Junkers Ju.52/3m various European Users

 

The Junkers Ju.52/3m is a German cargo aircraft which was widely used all around the globe. It was used, among many other ones, by the following countries:

• Slovak Republic: Two Ju.52/3mg7e were purchased from Germany in 1942 when the Slovak Air Force (SVZ) replaced their old inherited Czechoslovak-made material. They were destined to their flying school. Their fate is not known, but they were most probably destroyed on the ground during an aerial strike. 
• USSR: The Soviet Union employed the Ju.52/3m both before and after World War 2. Before the war, the type was evaluated by the NII-VVS (Soviet Air Force's Technical Research Unit) in 1937. 
  The Soviet State airline, Aeroflot, began operating captured Ju.52/3m on the Perm to Samara aerial route in the summer of 1944. These aircraft were also used to transport sulphur from mines in Central Asia to Soviet factories. Many of them were retrofitted with Soviet RPK-10 radio compasses and remained in active service until the late 1950s.
• Sweden: The Swedish national airline, AB Aerotransport, bought five Ju.52/3m, (according to some sources it was just 5 of them) in 1932. Though the airline's main aircraft was the famous Douglas DC-3, the Ju.52/3m was kept in service for routes from Sweden to Germany. They were extensively used, even during the war years, with neutrality markings. After the War, they served until 1948. 
  In order to prepare the country for a possible invasion during World War 2, the Swedish Air Force hired five Ju.52/3m from Aerotransport which gave them the designation of 'TP-5'. They were employed in many different roles, like cargo, personnel and VIP transport, but also as trainers and some of them were allocated to train the first Swedish paratroopers, though, eventually, they never served as such.
• Yugoslavia: During the very end of World War 2 and the immediate postwar, the Yugoslav Air Force operated some ex-German Ju.52/3m. They were complemented in 1946 with two French-made AAC.1 Toucan which were ordered in late 1945. In 1950 they acquired four more Toucans and two years later they were replaced by the Soviet Lisunov Li-2, the Soviet copy of the Douglas DC-4. The AAC.1s were passed on to JAT, the Yugoslav state airline, which operated the type until 1964. Nowadays one of them is preserved in Belgrade.

Sources:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Junkers_Ju_52_operators

2. https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABA (translated)

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AB_Aerotransport

4. http://www.vrtulnik.cz/ww2/slovac.htm (translated)

5. http://www.lietadla.com/historia/slov-heinkel.htm (translated)

6. https://wwiiafterwwii.wordpress.com/2020/04/11/aac-1-toucan-frances-post-wwii-ju-52/

7. https://www.avrosys.nu/aircraft/Transport/255tp5/255Tp5.htm

8. Signal Squadron - Aircraft in Action 186 - Junkers Ju.52 in Action

Junkers Ju.52/3m in Portugal

 

The Junkers Ju.52/3m is a German transport plane that also served in Portugal and its colonies, though this colonial usage we already covered it in a previous post.

The Ju.52/3m was used in metropolitan Portugal by Aero Portuguesa, which was the first official Portuguese airline with scheduled international flights. The airline was founded in 1934 and shortly later some Ju.52/3m were acquired. They covered various routes between Portugal and French Morocco and later a new link with Brazil was opened. The Ju.52/3m served until 1953 when Aero Portuguesa was merged with TAP (Transportes Aéreos Portugueses - Portuguese Air Transports - the main Portuguese airline nowadays) and the Ju.52/3m were replaced by more modern types.

Regarding its usage by armed forces, to write about the Ju.52/3m in Portugal, is to write about the history of Esquadra 502 (Squadron 502). This unit was founded in 1937 and since December was equipped with Ju.52/3m as it was intended to fulfil the role of night bomber. They were kept in that role until mid 1940s when, given their obsolescence as a bomber, they were redistributed to various units located in Sintra and Ota, all of them close to Lisbon, to serve as aerial transports.

Later, in 1952 the Portuguese paratrooper unit was created in Tancos, dependant on the Portuguese Air Force (PAF) with one Ju.52/3m being assigned to this unit to serve as a paratrooper transport.

