PIPER CUBS OF THE LUFTWAFFE — Vintage Wings of Canada
Dave O'Malley
In my mind, there are not many aircraft from the past 114 years that are a perfect distillation of all that is wondrous, beautiful and simple about powered flight. Some are damn fast, many lethal. Some are sexy like an Italian sports car, some boring like a city bus…
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Vintage Wings of Canada
In my mind, there are not many aircraft from the past 114 years that are a perfect distillation of all that is wondrous, beautiful and simple about powered flight. Some are damn fast, many lethal. Some are sexy like an Italian sports car, some boring like a city bus. Some extraordinarily complex and breathtakingly large. Some can do things even birds cannot, but not without the aid of computers. Some don’t even need the pilot. But few represent the joy, the purity, or the avian soul of powered flight like the Piper J-3 Cub. Painted in the cheeriest of yellow hues, emblazoned with the cutest red bear cub symbol imaginable, the typical Cub is the very essence of flight. With a broad straight wing, a perky set of wheels, just enough instruments to keep you from killing yourself, and open to the world on both sides on a warm and fragrant day, the Cub is recognized for its greatness and its goodness by even the most jaded warbird or airline pilot.

The very sight of a canary yellow cub brings a smile to my face and conjures up a feeling of warmth like very few man-made physical objects I can think of—perhaps a balloon-tire Schwinn bicycle, a Vespa scooter, a 6 oz. bottle of Coca-Cola, a Nash Metropolitan, a birch bark canoe. There’s an aura of joy, simplicity and cheerfulness about the Piper Cub, born of its history and its promise of three-dimensional harmony without breaking the bank.

Recently, I came across a photo of a forlorn-looking Piper Cub that had appeared to have been vandalized by white supremacists. A series of random looking graffiti marred its flanks while a swastika, that symbol of hatred, murder and oppression called out menace from its tail. The swastika, or Hakenkreuz, the monogram of evil, represents two decades or more of obscenity and mayhem, so to see it on a Cub was like seeing one of those bicycles you often come across in a park or pitched in a pond—some child’s treasure that has been ridden for a while by a thug, then stomped on and bent and tossed aside. The website where I found the photo indicated that the Cub was a former Danish civil-registered aircraft that had been taken as war booty by the Luftwaffe and employed somewhere in Germany in the last part of the war.

As the war progressed, Danish resistance increased and the Danish Army was disarmed by the Germans. Pressure was put on Bohnstedt–Petersen to use his factory for the production of goods for the Nazis, but he refused. As a result, his factories were taken from him and were used to manufacture components for U-boats and Luftwaffe aircraft. In December of 1943, after a single Danish de Havilland Moth had been flown by a daring pilot to England over the North Sea, the Germans issued an order demanding that all private Danish aircraft be collected at three airfields and stored for the foreseeable future. 49 aircraft of all types were collected, including 18 Piper Cubs (some privately owned) built by Cub Aircraft at Lundtofte. It was known that two of these 18 Cubs (OY-DUP and OY-DUL) were “given” to the Luftwaffe’s commander in Denmark. These Cubs were used for liaison duties and to check German camouflage efforts. Both Cubs were recorded as being with the Luftwaffe in Denmark in March of 1944. By September of 1944, they were no longer in use by the Luftwaffe, but their fates are not known. OY-DUP did surface in Germany in 1945 before the end of the war, the only impounded Cub known to have survived the war, but how it got there is not known. Some Cub history sites list 19 Cubs that were purloined by the Luftwaffe, but only these two have records and only one (OY-DUP) has photographic proof.

Meanwhile, Cub Aircraft had petitioned the Germans to release completed Cubs for which they had signed delivery contracts in neutral Sweden. Two Cubs were indeed ferried to Malmö in the summer of 1944, but the fate of the 16 remaining Cubs was never satisfactorily determined. It seems that a number of them (18, including some of the unfinished kits) were cleared for export to Sweden, though it is not likely that this happened. In February of 1945, Danish resistance saboteurs set fire to Bohnstedt–Petersen’s factory in Copenhagen, which was by now used only for storage. Destroyed along with his buildings were all the unfinished Piper Cub kits as well as an unspecified number (possibly 6) of Cub Aircraft Co. Ltd. aircraft that had been ordered stored there by the Germans. After the war, there was enough salvaged components from the fire to construct two Piper Cubs, one of which (OY-ABT) remains today in flying condition at the Danmarks Flymuseum in Stauning. The other (OY-FAB), after a brief period with a German registration (D-EHES), was destroyed in 1965 following a collision with a ground tractor at Grønholt.

