Arado Ar 76

Luftwaffe pilots and ground crew eagerly surveying the results of a hard landing of an Arado Ar 76 A light fighter/advanced trainer. The landing gear, cowling, and wooden propeller all have sustained substantial but repairable damage, but a more serious buckling of the fuslelage is also evident.

These pictures are part of a series of images showing various Ar 76s, all operational with Flieger-Ausbildungs-Regiment (FAR) 63 during autumn of 1941. A handwritten inscription on the reverse side of one of the two photos shown above poses a bit of a mystery, however. It unambiguously mentions the aircraft code DB+SV (also assigned to an Ar 76 A of FAR 63), but the top photo clearly shows an "A" forward of the fuselage Balkenkreuz, making this aircraft ??+A?.

A further, sarcastic handwritten inscription on the back of the second photo reads: Ernst Drückler baut Ziellandungen genau am Landekreuz [Ernst Drückler fabricates precision landings right at the landing marker]. Note open hangar visible in the distance in lower photo. (German Aviation 1919-1945 collection; with additional information by Gerhard Stemmer, via luftwaffe-research-group.org, in 2014)