On 12th April 1956 a mixed squadron was created with two subordinated flights (though they were flights in name only as they were over-strengthened),  one with 22 Piper L-21 mixed with Airspeed Oxfords intended to serve in the training and liaison role and another one with five Ju.52/3m to serve in the pure transport role. This squadron was disbanded in December 1959 in order to be reformed and create the Esquadra de Instruçao Complementar de Pilotagem e Navegaçao em Aviôes Pesados (EICPNAP - Complementary Instruction Squadron for Piloting and Navigation in Heavy Airplanes) whose purpose was to train pilots for paratroop drops. In order to keep the Ju.52/3m active for longer time, two of them were retrofitted with Pratt & Whitney R-1340 engines.

The EICPNAP was reinforced during November and December of 1960 with 15 additional AAC.1 Toucan machines bought directly from France in order to increase the amount of trained paratroopers to fight in the tumultuous Portuguese colonies of Angola, Guinea and Mozambique. In late 1963 the EICPNAP was disbanded only tu be succeded by the Esquadra de Treino e Transporte de Tropas Pára-quedistas (ETTP - Paratroop Training and Transport Squadron) which was a change in name only as their location, aircraft and mission was maintained. Shortly after this change, the old Ju.52/3m and Amiots were replaced by American Douglas Dakota C-47.

Sources:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Junkers_Ju_52_operators

2. https://esquadra.emfa.pt/link-502-005.002.001.002.001-junkers-ju-52 (translated)

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aero_Portuguesa

4. Signal Squadron - Aircraft In action 186 - Junkers Ju-52 in Action

Junkers Ju.52/3m - Amiot AAC.1 Toucan

 

The Amiot AAC.1 Toucan was a French copy of the Junkers Ju.52/3m which was manufactured after the World War 2. 

During the war, Amiot's factories in Colombes (located close to Paris) manufactured hundreds of Ju.52/3m on behalf of the Luftwaffe. After the war, in order to re-equip the Armée de l'Air (French Air Force) and, to make it affordable, the French government opted to take advantage of the available stocks and the acquired skills to relaunch aircraft production. Therefore, a total of approximately 400 Amiot AAC.1 Toucan (AAC stands for Ateliers Aéronautiques de Colombes) were manufactured between late 1944 and 1947/1948 and receiving serial numbers from number 001 onwards.

Compared to its original German counterpart, the Toucan never featured any defensive armament, the landing gear's reinforcement was never present and further minor changes were made also. 

The main users of the Ju.52/3m (the original German one, not the Toucan) in France were both the Armée de l'Air and the Aéronautique Navale as they employed captured German machines or even bought from other Allied countries. These machines were also named as Toucan, however, in order to distinguish an original German from a Toucan, an extra digit was added to the serial number (ex. 1001 stood for the first original German one). This was done arbitrarily, without taking into consideration the original German serial number.

The main user of the Toucan was the Armée de l'Air, with at least 216 machines in active, flying with different units. 

In fact, the Toucan flew with every transport unit located in mainland France. One unit, Groupe de Transport (GT) III/15 'Maine', was equipped both with the Toucan and the Douglas C-47. Based at Bourget airport, in Paris, this unit took part, together with other C-47 equipped transport units like, GT II/15 'Anjou' or GT I/15 'Touraine' in the repatriation of French prisoners and deportees in Germany. 

The GT IV/15 'Poitou' was equipped with the Toucan in 1946. The following year twenty of them were deployed in Madagascar to counter the rebels present there. Here, some Toucans acted as makeshift bombers delivering a payload of one ton.

The Toucan took part too in the first years of the First Indochina War, specially with the GM III/64 'Tonkin', GT I/64 'Béarn' and GT II/52 'Franche-Compté'. The GSRA (Groupes sahariens de reconnaissance et d'Appui - Saharian Support and Reconnaissance Groups) 76 and 78 also employed the Toucan during the Algerian War. 

The Toucan was also present in other colonial units present at the French Equatorial Africa like the ESRA 77, present at Bangui (nowadays Central African Republic) as well as with other units like ELA 56 'Vaucuse' or EOM 82.

