What actual combat missions did the German AR-234 bomber experience?

In the spring of 1944, the German Air Force began to consider using Ar234 to spy on the allied forces who were preparing to land in France in Britain. The traditional piston reconnaissance plane was difficult to retreat over Britain because of its slow speed, and the flight range of Me262 was too short to perform such tasks. Colonel siegfried Konemeier, director of the Technical Department of the Aviation Department, suggested that two A-type aircraft (V5 and V7) be used for several experimental reconnaissance operations in the allied occupied areas. The pilots were Horst Goetz and erich Zommer from the experimental unit of the Air Force Supreme Command. On June 1st, 1944, Goetz made the first test flight of Ar234V5, and Sommer made the test flight of V4 four days later. On June 26th, Zomer drove the V7 for the first time, and flew at a maximum speed of 95km/h at an altitude of 11,m. Three days later, Zomer completed a long-distance flight in V7. He took off at 11: 55 a.m. on the same day, and landed at 2: 15 p.m. after flying for 2 hours and 15 minutes. The flight distance reached 1,43 kilometers, exceeding the maximum flight distance record of any previous prototype. With the performance advantages brought by jet engines, the Ar234 can easily break through the air defense system of the Allied Forces and conduct reconnaissance on the movements of the Allied Forces. At the end of the war, the Ar234 was also one of the few German fighter planes that could freely enter and leave the occupied areas of the Allied Forces.

On August 2nd, 1944, Eyerich Zomer took off from Rickut with Ar234V7, and conducted reconnaissance on the allied forces in France, thus completing the first jet reconnaissance operation in history. When Zomer returned to the base, he was pleasantly surprised to find that Horstgetz had just arrived from Germany in a V7. In the following days, the two men repeatedly drove the Ar234 to reconnoiter the allied occupied areas, and even made several reconnoiters to Britain. Since then, due to the approach of allied forces, the two men had to evacuate to Seffl, Belgium on August 28th. On the way of this flight, the hydraulic system of the G? tz landline was damaged by friendly anti-aircraft guns and was forced to go to Brandenburg for repair. However, when Goetz flew to Brandenburg with a V5 plane, he was dismayed to find that the local airport had been hit hard by the allied air strikes in the past and could not land at all. In desperation, Goetz had to fly to orenburg to make a forced landing. During the forced landing, the cockpit windshield of V5 was shattered, and a large number of stones flew into the cockpit and hit Goetz, resulting in an eye injury and temporary blindness. After Goetz was rescued from the plane, a Fw19 fighter plane skidding on the runway accidentally hit the V5 plane, which was completely destroyed, and the pilot of Fw19 died on the spot.

after recovering, goetz returned to the battlefield with the Ar234S12 on September 27th. By this time, the combat unit equipped with the Ar234 reconnaissance plane had been named "Sparrow Task Force", which was stationed in Rhine, northwest Germany. Just in September, Captain Werner Muffin, Lieutenant Wolfgang Zize and Sergeant Walter Venter also joined the Sparrow Task Force, and they took part in the battle with three Ar234B aircraft converted into reconnaissance planes. On November 1th of that year, the task force leader Zomer left the team and went to Biblis near Vorms to form the second reconnaissance plane unit equipped with Ar234, namely "Spear Task Force".

According to the test pilots of Alado Company, there is little difference in performance between the Ar234A and the B-type, but the pilots of the German Air Force don't think so. They claim that the maximum speed of the Ar234 prototype is at least 5km/h faster than the mass production. They also point out that the assembly quality of the B-type is poor, the fuselage skin is easily damaged, and there is still air leakage in the cockpit. However, from the point of view of ground operation, the B-type aircraft equipped with conventional landing gear is undoubtedly much more practical. It can run and take off directly on the runway without spending 2 minutes to place the aircraft on the pulley. In addition, the maintenance time of Ar234 is less than that of Ju88T equipped with GM1 power enhanced injection system. Ar234 The average time to replace an engine is 25 hours.

The only plane crash of "Sparrow Task Force" happened on November 25th. At that time, Venter had just selected a brand-new Ar234 in orenburg. As soon as he took off, observers on the ground found that the right engine of the plane was on fire. They tried to warn Venter, but somehow, the radio of Venter's landline did not respond. Venter's Ar234 used a take-off booster rocket during take-off. Shortly after the booster rocket was turned off, the plane that lost one engine power flew to the left, but after only a few seconds, the plane suddenly began to roll rapidly and crashed into the ground, and Venter died on the spot.

At the end of November, 1944, two task forces, Sparrow and Spear, began to be ordered to fly over the Maas River to spy on the allied forces, in order to collect enemy information for the upcoming Ardennes campaign. Due to the bad weather, the start date of the operation has been repeatedly postponed. However, the Air Force finally ordered the two task forces to start action immediately at all costs, so Zomer took off in the dark clouds on December 3. In order to avoid being attacked by allied anti-aircraft guns, he followed closely behind a US C-47 transport plane when flying near Liege. On that day, due to the low visibility, Zomer could not take pictures of the target with a camera, and only made a visual reconnaissance over the target. However, the information obtained by visual reconnaissance was extremely unreliable. Therefore, four hours later, the "Sparrow Task Force" sent Ar234 to reconnoiter the allied forces again. This time, the German plane managed to fly under the clouds and took clear photos.

by the spring of 1945, three long-range reconnaissance squadrons (1(F)/33, (F)/1 and 1(F)/123) were successively equipped with Ar234. Their commanders were Captain Hattan, Captain Holt and Feilden. On February 11th, 1945, Hans Feilden was shot down by the Storm fighter-bomber of the 274th Squadron of the British Air Force, becoming the first Ar234 reconnaissance plane shot down by allied forces. After Feilden was killed, Goetz took over the baton of 1(F)/123, and at that time the squadron had established a close cooperative relationship with the Sparrow Task Force.

On March 14th, 1945, Zomer led the "Spear Task Force" to move to Udine, Italy. With the arrival of Ar234, the Germans obtained the photos of all allied actions in Italy for the first time in several months. When the task force arrived in Italy, it had three planes, but it was soon shot down by the allied forces. Among them, Gniesmer was shot down by a P-51 Mustang fighter of the 52nd Fighter Brigade of the US Army on April 11th, and Gniesmer was hit in the head by the tail wing when he parachuted to escape, resulting in skull fracture and Gniesmer being rescued by the Germans after landing, but still died in a hospital in Ferrara two days later because of their injuries. Arnold, another pilot of the task force, was shot down by allied fighters during the take-off of the flight after two missions. Zomer continued to fight until April 24. Prior to this, on March 23rd, 1(F)/123 commanded by Goetz was transferred to Rhine Salem, on April 6th, it was transferred to Blankensai, and finally on May 2nd, it was transferred to Horn, which ushered in the final defeat of Germany. The Germans blew up all the remaining Ar234 before the arrival of the allied forces to prevent them from falling into the hands of the allied forces.