The fates of many of the Cub Aircraft’s Cubs are unknown. Of the two that were impressed into Luftwaffe service, only that of OY-DUP would later be known, and even then, not the full story. OY-DUP spent some time in the service of the Luftwaffe and then was struck off charge with the Luftwaffe command in Denmark. What happened to it and where she went is anyone’s guess, but in the spring of 1945, as Germany had all but collapsed into Berlin, she was found by soldiers or perhaps pilots of the United States Army at a captured Luftwaffe airfield. She was instantly recognized as a Cub similar to the L-4 Grasshoppers flown by a nearby aviation unit of the US Army. A pilot by the name of Lieutenant George Reed Morris was sent to collect her and bring her back to the American airfield. When he picked her up, she had German Stammkennzeichen markings (GP+QG), Balkenkreuz markings on her fuselage and wings and a swastika on her tail. It’s unknown if Morris arranged to have these painted over where the Cub was found or if he flew with all the markings to his base then proceeded to paint over them. It is known however that en route to his airfield he was spotted by the gunners of an American bomber (some reports say an A-20, others a B-24) and shot at. This would only happen if these markings were highly visible, giving credence to the idea that the markings had not yet been painted over.

When he landed (or perhaps before he took off) the markings were overpainted, but not all of them. It seems that the swastika was left, possibly as some sort of evidence or trophy that she had been in the service of the Luftwaffe. Squadron wags took the liberty to scrawl some words on the nose: DON’T SHOOT!—USA on the port engine cowling and MORRIS’ CAR on the starboard one. It is not known if Morris flew it more than once, but there are two group photos—one with officers and one with ground crew—taken at different locations, both by a good camera, possibly belonging to an Army photographer.

Of course, the Americans who captured her would not have known her provenance. Thanks to the Luftwaffe’s penchant for records and details, the Piper Construction number was marked on her tail—1319. After the war, Piper historians looking at the photograph were able to determine exactly which Piper Cub she was. The story of the Danish-registered OY-DUP which became the Luftwaffe’s GP+QG, however, stopped right there on an Army airfield in 1945. Did she get scrapped? Was she re-impressed into service with the Americans? Did they try to return it? Perhaps we’ll never know. Like a young person being rescued from a cult, she would have a hard time being accepted. One thing for sure, her war days were over.

The Fate of the Falcon The other known Cub in Luftwaffe Markings

One of the Piper Cubs known to have been taken by the Luftwaffe and impressed into service in the name of the Reich was from a very unlikely place. The last known photo of it (top image), poor in quality, shows that it had been defaced with the hated Haken- and Balkenkreuzes, but once it had been a bright yellow and red Taylor Cub, known by the oddly aggressive name of Falcon. It came from the tiny Baltic state of Lithuania, a country one would not think would be blessed, in 1938, with the joys of the soon-to-be-legendary American Piper Cub. In researching its history, much of what is available online is in Lithuanian. I did my best with Google Translate to understand the history of this airplane, but it was far from perfect. If I understood and thereby wrote anything incorrectly, it’s simply because the translation was so imperfect. Regardless of this problem with translation, the story is simply really worth telling.

Flying was not a passion reserved for the nations that had given us the first legends of aviation—Great Britain, France, and the United States. It had caught the imaginations of young men and women in every country in the world, from New Zealand to Brazil to tiny Lithuania. Every nation, no matter the size, had its flying heroes, especially Lithuania. In 1933, two Lithuanian-born American citizens, Steponas Darašius and Stasys Girėnas (known in America as Stephen Darius and Stan Girenas), two accomplished pilots, war heroes and entrepreneurs attempted to put Lithuania on the aviation map, but died in the attempt. Both men were born in Lithuania and had immigrated to America with their families. Both had served with the United States Army in the First World War and had become pilots afterward (Darius in Lithuania where he joined the nascent Lithuanian Air Force and Girenas in America).

