Even though they weren’t as well-known as the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighters, the Ar 234s that made it to Luftwaffe units were outstanding aircraft, especially for reconnaissance
The world’s first operational jet bomber and reconnaissance aircraft were the Arado Ar 234 B Blitz (Lightning). On August 2, 1944, the Ar 234 conducted its first combat mission, a reconnaissance flight over the Allied beachhead in Normandy. The Blitz quickly avoided Allied fighters with piston engines thanks to its top speed of 735 kilometers per hour (459 miles per hour).
Even though they weren’t as well-known as the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighters, the Ar 234s that made it to Luftwaffe units were outstanding aircraft, especially for reconnaissance.
It was decided on Christmas Day of 1944, as recounted by Robert Forsyth and Nick Beale in their book Arado Ar 234 Bomber and Reconnaissance Units, that all Ar 234 reconnaissance flights should begin from Rheine for the time being. Once reinforcements had arrived, Kommando Sperling (Detachment Sparrow) should hold a pilot at readiness for V2 spotting over Antwerp “in accordance with oral instructions to detachment pilot Hauptmann Horst
Oberleutnant Werner Muffey and Leutnant Wolfgang Ziese took off in quick succession to cover the combat area, Nijmegen, and Tilburg on the 25th, which for once had clear skies. Meanwhile, Oberleutnant Erich Sommer was driving to the photographic division of Lw.Kdo. West (Luftwaffenkommando West – Air Command West).
Muffey completed a duty given to him a week prior on the 26th by taking photos of the English coast from Southwold to Dover, followed by Boulogne, Calais, Dunkirk, Ostend, Zeebrugge, the Scheldt, and Antwerp. Later, he remembered such a flight; ‘Crossing the coastline near Lowestoft at around 10,000 m and in a clear blue sky, trailing long white condensed streams for everyone to see. I can’t remember just how many airfields we counted on the film I had brought back, full of Fortresses and Liberators, but that had been the order – to start early enough [so as] to still have them on the film before they had left their base, heading for Germany.’
On the morning of the 25th, Ziese was also up and flying an observation mission to monitor V2 impacts on Antwerp in Ar 234B2 WkNr 140153 T9+HH. Since October, V2 aircraft had been continuously attacking Antwerp, the main supply port for the Allies; the assault would persist until March 28, 1945.
At an altitude of between 7000 and 9000 meters, he was flying over the city when three rockets were reported: the first at 1307 hours, 7.5 km south-southwest of the city center, west of the Willebroek road; the second four minutes later, in the angle of “the Turnhout-Meuse canal,” probably the intersection of the Kempisch and Albert Canals; and the third rocket at 1314 hours, at Rijkevorsel, 30 km east. Photographs were taken of the impact points and of the Scheldt as far as Vlissingen, as well as of Antwerp itself, Breda, Tilburg, ’s‑Hertogenbosch, and Nijmegen.
The specially commissioned cover artwork by Mark Postlethwaite included in this post shows Ziese’s Ar 234 flying over the Belgian port city immediately after the second impact on the Turnhout-Maas canal with smoke billowing into the sky.
Arado Ar 234 Bomber and Reconnaissance Units is published by Osprey Publishing and is available to order here.