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One of military aviation history’s oft-discussed issues is the German Luftwaffe’s lack of a heavy bomber in World War II.
The most ambitious argument was that, had Germany built strategic heavy bombers instead of focusing on tactical aircraft, they might have won the Battle of Britain and defeated the Soviet Union by bombing Soviet arms factories beyond the Ural Mountains.
This argument especially resonates because the World War I German air force had the most formidable strategic bomber force of any of the combatants, including four engine bombers, and carried out numerous raids on England during “the First Battle of Britain” in 1918.
Like many air officers in the United States and England, the first post-World War I Luftwaffe chief of staff, Gen. Walther Wever, was a strategic bombing enthusiast who wanted to develop a “Langstrecken-Grossbomber,” or long range heavy bomber, force to bomb Soviet factories beyond the Ural Mountains in case of war.
In 1935, Weaver ordered two German aircraft companies, Dornier and Junkers, to prepare four engine “Ural Bomber” prototypes. Dornier’s product, the Do-19, had a distinct ’30s look about it, while Junkers’ aircraft, the Ju-89, was much more modern in appearance and proved to have better performance.
By 1936, the program was proceeding apace, though it was somewhat controversial since building a heavy bomber force would take tremendous resources from the rest of the Luftwaffe. However, the trajectory of the controversy changed dramatically when, on June 6, 1936, Weaver was killed in a plane crash.
At that point, the supporters of a tactical Luftwaffe – notably World War I ace Ernst Udet and future Luftwaffe chief of staff Hans Jeschonnek – began to press Luftwaffe commander Herman Goering to drop the heavy bomber idea and focus on tactical aircraft, especially Stuka dive bombers and small, twin engine medium bombers, which could be produced quickly and in large quantities.
On April 29, 1937, less than three weeks after the Ju-89’s first flight, the Ural Bomber program was cancelled and the Luftwaffe became a tactical air force.
The decision was a sound one, even though later in the war Goering was to bemoan his lack of heavy bombers. The tactical Luftwaffe was far ahead of any other country’s air force at the beginning of the war and was a critical element in propelling German forces to their early victories in the first three years of the war.
More to the point, the Ju-89, the better of the two Ural Bombers, was not very good compared to its contemporary, the early U.S. Boeing B-17. The Ju-89 was larger and heavier – about 50,000 pounds loaded, compared to the B-17’s 40,000 pounds – but had four 750 horsepower engines compared to the B-17’s four 1,200 horsepower engines. The B-17 was also about 50 mph faster and carried a 4,800-pound bomb load, in comparison to the Ju-89’s 3,500-pound bomb load. Both carried roughly the same defensive armament.
The Ju-89 also lacked the development potential of the B-17, mainly because of the Junkers’ large, thick wing. The B-17’s NACA symmetrical airfoil gave it excellent high altitude performance, and its maximum service ceiling was 37,000 feet compared to the Ju-89’s 30,000 feet.
The Ju-89 did have a roughly similar performance compared to the RAF’s Avro Lancaster, but the Lancaster carried a bomb load of 14,000 pounds – four times that of the Ju-89. Later in the war, slightly modified Lancasters carried bombs of up to 22,000 pounds.
Despite the cancellation of the Ural Bomber project, the test program on the Ju-89 continued and it proved to have excellent flying characteristics.
The German civil airline, Lufthansa, had the Ju-89 developed into a 40-seat passenger aircraft, the Ju-90, and Ju-90s flew for Lufthansa and also served as transports in the Luftwaffe.
Ironically, the Ju-90 transports continued the Ju-89’s bomber legacy, and an armed, long range anti-shipping reconnaissance version was developed – the Ju-290. The Ju-290 proved to have severe structural problems when heavily loaded, but it impressed Hitler enough that he had one converted into his own personal transport, complete with a special armored passenger compartment and a parachute built into his personal chair.
In a final twist, in 1943 the Ju-290 was part of Hitler’s “Amerika Bomber” project to develop a very long range bomber capable of attacking targets in the United States. Two extra engines were added to make it the six-engine Ju-390, and while no raids took place, rumors persist to this day that two Ju-390s flew from France to the United States in 1944 – a 32 hour flight.
(Dr. Michel is currently deployed downrange)