Inspired by Lindbergh’s accomplishment in 1927, they planned to make the first non-stop flight from New York City to Kaunas, Lithuania, something that had captured the imaginations of the citizenry of the small Baltic country. Darius had met Girenas in Chicago after a return to the United Sates and the two purchased a used Bellanca Pacemaker and named it Lituanica. They took off from Floyd Bennett Field on 15 July 1933 for what would have been the second longest non-stop flight in history and the fourth longest in terms of duration. Their destination was the city of Kaunas in central Lithuania, the temporary capital of the new nation. Lituanica would also carry the first transatlantic airmail. They never got there.

The two Lithuanian aviators came very close to accomplishing their goal however. After more than 37 hours in the air and with over 6,400 kilometres behind them, they crashed into a wooded area in Northern Germany near the village of Kuhdamm (now Pszczelnik, Poland). The board of inquiry never did determine the exact cause of the crash, except that the pilots were possibly attempting a forced landing at the time. The small country of Lithuania was devastated by the news and more than 60,000 attended their funeral. Such was their fame in Lithuania; their bodies were not buried, but embalmed and placed in a specially-built mausoleum, soon to be a national shrine. In an attempt to crush any nationalist thoughts, the mausoleum was destroyed in the Soviet re-occupation after the Second World War. The bodies were removed and remain buried in a cemetery near Kaunas. Two years later, a second attempt was funded by Lithuanian Americans (at the height of the Great Depression) and another Lithuanian–American by the name of Felix Waitkus (Feliksas Vaitkus) flew a Lockheed Vega, nicknamed Lituanica II, from New York, en route to Kaunas. He too never made it, landing in Ireland—the fifth human to fly solo over the Atlantic. Despite the unfinished nature of his flight, Waitkus was an instant hero in Lithuania. For an interesting and short video on Waitkus’ crash, click here.

Inspiration is a pay-it-forward activity. Lindbergh inspired Darius and Girenas, who in turn inspired Waitkus. Shortly after Waitkus’ flight, another young Lithuanian–American by the name of Paulius Šaltenis (Paul Salten on the American side of the Atlantic) joined a group of Lithuanian–Americans to start the Darius–Girenas Aero Club in Brooklyn, New York, named in honour of their national heroes. The club was formed in 1935 from the aero division of the Lithuanian Legion of America (Darius–Girenas Post) for the purpose of promoting interest in aviation among Lithuanians in America. Šaltenis was one of 16 founding members. They raised money from Lithuanians across the U.S.A., purchased a club aircraft and, under Chief Flying Instructor A. Kiela, began instruction at Floyd Bennett Field. This is where young Paulius Šaltenis learned to fly.

Following the success in fundraising for their club aircraft, Šaltenis and members of the club raised another sum of money to purchase a Taylor J-2 Cub from their Bradford, Pennsylvania plant and, in 1938, ship it to Lithuania where it would be gifted to the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union, a quasi-military association in Lithuania that, in addition to providing military training to members, also conducted social and cultural programs and events across the country. It was the largest social club in the small nation. The goal of this project was to inspire homegrown Lithuanians and train them to become future military and commercial fliers.

The beautiful little Taylor J-2 Cub, painted bright yellow with red stripe was transported by steamship to the port city of Klaipėda on the Lithuanian Baltic coast. A short time later, Paulius Šaltenis arrived from America and picked up the aircraft at Klaipėda. After initial problems getting the aircraft ready, he was joined by a Captain Krasnicki, the commander of the LRU’s aviation division and on 12 August 1938 they flew to the Kaunas airport to present the gift of the Cub, which had been nicknamed Sakala, the Lithuanian word for Falcon.

The little Cub created a big commotion at the Kaunas airfield. Thousands turned out to see it and hear from Šaltenis. After getting out of the cockpit, Šaltenis was met by political and military dignitaries as well as officials from the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union. Looking like an airline captain in his club uniform, he was presented with a bouquet of flowers and pinned with a carnation on his lapel. He then read a letter from the Darius–Girenas Aero Club of Brooklyn. There were likely many more ceremonies in town that night!

The Cub known as the Falcon began its career with the LRU training pilots and likely towing gliders from the airport at Kaunas and, it seems, at the gliding club at Nida, a small coastal community on the Curonian Spit, a narrow strip of land along Lithuania’s Baltic Coast. When the Russians occupied Lithuania in 1940 as part of the cynical Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of June 1940, the country was forced to become a constituent republic of the USSR—anathema to every red-blooded Lithuanian. The LRU, seen as a nationalist organization, was disarmed and disbanded. The Falcon was then operated by the Lithuanian Aero Club at Kaunas, doing much the same as she did before the Soviet occupation—training future Lithuanian pilots.

