German Bombers to NYC

I keep hearing a story, that in the summer of 1944, the Germans flew a bomber to Montauk (Long Island, NY) and back again...

However, I am unable to verify that this actually occurred, or if it is just folklore...

Does anyone know if it is true, and have details (if there are any)?

As near as I can tell, this story first appeared (in English, at least) in William Green's classic 'The War Planes of the Third Reich' published in 1970. In it, Green describes a flight by the Ju390 V-2 in January, 1944 as 'the aircraft flew from Mont de Marsan to a point some 12 miles from the US coast, north of New York, returning successfully to its base'.

The consensus seems to be that this story is fable and not fact.

No contemporary documents have ever surfaced attesting to this rather remarkable aerial feat. Nor have any of the supposed crew ever come forward or even been identified. Moreover, the 'mission' simply makes no sense - certainly nothing militarily useful would be accomplished by such a mission and it would seem utterly stupid to risk a valuable prototype Ju390 (one of only two then existing) and its crew over the stormy mid-winter North Atlantic to no good purpose at all.

Certainly if an operational test of the aircraft's range and endurance were desired, flying some sort of extended circuit over Europe would have accomplished that while providing numerous emergency airfields should the flight need to be aborted because of mechanical malfunction or weather. Emergency landing fields were nonexistant over the North Atlantic and any serious mechanical or weather problems (not to mention potential interception by Allied fighters) would certainly result in the complete loss of a valuable prototype aircraft and its entire crew.

In any case, Green stated only that the V-2 flew to a point '12 miles from the US coast, north of New York.' Any place from Long Island north to the mouth of the Bay of Fundy in Maine would satisfy that description.

Cheers and all,

I have not read a serious historian who is willing to tell this story without some sort of qualification.

Germany had a number of Amerika Bombers in design at the end of the war, including a Horten turbojet nurflugel or flying wing.

all the best

The link is not supported by any evidence. We can do better than this.

Dave

That's 7,000 miles or somewhat less (I'm actually figuring a great circle route from Paris), 48 hours or so flying time, non-stop for typical airplanes of that era. I'm not familiar with the engines this plane would have been equipped with, but the R-2600 (1,900 bhp take-off) series burned about 75 gallons per hour at 60 percent power at 5,000 feet. I don't think German engines could have been particularly more efficient, so a fuel burn of 450 gallons per hour (six-engine airplane), 21,600 gallons total, or 129,600 pounds, fuel, just for the round-trip crossing, not calculating in fuel for take-off and climb, nor a reserve, which ought to be substantial, to account for winds and navigational uncertitude.

A typical way to figure reserve would be 0.20 x fuel for range + fuel for 45 min.

According to the specs below, the plane had a maximum lifting weight of less than 36,000 pounds. That would include, of course, not only the fuel, but the oil (and trapped, ie unusable, fuel and oil

As a data point to decide if the purported German mission could have happened, a P2V-1 powered by two R-335-8 engines, in 1947, flew from Perth, Australia, to Columbus, Ohio, a distance of 11,236 miles, in 55 hours, 17 minutes. Crew of 4 men and one kangaroo.

The below website gives details of the adventure. Of particular note is how long planning and preparation took. The take-off took place at night to take advantage of cooler air, and RATO units were used to get the plane airborne. The route was selected to take advantage of tail winds. The plane was stripped of non-essentials and turned into a flying gas tank, carrying a total of 8,592 gallons, which it essentially burned up completely, meaning it was burning around 150 gallons per hour, or 75 gallons per hour per engine, which is in line with what would be expected, and reinforces the fact that a six-engine plane like the Ju 390 would be burning on the order of 450 gallons of fuel per hour. The overall average speed for the trip, 203 mph, is impressive, but looking at photos of the P2V-1 compared to the Ju 390, the Neptune appears to be a much cleaner design