for example, a Spitfire or Mustang.
Let's hope this practice continues, although it really is a shame that at least one of all types weren't preserved at the end of the war - it'd be nice to have a Stirling, a Dornier 17, Whirlwind etc.
 
Some of the 262s were flown at Seymour, Indiana, right up the road from me, here in Louisville, KY. They did a LOT of flight testing after the war in little Seymour. I knew nothing about it until going to a gunshow in the National Guard Armory there, and saw a bunch of old photos on the wall while waiting to go in. There's still an airfield there, though it's no longer used by the Guard, it's now the commercial airport.
 

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