The Junkers Ju87

Ju87G

This German two-seat dive bomber and close support aircraft was in service from 1937 until 1945. One of the most famous warplanes of history, the Ju87 is better known as the Stuka, a name abbreviated from the German word for a dive bomber. It was the US Navy that pioneered the technique of aiming bombs by diving steeply on the target and targeting the whole aircraft in the way a fighter pilot does to bring his guns to bear. The need for an aircraft of this type was ignored by the RAF but eagerly accepted by the reborn Luftwaffe, and the first Ju87 flew in 1935. After much development the Ju87A-1 was delivered in numbers from April 1937. It was an odd-looking machine, resembling a bird of prey, with a W form craned wing, high cockpit canopy, square tail, and swept-forward 'trousered' landing gears like talons. In the nose was a 610 hp Jumo 210 engine, and under the belly a 250 kg (550 lb) or 500kg (1 000lb) bomb was carried on pivoted arms. At the bottom of the screaming dive these arms swung the bomb clear of the propeller.

Tested in the Spanish Civil War, both this version and the much improved Ju87B demonstrated amazing pinpoint accuracy. They had airbrakes in the form of hinged plates under the wings, to keep the speed down so that the pilot would have more time to aim. The Ju87B had spatted wheels and a 1 100 hp Jumo 211D engine driving a constant-speed propeller. As well as the main bomb it would carry four 50 kg (110) bombs under the wings, and it carried three machine guns, two fixed in the wings and one aimed by the man in the rear cockpit. In Poland the dreaded Stuka smashed a path for the German armies, and they repeated the technique even more forcefully in the invasion through the Low Countries into France in May 1940. By this time cardboard sirens were added to the Stukas and to their bombs to strike even greater terror into those underneath. Over Britain the almost defenseless Ju87 was easy meat, and soon had to be withdrawn, but in Russia and over Greece and Crete it did its deadly work and caused heavy losses to the ships of the Royal Navy.

By late 1944 at least 5 000 Ju87s had been built. Most were of a more powerful and more streamlined type, the 87D, with 1 400 hp Jumo 211J with which a bomb load of 3 960 LB could be carried. Some versions were equipped for night attack missions, and the 87G was a family fitted with two 37mm tank-busting cannon instead of bombs. Many were used as glider tugs and trainers, and one version was even planned to operate from the carrier Graf Zeppelin but the ship was never commissioned.