Issue No 22 THE AVIATION HISTORIAN 23
N THE SPRING of 1943 a series of
documents found their way to the
British Air Ministry’s Air Intelligence 2,
Section g — AI2(g) — which dealt with
such matters as the Luftwaffe order of
battle. The paperwork comprised a blueprint,
annotated in German, and a brief description
of its subject’s operation, written in Polish. The
material related to the Arado Ar 232, specifically
its boundary-layer control system — but at the
time nobody in Britain knew what the Ar 232
was. Someone in the Arado factory evidently
thought this information was important and
had risked their life delivering it to the British.
The question was — what was this machine?
The process by which it was finally identified is
intriguing and reveals much about the work of
the British Air Intelligence branches during the
Second World War.
The previous year, intelligence reports had
mentioned a similarly-configured twin-engined
and four-engined cargo aircraft, and in early
November 1942 two twin-engined aircraft
with a span “more or less that of a Wellington”
and a planform “similar to that of a Halifax”
were seen near Potsdam. The twin-engined
version was seen at Warsaw-Okecie airfield
in March 1943 and was described as having a
“fixed undercarriage under the gondolas of the
engines” and “four tandem wheels under the
fuselage”. The four-engined version was thought
to be the first version. Clearly this was a new
type in service with the Luftwaffe, and so the
intelligence work commenced.
From 1941 onwards the RAF’s photographic-
reconnaissance units (PRUs) made regular
sorties over German airfields, with particular
interest in research and development
establishments such as those at Peenemünde
and Rechlin. These sorties allowed the Allies to
maintain a watching brief on German aircraft
development and identify future threats,
famously revealing the Messerschmitt Me 163
and the Fieseler Fi 103 flying-bomb. The task
of monitoring these airfields fell to the officers
of Air Intelligence 2, Section B —AI2(B) —
who collated data from the PRUs, intercepted
communications, agents’ reports and the
interrogation of prisoners of war.
As of mid-1943, on encountering an unknown
type, Allied photo-interpreters (PIs) and
intelli-gence officers assigned a designation
based on the location at which they were
first recorded and their wingspan in feet. The
aircraft labelled “Rechlin 104” — 104ft (31·7m)
in this case — was first photographed at the
Luftwaffe’s Erprobungsstelle (test and evaluation
establishment) at Rechlin, 55 miles (90km)
north of Berlin, on June 26, 1943. Interpretation
Report L.77 noted this new type and how it
bore “a certain resemblance” (at least in plan
view) to the Heinkel He 219. This information
was distributed, with a sketch, on July 21, 1943,
to the various Commands and departments in
Intelligence Report No 2186, noting that the PIs
observed that it was camouflaged and wearing
military markings.
Another sketch arrived in early July 1943
and was included in Report No 52927, dated
July 20, 1943. This, a front and side view, was
drawn from memory by a visitor to Vienna’s
Aspern aerodrome, who also discovered that the
aircraft was powered by a pair of Gnome-Rhône
engines. This information came from “Germans
on the aerodrome” but it was “not possible to
procure further constructional data”. The sketch
shows a bulbous fuselage with a thin boom
carrying twin fins. The ventral bogies are shown
as two rows of single wheels down each side of
the cabin.
Also on July 20, an example of Rechlin 104
was recorded alongside a Junkers Ju 88 at
Trondheim-Værnes airfield in Norway, andOPPOSITE PAGE, TOP The eyewitness sketch drawn and annotated by a member of the Norwegian Resistance
who had seen the aircraft arrive at Trondheim. The drawing reached the UK in October 1943 and its captions were
translated into English. OPPOSITE PAGE, BOTTOM The mystery cargo aircraft at Rechlin in June 1943.
ABOVE The RAF’s first picture of what would become
known as “Rechlin 104” on the Erprobungsstelle’s
airfield at Rechlin on June 26, 1943, taken by a photo-
reconnaissance aircraft and issued with Interpretation
Report L.77. Photo-interpreters estimated the wing-
span at between 103 and 105ft, hence “Rechlin 104”.TNA x 2THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES (TNA)