Germany: Luftwaffe Warplanes, 1939-1945: Blohm + Voss

German Luftwaffe Warplanes of the Second World War: Blohm + Voss

Deutsche Flugzeuge aus dem Zweiten Weltkrieg: Blohm + Voss

The aim of this website is to locate, identify and document Warplanes from the Second World War that have been preserved.  Many contributors have assisted in the hunt for these aircraft to provide and update the data on this website.  Photos are as credited.  Any errors found here are by the author, and any additions, corrections or amendments to this list of Warplane Survivors of the Second World War would be most welcome and may be e-mailed to the author at hskaarup@rogers.com.

Ziel dieser Website ist es, erhaltene Kampfflugzeuge aus dem Zweiten Weltkrieg zu lokalisieren, zu identifizieren und zu dokumentieren. Viele Mitwirkende haben bei der Suche nach diesen Flugzeugen mitgewirkt, um die Daten auf dieser Website.bereitzustellen und zu aktualisieren. Fotos gelten als gutgeschrieben. Alle hier gefundenen Fehler sind vom Autor und Ergänzungen, Korrekturen oder Ergänzungen zu dieser Liste der Überlebenden des Zweiten Weltkriegs sind sehr willkommen und können per E-Mail an den Autor unter hskaarup@rogers.com gesendet werden.

‍

Blohm + Voss BV 40, glider interceptor (prototype).  (Luftwaffe Photos)

Blohm + Voss BV 138

Blohm + Voss BV 138, flying-boat (early versions as Ha 138) in Luftwaffe service.  (Luftwaffe Photos)

Blohm + Voss BV 138C, Hemnesfjorden, Norway, being serviced by its Luftwaffe crews.  (Karl Marth Photo)

Blohm + Voss BV 138C-1 reconnaissance seaplane, abandoned at Tromsø in Norway, 1945.  Possibly (Wk. Nr. 0310081), captured at Kastrup-See.  If so, this aircraft was designated RAF AM70, scrapped at Felixstowe, England in 1948.  (RAF Photo)

Blohm + Voss BV 138C seaplane being pulled from the water at at Kirkenes, Norway, during the Second World War.  In the left background is a Heinkel He 115 float plane from Küstenfliegergruppe 406 coded K6+EH.  (USN Photo, NH 45564, Naval History and Heritage Command)

The Blohm + Voss BV138 Seedrache (Sea Dragon), but nicknamed Der Fliegende Holzschuh ("flying clog", from the side-view shape of its fuselage) was trimotor flying boat that served as the Luftwaffe's main seaborne long-range maritime patrol and naval reconnaissance aircraft. A total of 297 BV 138s were built between 1938 and 1943. The aircraft was unusually powered by three engines, with one mounted high above the centerline driving a four-blade propeller, and one on each wing driving three-blade propellers.

The first of the 227 standard service variant, BV 138 C-1, began service in March 1941. Although various versions of the aircraft carried a variety of armament, the standard included two 20 mm MG 151/20 cannons, one in a power-operated bow turret and one in a power-operated stern turret, up to three 7.92 mm MG 15 machine guns, and a 13 mm (.51 in) MG 131 machine gun in the aft center engine nacelle. It could carry up to 500 kg (1,100 lb) of bombs or depth charges (under the starboard wing root only) or, in place of these, up to 10 passengers. Several were later fitted with FuG 200 Hohentwiel low-UHF band search radar for anti-shipping duties. Some were converted for the minesweeper role, as the BV 138 MS variant, with the "MS" suffix signifying Minensuch (German for mine-clearing, literally mine-search), carried a circular ring-shape degaussing device, a hoop with the same diameter as the length of the fuselage (encircling the entire hull), and field-generating equipment, instead of weapons.

Blohm + Voss BV 138, flying-boat, (Wk. Nr. unknown), captured at Kastrup-See.  Designated AM69, this aircraft was scrapped at Felixstowe.

Blöhm & Voss BV 138, flying-boat, (Wk. Nr. unknown), captured at Kastrup-See.  Designated AM71, this aircraft was scrapped at Felixstowe.

Blohm + Voss BV 138 wreckage on display in the National Museum of Science and Technology (Danmarks Tekniske Museum) in Elsinore, Denmark. The wing spar is poised over the aircraft in the same position as it was, when the wreck was discovered in The Sound, off of Copenhagen.  (Uffe R.B. Anderson Photo)

No complete Bv 138s remain in existence. However, the wreck of one aircraft, sunk after the war in a British air show, was raised from the seabed of the Øresund Sound in 2000, and is on display at the Danish Technical Museum in Helsingør. In June 2013, a vessel from the Norwegian Geological Survey filmed a Blohm + Voss BV 138 at a depth of 35 m in Porsangerfjorden, Norway, not far from the Second World War German seaplane harbour in Indre Billefjord.

Blohm + Voss BV 139 long-range seaplane in Luftwaffe service.  (Luftwaffe Photo)

Blohm + Voss BV 141 asymetrical tactical reconnaissance aircraft in Luftwaffe service.  (Luftwaffe Photos)

Blohm + Voss BV 142, reconnaissance transport.   (Luftwaffe Photos)

Blohm + Voss BV 144, transport (prototype).

Blohm + Voss BV 155B V-2.  (Luftwaffe Photos)

Blohm + Voss Bv 155B V-2

The BV 155 was designed to be a single-engine high performance fighter aircraft capable of capable of intercepting bombers at high altitudes and conducting reconnaissance as a secondary mission. One variant was also intended to operate from aircraft carriers with a tailhook system. The Bv 155 was powered by one Daimler-Benz DB 603 U engine and the Heinkel-Hirth TKL 15 turbo supercharger. It was armed with one MK 108 30-mm cannon in the nose and two 20-mm MG 151 cannons in the wing.

