Stuka JU 87-G2

Stuka JU 87-G2

Introduction to story on Air & Space Forces Magazine: 

The Stuka Story by Thomas Hajewski, May 1, 1987

In January 1942, during the state funeral for Ernst Udet, World War I fighter ace and Generalluft­zeugmeister (Director General of the Luftwaffe) Hermann Goring spoke eloquently about the fallen hero’s deeds. He praised his accom­plishments in the Great War, his six­ty-two air victories—second only to Baron von Richthofen—and his to­tal dedication in helping to build Hitler’s air force. Yet Goring’s high­est praise was bestowed on his for­mer comrade’s support for and de­velopment of a specific type of air­craft, the offensive weapon without which the Blitzkrieg tactics used in Poland, France, and later Russia during the first years of the war would have been impossible.

This new plane was dubbed a Sturzkampfflugzeug, literally a “diving fighting plane,” a designa­tion originally used by the Germans for any aircraft used as a dive- bomber. Only later was it specifical­ly applied to the Junkers Ju-87. In the military jargon of the day, the longer Sturzkampfflugzeug was shortened to Stuka, the aircraft that has become synonymous with Ger­man aggression in World War II.

Both the Junkers Ju-87 Stuka as well as the technique of dropping bombs while plunging earthward at speeds often in excess of 350 mph had an unusual, highly controver­sial developmental history. More than once the entire project was nearly scrapped. German prewar propaganda and secrecy have clouded so much of this interesting phase of aviation history that even now, nearly fifty years after the be­ginning of World War II, new facts regarding the Stuka and its develop­ment are coming to light.

Ju 87 Stuka — Dive Bomber in Action: Cockpit War Footage
Enhanced Warfare

Junkers Ju 87 Stuka - In The Movies
Johnny Johnson

Note - ran into a funny dash in the story I pasted above. Looks like a dash in Blogger's compose mode, but a red dot in html mode. Tried to highlight the whole paragraph to indent it, and it wouldn't highlight. Change to html mode, replace the red dot with a dash, then realizing this is probably just marking a place where the word can be hyphenated, so I put it back. Now I can highlight the whole paragraph. Then I realize Blogger has it's own method of wrapping text, which is to not break any words at all, so it doesn't worry about hyphenation. But this story is from 1987 which is like 40 (!) years ago. Probably wasn't online then, so somebody went to the trouble to digitize it. I dunno, was anybody using computers to enter text back then? 

Intel 310 Microcomputer System

I was at Intel and we had computers. What the heck did I have on my desk? I think we were using terminals hooked to Intel 310s. I was writing up short pieces about technical problems I dealt with. Not much different from what I do now with this blog, though now I mostly write about other people's technical problems.