ISR Tour: Ju 88
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Description
Sometimes technical intelligence personnel went to great lengths to recover enemy equipment and bring it back for exploitation. The museum’s Ju 88D-1 defected from the Romanian Air Force to the Royal Air Force on the island of Cyprus in July 1943. The British flew it to Egypt and turned it over to American volunteer pilots at Cairo in October 1943. Those pilots flew it from Cairo to Dayton across the southern route of Sierra Leone, Ascension Island, Brazil, Guiana, Puerto Rico, Florida and Memphis. It received the nickname “Baksheesh” and the tail number of FE (foreign equipment)-1598. As a part of its testing, the Ju 88 underwent 36 hours of trial flights at Wright Field and was one of two Ju 88 bombers that operated here during the war.
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