The Aéronautique Navale (Naval Air Arm) had around 51 Toucans in service with the last one being retired in 1962. They notably served with the 5S, 31S (based at Orly, in Paris) and 56S, among others.

There were many French civilian operators of the Toucan:

• Air France: The French national airway operated the type starting from late 1944 in internal aerial routes and then, after the war, in international and colonial routes. They were retired by 1953. 
• Aero Cargo: It seems that this airline had at least one Toucan in inventory.
• Air Ocean:  Flew a single Toucan for a brief period of time. It crashed in Morocco in October 1946.
• CTA Languedoc Roussillon:  This company has the sad record of having suffered the most deadly Ju.52/3m civilian accident with 23 out of 27 casualties in a crash at Saint-Léger-la-Montagne.
• Société Auxiliare de Navigation Aérienne used the Toucan together with demilitarized Handley-Page Halifax bombers.

Many agencies of the French Government also employed the Toucan.

Sources:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Junkers_Ju_52_operators

2. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiot_AAC.1_Toucan (translated)

3. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France (translated)

4. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_the_Junkers_Ju_52

5. https://wwiiafterwwii.wordpress.com/2020/04/11/aac-1-toucan-frances-post-wwii-ju-52/

Junkers Ju.52/3m, Croatian, Czechoslovak and Danish users

 

The Junkers Ju.52/3m is a German cargo airplane that was produced since 1931 until 1952, since 1945 under foreign manufacturers though.

It comes no surprise that it was used by a wide variety of countries as it was very sturdy, versatile and easy to fly. Some of those countries that employed the type were the following ones:

• Independent State of Croatia: As an organic part of the Luftwaffe, the Croatian Air Force Legion, had at one moment at least one Ju.52/3m registered in January 1944. It seems that previously there were three of them which were used to transport personnel of the 15 (Kroat)/KG.3. The drawing should be considered as speculative because we couldn't find any graphical evidence of a Ju.52 serving with the Croatian Air Force Legion.
• Czechoslovakia: Just after the War, the airline Ceskoslovenské Letecka Spolecnost briefly operated the type by flying a Ju.52/3m to Bromma airport, in Sweden, on 1st February 1946.
  On 1st March 1946 CSA (Czechoslovak Airlines) resumed aerial operations with a fleet of, among other types, three Ju.52/3m (refurbished by Letov) and two Amiot AAC.1 (some sources claim it was three) transferred from the Czechoslovak Air Force between 1946 and 1948. This airline kept scheduled flights from Prague to various destinations all around Europe like Amsterdam, Belgrade, Berlin, Brussels, London Paris, Stockholm, Strasbourg and Warsaw, with many internal destinations like Bratislava, Karlovy Vary and Kosice. 
  One Ju.52/3m crashed when landing in Prague on 5th March 1946, killing ten of the fifteen total people on board, when operating a Paris-Strasbourg-Prague service. 
  After the communist coup in Czechoslovakia, in 1948, CSA was nationalised, so the whole country passed to the Soviet sphere of influence, making the Ju.52/3m and AAC.1s to be eventually replaced by the Lisunov Li-2 and surplus Douglas DC-3 supplied by Soviet authorities.
  Another Czechoslovak users of the Ju.52/3m was the Bata Shoe Company (headquartered in Zlin) which briefly operated a pair of AAC.1s to transport goods and materials between their factories. When the company was nationalised in 1948, the AAC.1s were passed on to the Czechoslovak Police Air Force. Eventually those two Amiot were sold back to France on 17th March 1951.
• Denmark: Det Danske Luftfartselskab (Danish Airlines - DDL) had one Ju.52/3m in property. This aircraft was acquired, with American-built Pratt & Whitney engines, on 8th August 1936 and was nicknamed as "Selandia". It suffered several accidents during 1937 and 1938, when flying regular flights from Copenhagen to various destinations, so a second one was leased from Deutsche Lufthansa. At the outbreak of World War 2, "Selandia" was ready again and resumed operations, this time with big Danish flags painted, as neutrality markings. When Germany occupied Denmark, in April the whole DDL fleet was parked, where it remained until operations were partially resumed in June, after the fall of France. On 18th December 1942 "Selandia" was lost to an accident when landing at Aspern, in Vienna.
  After the War, on 18th July 1945, one Ju.52/3m was leased by DDL, however, due to poor technical conditions of the airplane, it was returned three weeks later. Later, three Ju.52/3m were handled by the RAF to the Dannish Government with the intentions of incorporating them to the DDL's fleet, although eventually only one of them entered service. This Ju.52/3m was nicknamed as "Uffe Viking" and was used on the Copenhagen-Ronne, in the island of Bornholm as the small airfield of the island wasn't adequate to operate the Douglas DC-3. 
  The other two Ju.52/3m remained unused and were returned to the Danish Government in December 1948 which allocated them for firefighting practices in Kastrup. "Uffe Viking" was used until 4th February 1948, when it was stored at Kastrup awaiting a possible buyer. It was eventually bought by the Swedish company Aero Trafik on 23rd August 1950 and ferried to Sweden three weeks later.

