JU-390 The "New York" bomber

[Brett]

The largest bomber produced in WWII?

These are some sites that I found interesting on it (pictures I
attached are from it):

Junkers Ju 390 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (general)
Junkers Ju 390 by Mike Knowles (Revell 1/72) (A model site)

Personally, I'm skeptical about getting that close to NYC as stated
in the wiki article because it meant a huge risk going that far into
Allied controlled airspace for what I would imagine would be little gain.
Still, suicide missions are part of war, so I would not be shocked
to learn it happened ...

I had asked about the NYC flight on another forum & got the following
back (some of which is responding to an earlier version of the wikipedia
article & another kaput website).

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Response 1:

I have Green's "Warplanes of The Third Reich", and have found it to be very
well researched and accurate on most issues. If Green says it happened, I'd be
inclined to believe him. Personally, I see no reason to discount the theory
simply because the flight wasn't detected. If the approach was at night, a
visual sighting would be extremely unlikely, and a radar contact might be put
down to almost any normal occurrence such as an off-course friendly plane or a
false radar return.

The Ju-390 was not "far larger" than the B-29 and had poorer performance,
but it was a somewhat larger and heavier aircraft than either the B-29 or BV-222.

The bit about the Germans delivering an atomic bomb on New York is pure
fantasy for several reasons. First, Germany was never close to developing an
atomic bomb because the German scientists doing the feasibility study made an
error that convinced them any atomic bomb would be impossibly large and too
heavy for any practical means of delivery on a target. They therefore advised
that atomic research should be directed into other areas such as nuclear
propulsion which, in fact, was the case.

Second, the JU-390's maximum bomb load was only a fraction of what would
have been required to lift the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.
Third, according to Green, the JU-390 carried it's bomb load under the wings and not in a
bomb bay; a single large bomb would have unbalanced the plane and been impossible
to carry. In any case, the Ju-390 was never operational, only two ever being built.

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response 2:

The information I have is that there were two prototypes built and tested in 1943, and during the evaluation,
the second prototype was flown form an airfield near Bordeaux to within 12 miles of the US coast north of New
York, but the programme was not then continued with.

That records may have gone astray, been accidentally destroyed possibly in an air raid - or even deliberately
destroyed is a possibility, amongst the many things are not easy to find direct evidence for.

The last time this was raised- can't remember who, but someone got quite insulting about the
possibility of the flight- though it is in two separate books I have, but some people are just like that.

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Not sure why "someone got quite insulting", I never followed up.

But joked with a buddy later, "You Fool! You have betrayed the most
closely guarded secret of the 4th Reich! We will have to take drastic
measures to preserve our nefarious plans!"

[Brett]

More pictures ...

[Geek44]

Aah the 'Amerika' bomber. Some of those Luftwaffe projects were way ahead of their time.