In today's photo, at far right is the burned Me-109G10 seen in the foreground of yesterday's photo.

Behind the burned aircraft in the foreground is the "31" Me-109G1/G12 tandem model, previously discussed.

Between the "31" and "12" are the remains of some model of Ju-87 Stuka -- still unknown and will remain so.  Since this is late in the war, the Stuka would be assumed to be some variant of the Ju-87D. 

Also seen previously is the "12" that had extreme damage radiating outward from the right floor of the cockpit, and in this view, this damage is seen better. I do not believe that just a grenade would have done this but whatever it was, it occurred with the aircraft on its undercarriage -- and it was powerful enough to simply, structurally, break the back of the aircraft over the rear wing spar.

The explosion left the front spar intact, dropping the aft fuselage while the wings pivoted on the front spar.  It then sagged to the ground, leaving the engine balanced on a prop blade and firewall -- which is pretty secure to the front spar. Some of the other aircraft could have been destroyed with an incendiary explosion. This one was not that type.

There is fire damage to the rudder of this aircraft but this is from the burned aircraft in the foreground.

The aircraft on the far left is another Me-109G10 and was pushed backwards into the position in the photo.  This is assumed since the tail wheel is still thusly positioned.

As is often the case with these aircraft during maintenance or cannibalization, the radio doors are off and the radios have been removed.  The "209" (with stylized "9") and the "12," though both are  G10s (the rudder is the key to G10 identity), they have radio doors in different locations with the "12" having the more common placement.  We know that the radio was often moved around in the fuselage to adjust the CG on any number of sub-variant models.   Sometimes this was because of larger methanol/water tanks behind the pilot, more armor for the pilot, or some change in the nose, like larger caliber cannons over the engine cowling.  The "209" might have been one of these aircraft. It has a narrow fuselage band just in front of the empennage. It isn't the wide Eastern Front band nor is it the Home Defense band, so it was most likely related to some local identity.

But what about the burned-out aircraft in the foreground? 

The still-extended, wide-stance undercarriage shows it was burned in-place, and we know it is not an Me-109 by the fin and undercarriage, and the fin shows it is not a Fw-190.

What, then is it?

It is not a Heinkel.

This was a hard one to identify and I had gone through at least eight different levels of research on these photos and each time, I saw more because I knew more -- and I had more reference material. Let us try to identify this aircraft together.

What does the photo tell us?

We see it has a single, in-line engine, moderately wide-stance undercarriage (retractable), ailerons to near wing tip, canopy appears to hinge at top-rear to open upward, rather than slide, and the fin didn't have an aerodynamically balanced rudder, and it is has a full-span, single unit, statically balanced elevator -- Whoa!! There was only one German aircraft manufacturer with tails like that!

Look! The leading edge of the fin intersects the fuselage well ahead of the leading edge of stabilizer.  The rudder had to clear the elevator movement -- now, it should be getting easier -- it starts with an "A" and they made aircraft for other designers, as well as a lot of their own designs.

This is (with one doubt) an Arado -- but which one?

Well, it isn't a jet, which Arado built.  It doesn't have floats, and they built a lot of them.  It doesn't have a radial engine as many Arados did, and it has retracts, which a lot of Arados didn't -- this is an Arado Ar.96 and most likely a B-2 variant.

When I looked it up, the dead-give-away was in the three-view. It shows the wing leading edge near the root taking a short break toward the nose -- as does the mystery aircraft in our photo.

All this matches except I do not know how the Arado Ar.96's canopy opened.

This aircraft was a tandem-seat trainer and was used all across Germany. In 1940, it was chosen to be "the" trainer of all Luftwaffe pilots. The most populous model (11,546) was the Ar.96B of which several sub-variants were built; the B-2 being the most.

These trainers were designed to be straight, true fliers, and were built with simple tooling, consequently, they were produced by too many companies to list.

The Ar.96B-2 had a 465 hp, inverted V-12 (air-cooled!) engine, 36' span, 205 mph max., and a 615-mile range. It invariably had a single 7.9-mm machine gun above engine on right side; sometimes other guns and bomb mounts were added. These were not necessarily used for combat but rather for training.

The aircraft has, besides the distinctive empennage, a distinctive "spinner" which was in two-sections with small vanes on the forward part to spin in the air-flow.   This was coupled to the variable-pitch, two-bladed prop. Instead of centrifugal force changing pitch, it used air-resistance/ air-flow.

Besides for training, the Ar.96B was used to tow light gliders.

The mentioned, distinctive Arado empennage appeared on 13 aircraft designs with many sub-variants. There were biplanes on wheels, biplanes on floats, parasol winged aircraft and even some bent-low wings (like a Stuka). And there was a low-wing float plane and one design with a shoulder wing.

And their last float plane design was the Arado 231. This was a cute little parasol with a "T" tail. Pleasing to look at in spite of the right wing being mounted at least 12" lower than the left wing. The wing center section (on struts over the slim fuselage) was tilted about 15 degrees to connect left and right wings.

This tilting was to permit the wings to overlap when pivoted over the horizontal "T" tail -- this way it could be slid into a water-tight container on a U-boat.

It is written that the Arado 231 was "tricky" to handle on the water, which I would understand with a parasol wing on floats (and open cockpit). But it was equally "tricky" to handle in the air. The little  plane (33' span) had long, long floats which had a frontal area twice that of the fuselage. It weighed 2,000 lbs. with only a 160 h.p. engine.  (The FA-330 roto-kite was used instead of this Arado 231.)

Arado went to more "conventional" empennages with their twin-jet. Then, they made a twin-engine, pod and boom transport -- with 24 wheels.

And their last design was a truly conventional-looking, twin-engine attack bomber. But even this one had something "funny" at the tail. Behind the empennage was a large conical fuselage extension which could split to produce very large dive brakes -- and it had upper and lower guns controlled remotely by a gunner using periscopes -- which they also had on the jet. It was reported that this attack bomber design was "unstable in all three-axes."

It did not go into production. (I should hope not!)

Of interest is that production for the shown Ar.96 ceased at the end of the war, but in previously German-occupied-France and Czechoslovakia, the production continued -- in Czechoslovakia, until 1948.

In France, the Ar.96B production had been winding down and they were tooling up for a German Ar.296. After the war, this design was changed into an all-wood model and manufactured in large numbers in France as the S.11; there was a subsequent, metal S.12.

This field is, as I said before, a large one. On the right horizon there appears to be more hangars or industrial buildings, center horizon has a church steeple which seems to be the tallest thing around.

So wherever this base is, it is early morning with very low sun-angle, the grass is or has been dormant.  The time is most likely after the Eastern Front break-through by the Russians.  The Russians were advancing brutally in the east, the Battle of the Bulge had been a failure for the Germans -- which occurred about three months before this picture was taken.  (When these images were originally posted, I had no idea of the actual location but now, more adept historians have agreed that the location must be Köthen, 80 miles SW of Berlin.)

And now the German opposition is more sparse and GIs have time to stop and take photos of German airplanes at a large, just-evacuated air base.

Last Sunday might have been Easter.

Ken Cashion