Saturday 4 May 2019

Messerschmitt Me.262. Part four. - Foreign users part two

We keep covering more foreign users of the mighty Me.262. Now it's the turn for:

  • United Kingdom: The British forces managed to capture a Me.262 in Faßberg, located northern-central Germany on 6th May 1945 when the war in Europe was almost over. Some few days after, when the war was already over, it was moved to Lubeck, occupied by British troops, in order to test it. The New Zealander Warren Edward Schrader was the first one to test it on 29th May. The fate of this Me.262 is unknown, but, more likely, it was moved into the United Kingdom and eventually shown in some museum there.
  • France: The French got some Me.262s when American troops captured the airfield of Lechfeld, in Bavaria. Initially it was handed over to the Frenchs who tested it from June until September 1945 and then, according to some sources it was either destroyed (most unlikely due to the advanced nature of the aircraft) or given to the Americans who tested the machine further. (See our previous post about the foreign users of the Me.262 where we wrote about the Me.262 in American hands)
    Anyway, it's known that two years after the war, in 1947, the Frenchs were still testing one Me.262 at CEV Bretigny.
As it was the first jet fighter, we also couldn't resist the temptation of how it would look like with some German allies like Hungary or the Italian Social Republic. Those two drawings are purely fictional as the Me.262 wasn't exported whatsoever.










Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_262
2. https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/cosford/whats-going-on/news/me-262-rejoins-cosford-s-german-aircraft-collectio/
3. http://www.traditions-air.fr/index.htm (translated)
4. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters

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