Junkers 287 - why was the project resumed in 1945?

[ktank]

Been reading a "bookazine" called "Luftwaffe Secret Bombers of the Third Reich", one of a series on WW2 Luftwaffe projects by Dan Sharp. He goes right back to primary sources and it's fascinating, with a lot of new information.

One of the big puzzles to me is the Ju287 jet bomber. Its development was suspended in July 1944 - OK, D-day had happened, the Reich was being pummeled by bombers, something as exotic and using as much resources as a swept-wing large jet bomber would be about as useful as a chocolate teapot.

But then the project was reviewed, along with Messerschmidt and Horton jet bomber designs, in a conference in February 1945, and the conference recommended the 287 as first priority if the decision to proceed with this jet program were made.

The author believes that in fact this decision was made, quoting immediate post-war intelligence reports from both the US and the UK, the former referring to "plans for mass production" and the latter referring to work restarting "on the highest priority".

Whisky Tango Foxtrot??? What had changed since July '44? With the Reich in ruins, what could restarting the program possibly achieve? Why make it "highest priority"? Why continue it not just as an R&D exercise but plan for mass production?

Note that some work must have continued - after the war the Junkers team continued to work on it in the USSR and eventually flew the 287 as the EF131 in 1947.

 

[pbehn]

That is life under a regime run by a mad man with a lot of other mad men and women below. Defeatism is punished by death, to say "a new bomber will have no effect because we have no fuel or airfields" would get you killed. At the fall of Germany there were up to one thousand people working on plans for a broad gauge railway to link all the areas of the Third Reich, Germany, France, Benelux, Austria, Italy and much of Eastern Europe and the Balkans were to have a new rail system even when Germany had shrunk to a matter of a few hundred square miles.

 

[Ohm-men]

Acourding to a the "Junkers Ju 287, Germany's forward sweptwing bomber" book that I'm currently reading the project was resumed after a conference held by the high command. Heinkels jet bomber project was shelved and the high command believed that the Ju 287 stood the best chance to come to frutation. They estimated that by july 1945 the production of the Ju 287 could be estimated at arround 100 aircraft per month. They even earmarked two Kampfgeschadders to start training on the aircraft as soon as it became availble. Ofcourse reality was far from these estimations. The Jumo 004 C that was supossed to to be used was too far from being operational, so the BMW jet engines were selected. Goering dreamed of a huge fast bomber force to turn the tides of war in favour of Germany...

If you are interested, the above mentioned book is a must read, you can't believe what incompetence was involved from the high command regarding this project. If it was't for Hertel, nothing would have came from it. There are transcrips inside the book of talks held with Goering, Milch, Hertel and other's, that are just mind blowing... As if no one at the high command or even the aircraft designers had any awareness of how the war was progressing... Also after D-Day all bomber devolpmentnt was shelved in favor of fighter, to be reversed a few months later... Also the rivalery between some aircraft disingers, the high command and even Goerings favoritism really made a mess of things.

But the Ju 287 V1 showed remarkly good flight characters, even though it was an "Ad hoc" made aircraft made from availble components. Though Junkers made a great effort in research for this project. Arround 150 men working on it.