Junkers EF145 'Super Gans'

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Junkers EF145 'Super Gans' - Kampfgeschwader 76, Luftwaffe, 1948

 

Adolf Hitler's early decision to allow the Me262 programme to continue as a 'fighter only' project (and at top priority) soon reaped dividends as the world's first swept-wing jet fighter hacked down American bombers by day and, in it's Me 262 A-1a/U2 form, British bombers at night. The unsuccessful allied invasion of June 1944 (at Calais) allowed German forces to bolster the Eastern front and by September 1944 the frontline had become static in all theatres with Arado Ar234's and Me262's ruling the roost.

 

In October 1944 Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring instructed Junkers and Messerschmitt to design and produce very long-range bomber aircraft capable of delivering a 4,000kg bombload over a distance of 8,000km in a design competition that quickly gained the title of 'Projekt America'. Lead by Dr-Ing Heinrich Hertel the Junkers team dusted down a previously shelved project for a swing-wing tactical bomber known to the Junkers team as the 'Gans' (Goose) due to it's length and wingspan with the wing fully forward. Hertel scaled up the earlier Gans design as much as he dared based on using two of the projected Jumo 90 axial flow jet engines (each of 90kN thrust) to produce the EF145 design or 'Super Gans' but knew that the range requirement was going to be beyond the abilities of his otherwise outstanding submission unless he could cheat by assuming one-way missions or use in-flight refuelling. Impressed by the design, Göring encouraged Hertel to continue with the design and development of the EF145 for the European theatre.

 

Meanwhile, in February 1945 German Kommandos were delivered to the US mainland by U-Boat and on March 2nd undertook a co-ordinated attack on the three primary research and production sites of the Manhatten Project (the plutonium-production facility at the Hanford Site in eastern Washington state, the uranium enrichment facilities at Oak Ridge in Tennessee and the weapons research and design laboratory at Los Alamos in New Mexico) leading to mass evacuations at all three sites as radioactive material was scattered around the surrounding areas. With intelligence reports suggesting that the Manhatten Project had been set back at least three years Hitler asked Göring to accelerate 'Projekt America' but when informed that the best design (the EF145) was only going to have about one-half of the required range an enraged Hitler demanded that one-way missions would be acceptable and instructed Hannah Reitsch to set up a recruitment and indoctrination unit.

 

Junkers worked miracles to produce the EF145 prototype and, on the low installed thrust of it's Jumo 90 engines, it clawed itself into the air for the first time on March 1st, 1948 although an engine fire saw it quickly land back at Dessau. However, by this time the war situation had deteriorated for Germany. Truman's controversial decision to renege on the previously agreed 'Germany first' policy saw Japan finally defeated (conventionally) in December 1946 and the allies had made solid progress during 1947 leading to the second Calais landings of August 1947 and the simultaneous Soviet breakout through Poland and East Prussia. It is understood that just four production EF145's were delivered to KG76 during April 1948 with one successful strike mission being made against Lublin aerodrome in Poland before World War 2 finally ended on May 1st, 1948.

 

In a mystery that will probably remain unsolved the prototype 'Super Gans' was never found but on April 30th, 1948 a Portugese trawler crew 50km west of the Azores reported that an unidentified "goose like aircraft with it's tail on fire" was seen to crash into the sea with only the body of a woman in civilian clothing ever recovered.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 16, 2011 by Spinners