Junkers Ju 88

Ju 88
A Ju 88A over France in 1942
General information
Type	Tactical / dive / torpedo bomber Night / heavy fighter Reconnaissance aircraft
Manufacturer	Junkers
Designer	Ernst Zindel, W. H. Evers, and Alfred Gassner
Primary users	Luftwaffe Finnish Air Force Regia Aeronautica Royal Romanian Air Force
Number built	15,183[1]
History
Introduction date	1939
First flight	21 December 1936
Retired	1951 (France)
Variants	Junkers Ju 188

The Junkers Ju 88 is a twin-engined multirole combat aircraft designed and produced by the German aircraft manufacturer Junkers Aircraft and Motor Works. It was used extensively during the Second World War by the Luftwaffe and became one of the most versatile combat aircraft of the conflict.

The Ju 88 originated from a Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM) requirement issued in 1934 for a new multipurpose aircraft. Junkers was one of several firms to respond, producing two separate design studies that produced both the Ju 85 and Ju 88. The design work was headed by Junkers' chief designer Ernst Zindel. The Ju 88 was envisioned to function as a so-called Schnellbomber ("fast bomber") that would evade interception by enemy fighters of its era by flying at high speed. On 21 December 1936, the first prototype performed its maiden flight. The performance of the third prototype was highly favourable, resulting in the competing Henschel Hs 127 and Messerschmitt Bf 162 being abandoned. During late 1937, the Ju 88 was developed into a heavy dive bomber, but this feat proved to be too stressful for the airframe even with modifications.

A series of technical problems troubled the aircraft's development, delaying its introduction to squadron service from 1938 to September 1939, by which point the Second World War had already started. The Ju 88 first saw action with the Luftwaffe during the invasion of Poland. It would subsequently be deployed into numerous theatres of the conflict, including the Norwegian campaign, the Battle of France, the Battle of Britain, the invasion of Yugoslavia, the invasion of Greece, the Siege of Malta, the North African campaign, and the Eastern Front amongst others. While the Luftwaffe was the primary operator of the Ju 88, numerous other nation's air services also flew the type in quantity during the war; these include the Finnish Air Force, Regia Aeronautica and the Royal Romanian Air Force.

The Ju 88 was one of the Luftwaffe's most important and heavily used aircraft during the Second World War. The aircraft, akin to several other German bombers of the era, served as a bomber, dive bomber, night fighter, torpedo bomber, reconnaissance aircraft, and heavy fighter. Perhaps most unusually, it was adapted into a flying bomb towards the end of the war.^[2] The assembly line ran constantly from 1936 to 1945, building in excess of 15,000 Ju 88s across dozens of variants, making it the most-produced twin-engine German aircraft of the period and the second-most produced bomber of all time behind the four-engined Consolidated B-24 Liberator. Throughout its production run, the basic structure of the Ju 88 remained unchanged.^[3]