WWII MISTERIES: What happened with the JU390?

[Pepe Sanchez]

Anyone knows what happened to the 2 JU390's?

Do you know which type of german bombers can flow to Brazil?

[P38 Pilot]

Rumors are, that the Germans destroyed them so the Russians wouldnt capture them. The Bombers were intended to drop the atomic bomb on a major city like London or even New York in the U.S. That was the bombers main purpose but seeing it too late for a nuke, they destroyed them.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

No P-38. The main purpose of the Ju-390 was not to bomb New York or London. It was actually intended to be used as a heavy transport and maritime patrol aircraft. It was just later proposed to be used as a heavy bomber and possibly for the Amerika Bomber program because of its 32 hour endurance. The Ju-390 is just a development of the Ju-290 transport.

I am on duty right now till tomorrow morning but when I get home I can tell you what happened to the aircraft that were flown by KG 200. I have a book on them.

However they were not intended to drop nukes on anyone they were heavy transports. KG200 used them to fly personnel on secret missions. They were also intended to be used in the U-Boot war.

[the lancaster kicks ass]

bit excessive for secret agent work weren't they how much equiptment did these guys need

[cheddar cheese]

Maybe they were carrying a large amount of secret agents, and making a cargo drop at the same time...

[Pepe Sanchez]

Or..... Kapo's exodus tranport to Amerika? In this case would not to be an excesive vehicle. It would be the most appropiate.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

KG200 used a lot of there heavy transports with civilian Lufthansa marking for secret flights to Spain and so forth.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Okay I have some info here for you since looking it back up in my book.

Ju-290s

The Ju-290s not the Ju-390s were actually used to fly to Spain and only 2 were known to actually have flown there. The first one was Ju-290A-3 W.Nr. 0161, Identification code: 9V+DK and it crashed in Spain on Dec. 26, 1943.

The other was Ju-290A-5 with Civilian Lufthansa markings D-AITR. It was flown to Spain on April 6, 1945 by Flugkapitaen Suzalek. There was a manifest for this flight that included Hitler, Himmler, there families and several other high ranking Nazi officials. None got on the plane and it is believed to have carried valuables for safe keeping.

This Ju-290 overshot the runway in heavy fog and ended in a rice field with very little damage. It remained there until it was sold to the Spanish Airforce on April 29, 1950.

There 13 Ju-290's in service with KG200 (I can give you W. Numbers if you wish and Ident numbers) Of these thirteen Ju-290s, 2 crahed in Spain as told above, 1 was bombed and destroyed in Tours on Feb. 5, 1944, 1 went missing in action on the Russian Front on June 16, 1944, 1 was destroyed on the ground at Dessau on Aug. 16, 1944, 2 were destroyed on the Eastern Front on 11 June 1944 and 23 May 1944 respectivly.

Of the 6 that survived the war (not including the one that crashed in Spain and was later used by Spain) one was sent to England with the markings of AM 6 on May 5, 1945.

Ju-390's
There were 2 known Ju-390s used by the KG200. There is very little information on them though. Ju-390V-2 just being noted in Oblt Joachim Eisermanns logbook. According to his logbook he flew the Ju-390V-2 at Rechlin in February 1945. There is no known W.Nr. on it though and no identification numbers.

The other Ju-390 was a Ju-390V-1 with tail identification markings of GH+UK. It was not used very much and was destroyed at Dessau in 1945. I have a picture of it in my KG200 book in Prague-Ruzyne sometime in the winter of 1944-1945.

If anyone would like to read up on this and other KG200 aircraft and operations the books is:

KG 200 The Luftwaffe's Most Secret Unit by Geoffrey J. Thomas and Barry Ketley

[P38 Pilot]

I always thought it would be used as a transatlantic bomber to drop a nuclear bomb. Thats pretty interesting...

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

That is what it was proposed for after it was allready built. That is not what they designed it for. They did not go lets build a transatlantic bomber and then designed the Ju-290 and Ju-390. They built the aircraft and then the RLM put a requirment out for them and then Junkers proposed to use these aircraft. The only aircraft that was purpose built for the long ranger bombing inluding the Amerika Bomber was the Me-264 and the Me-264/6m. The 264/6m was just a 6 engined versoin of the Me-264.

[hartmann]

Why was the nuke too late? (I am not very convinced about this, but I have started to research about the statements ) In recent investigations, It seems that Germany could have succesfully detonated a nuke near Ohrdruf on March 4 of 1945 (some, even before in Rügen the 11 October 1944). There has been an very intersting debate in a BBC special program sometime before concerning the author of the book and his theories (Rainer Karlsch, Book = Hitlers bombe). even there are some scientist taking samples of the soil to corroborate the possible theory. I don´t know if this is a new revisionist point of view, but... it´s very intersting to speculate about this. It may be the nuke to be carried by the Ju 390, or by the He 177 V38 to New York.
Just my two cents (of Euro, hehehe )

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

That stuff about he Nuke detonation has not been confirmed yet. We have an interesting thread here somewhere where we discussed it and put all the new info out about it.

If they had successfully been able to drop a Nuke somewhere it would have either been done by a Ju-390 or more than likely the Me-264/6m which was designed from the outset as a heavy bomber rather than the Ju-390 which was just a transport that would have been modified as a bomber. He He-177 was quickly removed as a prospect for the nuke or Amerika bomber programs.

[me262]

...

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

That is still unconfirmed. According to accounts from KG200 which flew the plane, that is unconfirmed.

Wolf Baumgart who served with the Fernaufsklaerungsgruppe5 (FAGr5) talks of this flight and can only confirm flights over the Soviet Union to Japan lasting 33 hours in specially modified Ju-290A-9's not Ju-390's. I used to be a firm believe that this flight happened but the more I actually read on the subject I am sceptical.

Read the books: Luftwaffe Over America The Secret Plans to Bomb the United States in World War II by Manfred Griehl and KG200 The Luftwaffes most Secret Unit by Geoffrey J. Thomas and Barry Ketley

[hartmann]

Sorry,where is this threat about the German A-bomb? I am interested about the comments, but I don´t find it.