Airliner Turned 'Liner-Killer: The Fw 200 Condor

An Fw 200 in flight. Photo sourced from WikiCommons.

In a previous article concerning the Germans' practice of making civilian planes with the explicit purpose of converting them to warplanes later, I talked about the Junkers Ju 52, which had a number of uses throughout the war. There's another notable aircraft to come out of this process, the Focke-Wolfe 200 Condor, which Winston Churchill dubbed "the scourge of the Battle of the Atlantic".

Like the Ju 52, the Fw 200 was originally built as a civilian plane and was operated by Lufthansa. Once war broke out, however, the Condor was quickly converted to serve the Luftwaffe. It was originally used to help the Kreigsmarine (the German navy) in their attempts to disrupt shipping in and around Britain after the invasion of France. It was reportedly quite successful in this role, what with its large and heavy-hitting arsenal. In February 1941 five Condors attacked a convoy and sank five ships in total.

However, by the middle of the war, with the advent of improved fighter planes and the entry of the United States into the conflict, the Condors became less and less effective. The Germans told Condor pilots to avoid conflict at all costs in order to preserve the planes. This didn't work, and it resulted in a Condor being the first German plane to be sot down by a U.S pilot in the war.

The Condor took on other roles during the war, such as reconnaissance and transport. But with Germany collapsing, the Condor was eventually phased out of the Luftwaffe's arsenal. Until next time take care, and thanks for reading.

(Facts and figures sourced from Wikipedia on the Fw 200 and "Campaigns of WWII Day by Day" by Chris Bishop and Chris McNab).