Junkers Ju52/3M (CASA
352L)
Serial Number:
(G-AFAP)
Period:
Post-WWII
Collection Ref: 78/AF/612
Location: RAF Museum Cosford, Transport & Training
In its time, the Junkers Ju52/3m was rivalled only by
the Douglas Dakota as a transport aircraft. It was used by the airlines
of thirty countries and several Air Forces. A few examples still fly today
with pleasure flight operators.
The Ju52 was the last in a series of corrugated metal-skinned Junkers
aircraft. The first aircraft, fitted with a single engine, flew in October
1930. The first three-engined version, the Ju52/3m, flew in April 1932.
Orders for this robust aircraft, which could carry seventeen passengers
or eighteen troops, soon started coming in and included an order for three
from the pre-war British Airways, in whose colours this example is displayed.
By 1934, the newly-formed Luftwaffe was flying bomber-transport Ju52s
and the type was soon in action with the Luftwaffe's Condor Legion, which
fought on the Nationalist side in the Spanish Civil War. In August 1936,
Ju52s carried out what was then the biggest air-transportation operation
ever mounted, carrying 14000 of General Franco's troops from Morocco to
Spain.
During the Second World War the Ju52 became the Luftwaffe's standard workhorse
and was known affectionately as 'Tante Ju' (Auntie Ju). Flown mainly as
a transport, it also fulfilled air-ambulance and, more unusually, mine-clearance
roles. For the latter it was fitted with a large metal hoop which could
be energized by a motor to explode magnetic sea-mines.
After the Second World War it was built under licence for use by the Spanish
Air Force.