The BV 155 featured an armoured, pressurized cabin with an ejection seat, high aspect ratio laminar-flow wings, wide-track landing gear, and a very advanced, though troublesome and complex, propulsion system. An air scoop located on the underside of the fuselage at the trailing edge of the wing fed outside air to the TKL 15 turbo-supercharger. The supercharger compressed the air and fed it to an intercooler mounted above. A pipe semi-recessed into the left fuselage (visible below the cockpit and above the long exhaust pipe) fed the cooled, high-pressure air from the intercooler forward to the engine-driven supercharger.  Blohm + Voss designed the BV 155 to reach speeds of about 430-mph at over 50,000’.

Blohm + Voss BV 155B V-2, Farnborough, England. before being transferred to the USAAF, where it was designated USA FE-505.  (RAF Photos)

Blohm + Voss completed the BV 155B V1 (V for Versuch, German for experiment) and the first of three prototypes flew on 8 February 1945 out of newly armoured hangars at Finkenwerder, near Hamburg. On 8 February the V1 took to the air but the right radiator leaked badly and chief test pilot Helmut “Wasa” Rodig terminated the flight. Following repairs, the aircraft flew twice more on 10 and 26 February. Repairs followed each flight but it is doubtful that the airplane flew again after the 26th.

All work had stopped on the third prototype, BV 155 V3, as Blohm + Voss concentrated on finishing the V2, but the war ended first. The British Army occupied Hamburg on 3 May 1945 and found the three prototypes at the factory. British officials examined the V1 and decided it was airworthy then directed an RAF pilot to fly it to England. The airplane crashed shortly after takeoff from the factory and was destroyed.  The British gathered up V2 and V3 and shipped them to the test establishment at Farnborough, England, for evaluation. They seriously considered completing the V2 for flight test but in the end, simply displayed the aircraft in October-November 1945 and then stored it.

Blohm + Voss Bv 155B V2, USA FE-505, in storage at the Garber Facility, Paul E. Garber Facility in Silver Hill, Maryland.  (NASM Photo)

For years, the identification of the National Air & Space Museum's Bv 155B was mysterious. Historians knew the British shipped a Bv 155B to the US after the war and that the US Army Air Forces evaluated it at Wright Field, Ohio. They eventually transferred it (bearing Foreign Equipment Number FE-505) to the National Air & Space Museum. Most sources claimed this was the unfinished V3 prototype. In 1998, two restoration specialists reassembling the parts stored at the Paul E. Garber Facility in Silver Hill, Maryland, were amazed to discover nearly the entire V2 airframe. Except for wiring harnesses the factory never hooked up and other small parts, the aircraft appears to be 90-95% complete, including most of the propulsion system. German documents verify that the V3 was only half-finished at war’s end and the discovery of “V2” stamped into both sides of the windshield frame seemed to prove conclusively that the NASM aircraft is in fact the second prototype. The BV 155B V-2, (Wk. Nr. 360052) in the NASM is also the last surviving aircraft built by Blöhm und Voss during the company’s 12-year foray into aviation.

FGP 227, ¼ scale flying model of the Blöhm & Voss BV 238, flying-boat built to provide data for the development of the BV 238.  Captured at Travemunde, this aircraft was designated RAF AM78.  It was scrapped at Felixstowe, England.  (Luftwaffe Photo)

‍

Blohm + Voss Bv 222 Wiking

Blohm + Voss Bv 222 Wiking in flight.  (Luftwaffe Photo)

Three Blohm + Voss BV 222 Wikings were captured and subsequently operated by Allied forces: C-011, C-012, and C-013. C-012, captured at Sørreisa in Norway after the war along with V2, was flown by Captain (N) Eric Brown from Norway to the RAF station at Calshot in 1946, with RAF serial number VP501.  After testing at Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment at Felixstowe it was assigned to No. 201 Squadron RAF, who operated it up to 1947, when it was scrapped.

Blohm + Voss BV 222 seaplane at Trondheim, Norway, undergoing tests by the U.S. Navy, ca 1945-46.  This aircraft is one of two flown by the USN, designated USA C-011 and C-113.  (USN Photos)

BV 222, USA C-011 and C-013 were captured by US forces at the end of the Second World War. On 15 August and again on 20 August 1945, LCdr Richard Schreder of the US Navy performed test flights along with the Luftwaffe crew of one of the Bv 222 Wiking aircraft that had been acquired by the US. In two flights resulting in a total flight time of 38 minutes they experienced 4 engine fires. While many spare engines were available they were of substandard quality due to the lack of quality alloys near the end of the war, and caught fire easily. Since the aircraft was unairworthy with these engines, the aircraft was supposedly taken out to open water and sunk by a Navy Destroyer.

Other reports indicate the US captured aircraft were flown or shipped to the US. Convair acquired one for evaluation at the Naval Air Station Patuxent River, the intensive studies leading to the hull design of their Model 117 which in turn led to the R3Y Tradewind. Their subsequent fate is unknown. The V2 aircraft briefly wore US markings in 1946. Strangely the V2 aircraft had identification markings given to her from the original V5 aircraft for Operation Schatzgräber.

V2 was later scuttled by the British who filled her with Bv 222 Wiking spare parts from the base at Ilsvika to weigh her down. V2 was towed to a position between Fagervika and Monk’s island where it is thought she now rests perfectly preserved on the seabed, owing to low oxygen levels in the water. There are plans to raise and restore this aircraft.

Blohm + Voss BV 238, flying-boat (prototype).  (Luftwaffe Photos)  

Blohm + Voss Ha 140 torpedo bomber flying-boat (prototype).

‍