Arado 234 recce over UK

[Conan the Librarian]

I wonder if anybody knows anything? I have Googled away for ten minutes but can not find any reference to the above, though I am sure that I have heard it mentioned before. Over to you !

Thanks,

Conan

[No comment]

***edited about 4 times as i found some stuff***

All I could find on UK ops was from Wikipedia:

April 10 1945 - the Luftwaffe flies its final sortie over England (with an Arado Ar 234 on a reconnaissance mission)

And also, from an old "Airplane" magazine:

In July 1944 two early prototypes, V5 and V7, had joined 1 Staffel of Versuchsverband Oberefehlshaber der Luftwaffe at Juvincourt, France, and following indoctrination flying formed the core of Sonderkommando Gotz based at Rheine in September with four B-1s.
Strength built up and from early October operational reconnaissance missions were being flown over the Allied area of north-west Europe and the British Isles....

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Can't find anything else about UK ops so this is probably pointless but this is interesting none-the-less

Found this from another site

"There is comment regarding operational encounters both with the AR 234 and Me 262 in the book 'The Big Show by Pierre Clostermann who was in the R.A.F. and trying to catch these aircraft whilst flying Hawker Tempests. Also a very good read if you can find a copy.Believe first published 1955. "

OK, here\'s the quote from Pierre\'s book - sorry Conan, I know its still off topic..... can\'t find anything for you!

"Another poisonous day. Snow, wind. Visibility nil; flying was quite impossible. However, G.C.C. maintained two sections of Tempests at immediate readiness - one from 486 and one from 56 - together with a section of Spit XIV\'s from 41 Squadron. These three sections had been taking it in turns with no hope of flying, since dawn.

At about 1500 hours the weather cleared slightly, and the 6 Spits were scrambled. In this appalling cold they had a job getting heir engines started and we looked at them through our windows, jeering. In the end one pair took off, followed at least three minutes later by the rest. A quarter of an hour later these last four came back and landed, not having been able to join-up in the clouds. They told us, however, that the first two had jumped a German jet-aircraft.

We got the remainder of the story that evening in the bar, when the pilots of 41 were distinctly pleased with themselves and let nobody forget it. Flying Officer Johnny Reid D.F.C., shortly after he had scrambled and as he was patrolling Nijmegen bridge at 10,000 feet, had spotted one of the very latest and rarest Luftwaffe planes - and Arado 234 - sneaking into our lines at ground level. Diving straight down, flat out, ignoring the risk of his wings coming off, Johnny succeeded in catching the bastard in a turn, fired at him point plank and gently landed him in flames less than 100 yards from Broadhursts H.Q. at Eindhoven.

We were told that the A.O.C. was delighted, as a group of American journalists had witnessed the operation, and it was the first Arado 234 to be destroyed for certain.

After this episode the pilots of 41 revived the good old Spitfire v. Tempest controversy, and pursued us with their jeers: "You Tempests," they said. "You Speed Merchants, you think you\'re the cat\'s whiskers, you and your 7-ton crates, your 4 cannon, you\'ve never managed to catch one of those things. You needn\'t have browned us off for days on end with yarns about your mighty dives and your terrific cruising speed!"

We naturally retorted that this particular Hun must have been very keen to commit suicide. Besides we\'d seen Reid\'s plane after he landed: his poor Spit\'s wings were buckled like a concertina, all the paint had come off the surfaces, the rivets had sprung and the fuselage was twisted. Good for the scrap heap! And we closed the discussion by a conclusive argument that always annoyed Spitfire pilots considerably, i.e. that our landing speed was almost greater than their cruising speed.

As I was an ex-Spit pilot myself, Frank Woolley tried to drag me in as umpire. For 10 minutes I spouted feeble explanation and mathematical formulae and everybody was satisfied. Drinks all round settled it; we drank to the midges and they drank to the flying buses and we all went to bed in the best of tempers."

[Conan the Librarian]

Excellent Stuff NC! While i was looking on Google, I found an art print of Tempest Vs intercepting ME262 and AR234 over the Remegen Bridge, which may be what was referred to there. When I saw it I did wonder how the Tempest would have fared with those aircraft for at low level, it was equally fast and most probably much more agile.

I was wondering initially of recce missions over the Uk but this seems a fascinating aircraft anyway. If anyody has more, then please share it.

Many thanks,

Conan

[tinpis]

http://www.clubhyper.com/reference/images/ar234cockpitbs_1.jpg

An original "glass" cockpit

[henry crun]

Conan: My library has a large book titled "Aircraft of World War 2, A Visual Encyclopedia"

There is just the following brief reference to this subject " The Arado 234b first flew in June 1944. It was issued to evaluation units. Three Luftwaffe reconnaissance Staffen commenced high altitude flights over Britain".

[RJM]

From: http://www.vectorsite.net/avar234.html#m2

The Luftwaffe conducted reconnaissance operations with the new Ar-234Bs through the fall, including some reconnaissance missions over England, beginning in October, to determine if the Allies were preparing a follow-up amphibious landing in the Netherlands. Despite the activity, it wasn't until 21 November 1944 that Allied pilots reported spotting an Ar-234B, when P-51s escorting bombers over Holland observed one of the jets overflying their formation. Detected, the German pilot immediately applied power and disappeared.

Bomber sorties did not take place until Christmas Eve, when nine Ar-234Bs, each carrying a single 500 kilogram (1,100 pound) bomb, took off from a German airbase single file to attack Liege in Belgium, in support of the Wehrmacht's ground offensive then underway in the Ardennes. Such attacks continued until the weather became too nasty in early January to allow operations to be safely continued.