I've been following John Reid's Jenny dio on this forum for quite some time. It's one of the most impressive undertakings that I've seen in a while. If you read this John, my hat's off on some excellent craftsmanship!

Needless to say, the pictures in that thread are very inspiring. I'd like to start something similar, yet smaller (both in scope and scale). What I had in mind was a late war hangar or portion thereof to display a damaged 190 or 109 in. I was thinking something bomb-damaged but am starting to consider an in-tact hangar section so I could swap out finished builds if I so desired.

My problem is that I can'y seem to find any good pics on-line and the one's that I can find in my Squadron publications are quite small and tough to pick out any details in. Can anyone out there point me in the direction of what a typical hangar, post D-day, east of the Rhine would look like?

Thanks in advance for your help.

punt?

Strange isn't it Justen ? I've never seen a photo of a Bombed out Luftwaffe hanger either, though I've been inside a few Luftwaffe hangers, yes ones from WWII. For some reason I get the idea that and airfield suppression campaign was not run in Europe the way it was in the Pacific Theater ?

I do think that Luftwaffe deployment was not always supported by build hangers, as evidenced by so many photos of their aircraft parked in the trees.

Though 20 years later, most of my duty stations in Germany were ex-Luftwaffe bases, and most of the "original" facilities were intact. We used the "original" hangers and barracks at both Rothwesten and Herzo.

I know certain building were on a "No Bomb" list, like the I.G. Farben building in Frankfort, maybe airfields were treated more kindly too ? Train stations and Factories well they were a different matter altogether.

Thanks, Chuck. That's interesting. Perhaps the allies were trying not to destroy the facilities with the hopes of getting future use of them. Now that you mention it, I've never read a pilot memoir or history that made mention of attacks on hangars or with the intention of damaging the runways themselves... only strafing runs to hit individual aircraft on the ground.

Yes Justen, there was surely some long range planning going on to keep some building/structures intact for future use. How much this was applied to Airfields I can't say for sure BUT even in Berlin (a city "flattened" by the Russian assault) the Olympic Stadium was/is intact and used by the British forces while I was there, Telefunken's Radar Factory was used by the American forces as McNair Barracks, and the the Olympic Swimming Venue, Kaiser's Kadetten School, and Hitler's BodyGuard Units Barracks were used by the Americans as Andrews Barracks ?

The Rubble (at least a good portion of it) from what was destroyed in downtown Berlin was used to construct this hill ( now a Hotel ). This called Teufelsberg (Devil's Mountain).



Oh, and here's and Aerial of the former Luftwaffe base at Rothwesten. Local stories have it that this base was never fired upon, while the nearby city of Kassel was heavily bombed.

Hi Justen

I am venturing into strange territory, being one of those who like their feet and models on terrafirma But as it seems that no one else can help, I hope this may be of some assistance:

The photo was captioned "An Arado 234 and two Ju 88 night fighters in a damaged hanger at Manching after its capture by US forces.

Cheers
David

Very informative, Chuck. And thanks for the pics. It's so cool to hear from folks with first-hand knowledge. How much time did you spend over there?

Thanks, David. That's sort of what I'm looking for. The pic is very bright for being take indoors. I wonder if this was actually taken outside the hangar and that's the building in question in the background. It's a start either way. Thanks!