Focke-Wulf Fw.200 Condor. Part Two. More foreign Users

 

The Focke-Wulf Fw.200 Condor was a German all-metal four-engined monoplane, originally conceived as a long-range airliner. It was mainly used by Germany, but some countries employed the type too, among them, the following ones:

• United Kingdom: A single Danish Fw.200A, registered as OY-DAM, flew to Shoreham, Sussex, on 8th April 1940. That night, Germany launched the Operation Weserübung - Süd, the invasion of Denmark and Norway. The morning of 9th April the crew was not allowed to return to the airplane as it was seized by British officials. In May it received a new registration, new colours and it was flown to Whitchurch, Shropshire, as it was allocated to the BOAC (British Overseas Aircraft Corporation). Turn out that the BOAC didn't use the aircraft very much and it crashed in July 1941.
  There were two more Fw.200 which served with the Royal Air Force (RAF), the first one, registered as F8+FS, surrendered to the British forces in Wuppertal on 8th May 1945. With the RAF it was flown to Belgium and from there, possibly to the other side of the British Channel, however, its ultimate fate is unknown. It was just possibly scrapped. 
  The other Fw.200 was captured intact at Flensburg, Schleswig-Holstein, when the war ended and it's thought it was used by Heinrich Himmler, as Flensburg was the base of the Great Admiral Dönitz who took over the German government after Hitler's death on 30th April 1945. This machine, coded as GC+AE, was flown to Roya Aircraft Establishment (RAE) Farnborough, Hampshire, for evaluation. 
• Finland: The Finnish national airway, AeroO/Y ordered two Fw.200A airliners. These machines were eventually built, but once the war started, they were taken over by the Reichluftfahrtministerium (RLM) and pushed into Luftwaffe's service. 
• Japan: Japanese authorities were impressed by the flight around the globe performed by the Fw.200A D-ACON (even if it was lost off the Philippine capital, Manila) and they ordered five Fw.200B airliners (the Fw.200B was equipped with better BMW 132Dc engines) in 1939 for use with the Dai Nippon KK (Japanese national airline back then) plus a single Fw.200 to be used by the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) for a possible reconnaissance role. 
  Focke-Wulf proposed the Fw.200V10, which was an armed long-range reconnaissance variant fitted with a dorsal turret, armed with a 7,5 mm MG-15 machine gun and an elongated ventral gondola offset to starboard armed with smaller caliber machine guns to fire from fore and aft. Gondola's central section was taken up by a weapons bay. A total of five airframes were converted to this new standard and they were temporarily designated as Fw.200KC-1, to be allocated to Dai Nippon KK. 
  Eventually they were not delivered to Japan and the five KC-1 were completed as Fw.200C-2s and D-2s and were assigned to the Luftwaffe.

Sources:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focke-Wulf_Fw_200_Condor

2. https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235070268-boac-fw-200-condor/

3. Hall Park Books - Warpaint 13 - Focke-Wulf Fw.200 Condor

4. Osprey - Combat Aircraft 115 - Fw.200 Condor Units of World War II

Focke-Wulf Fw.200 Condor. Part One. Foreign Users

 

The Focke-Wulf Fw.200 Condor was a German four-engined monoplane designed by Focke-Wulf as an airliner, which saw service with various countries, among them, the following ones:

• Brazil: In early 1939 the Brazilian airline Syndicato Condor, which was a subsidiary of Deutsche Lufthansa, bought two Focke-Wulf Fw.200A airliners which, as sophisticated as they were, were employed in the Rio de Janeiro-Buenos Aires international route. When the company was re-organized and renamed to Serviços Aéreos Cruzeiro do Sul in 1943, the Condors operated together with the American-supplied Douglas DC-3 airliners until 1948 (though some sources claim it was only until 1947) when the Condors were retired and replaced with Douglas DC-3s.
• Denmark: In 1938 the Danish National Airline, Det Danske Luftfartselskab A/B (Danish Air Lines or, abbreviated, DDL) acquired two Focke-Wulf Fw.200A Condor airliners. These were named as Dania and Jutlandia. Dania was seized by the British in April 1940 as, at that time, it was in British territory. It was pushed into service for a brief period of time with the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) and with the Royal Air Force, before being damaged beyond repair one year later, in 1941.
  The second one, Jutlandia, survived the whole war and continued serving as an airliner until 4th September 1946, when it had to crash-land in Northolt, London, after landing in crosswinds. Fortunately there were no casualties but the aircraft was damaged beyond repair and was written off.

Sources:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focke-Wulf_Fw_200_Condor

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

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

4. https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serviços_Aéreos_Cruzeiro_do_Sul (translated)

5. https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Focke-Wulf_Fw_200

6. Hall Park Books - Warpaint 13 - Focke-Wulf Fw-200 Condor