Sources:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Junkers_Ju_52_operators

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_Airlines

3. https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/České_aerolinie (translated)

4. Fonthill Media - The Junkers Ju.52 Story
5. https://hrvatskoobrambenostivo.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/the-croatian-air-force-in-the-second-world-war.pdf

6. https://military.wikireading.ru/26850 (translated)

Junkers Ju.52, Middle-East and one African users

 

Preliminary note: Yes, we know that the French Amiot AAC.1 Toucan was covered in a previous post. However, as we were not happy with the final result, we decided to remake them.

The Junkers Ju.52/3m is a German cargo plane that saw an enormous success, thanks to which, it was exported to many parts around the globe. On this post we cover the next users:

• Lebanon: It seems that Lebanon had in force a very small number (probably it was just one airplane) of AAC.1 Toucan (the French version of the Ju.52/3m which was produced during and after the World War 2). Anyway, this was never an important asset for the Lebanese Air Force. As we couldn't find any graphical evidence of a Lebanese Amiot AAC.1 Toucan, the drawing and its markings should be considered as speculative.
• Portuguese Mozambique: In 1936 the airline DETA (acronym for Direcçao de Exploraçao de Transportes Aéreos - Direction for Aerial Transport Explorations) was established with a small fleet of British-made aircraft that were used for airmail services. Soon after, this airline started carrying passengers too and, given the rapid expansion, they acquired Junkers Ju.52/3m in 1938. 
  This airline flew, during  the late 1930s domestic flights inside Mozambique only. With the start of the World War 2, most operations were halted.
  DETA resumed operations after the war and started to open new aerial routes with foreign neighbour countries or regions like Rhodesia, South Africa and Madagascar. The Ju.52/3m served with DETA until April 1960, making it one of the last worldwide operator of the Ju.52/3m on scheduled services. In June 1961 the company ordered three Fokker F.27-200 to replace their ageing Ju.52/3m.
• Syria: Just like in the case of Lebanon, it seems that Syria had a very small number of Amiot AAC.1 in inventory, probably just one airplane. In any case, this Toucan was never given any important task. Please note that the drawing is considered as speculative as we couldn't find graphical evidence.
• Turkey: In 1943 five Ju.52/3m that belonged to Lufthansa were sold to Turkey. These were delivered one year later and assigned to Devlet Hava Yollari (the immediate forerunner of Turkish Airlines) The Ju.52/3m served on the Istanbul-Ankara route and other secondary domestic routes until 1948 when they were replaced by American DC-3 for passengers and Douglas C-47s for cargo duties.

Sources:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Junkers_Ju_52_operators

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAM_Mozambique_Airlines

3. https://wwiiafterwwii.wordpress.com/2020/04/11/aac-1-toucan-frances-post-wwii-ju-52/

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_Airlines

5. https://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/Gal3/2701-2800/Gal2785-Ju-52-Gerdan/00.shtm

6. http://www.thy-heritage.com/flit/