When the Nazis double-crossed their Russian allies in 1941, with the start of Operation BARBAROSSA, the Soviets did not have the manpower to hold on to their Baltic territories. Within a few weeks, the Germans had taken them, incorporating them into what they called the Reichskommissariat Ostland. At first, the Lithuanians welcomed (and even aided) the Germans as some sort of liberators from the repressive and socialist Russians who had arrested, executed or deported to gulags tens of thousands of Lithuanians, even though the Luftwaffe had killed more than 4,000 civilians in their bombing campaign. Always proudly independent, they thought they could win some sort of autonomy from the Nazi regime. It was soon clear that only Nazi sympathizers and puppets would be allowed by the Germans. Then the Lithuanian Holocaust began—the systematic murdering of 95–97% of the 250,000 Lithuanian Jews.

Shorty after the Germans annexed Lithuania, they shut down any civilian flying and made use of any suitable Lithuanian aircraft including the little Sakala, the Falcon. They painted it white overall and added the swastika on it tail—the ultimate defacing of an aircraft that had been a symbol of support for Lithuania and a gift from its diaspora. She was utilized by the local Reichskommissariat Ostland military command to check the effectiveness of German camouflage from the air. It is likely it also did liaison and courier service with the Luftwaffe.

What happened to this much-loved little bird is not known, but like so much damage that the Nazis did, its story simply would never be heard over the hurricane of suffering that roared around that part of the world. Only one photo of the Falcon as a Nazi aircraft can be found. It’s a bright sunny day, likely not in winter. She is sitting on the ramp in front of a hangar at Kaunas. There are some folks off in the distance near the hangar door, but otherwise she is alone with her misery. She represents all that is good and proud about Lithuanian nationalism, but she is forced to wear the symbols of iniquity and malice. I doubt she was happy.

Like many of the Danish-built Piper Cubs, and in fact many millions of European citizens, the Falcon was swept up by the war caused by Nazi aggression, never to be seen again. A story long forgotten by most of the world, but certainly not by Lithuanian history enthusiasts. I suspect that there are other photos of her in her Luftwaffe markings out there somewhere, and perhaps this article will bring them to light. Perhaps someone knows what happened in the end to this little airplane that stood for so much.

Flitfires over America

In researching the story of the two Luftwaffe Piper Cubs, I came across the story of the Piper Flitfire. At first I read the Wikipedia entry about the aircraft, found it interesting and then put it out of mind. But it kept popping up every time I did a photo search. I got to thinking that the Flitfire was, along with the purloined Danish and Lithuanian Cubs, perhaps the first of many Piper Cubs that contributed to the war effort—certainly the first of very, very many American Piper L-4 (Grasshopper) Cubs. The Flitfire story is worth telling for that alone.

In April of 1941, America was still a long way from joining the Second World War on the side of the Allies. Even though many Americans wanted to stay out of the conflict and even some were pro-German, most Americans felt empathy and respect for the people of Great Britain, who for some time now, seemed to be the only Western, non-neutral nation still standing. Even the Russians were just a couple of months away from being dealt a kick to the nuts by their so-called German allies.

There were a number of initiatives across America to raise awareness of Nazi oppression and atrocities and to gather up support for the war effort, even if the country was not at war. Right here in Ottawa, Warner Bros. was in the midst of filming their biggest budget film to date—a sweeping, if more than a little predictable, feature film starring James Cagney called Captains of the Clouds about the massive Canada-wide aviation training program known as the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. American aviator and illustrator Clayton Knight had joined with Canadian fighter pilot legend Billy Bishop, VC, and was holding court as the barely-legal Clayton Knight Committee in hotel rooms from Spokane to San Antonio to New York, signing up thousands of young idealistic and adventurous Americans to train as aircrew with the Royal Canadian Air Force.

Exactly one year previously, the Nazis had invaded Denmark and inside of 6 hours had brought the small nation to its knees. The Danish Cub Aircraft Co. Ltd. at Lundtofte Airfield in Denmark, an independent Danish distributor and assembly company, affiliated with Piper Aircraft (formerly Taylor Aircraft Company), had been forced to shut down operations. The illegality and injustice of this action was not lost on the management and personnel of Piper Aircraft in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania.

A few months after the invasion of Denmark, the world watched in dread and awe as the plucky fighter pilots of the Royal Air Force not only put up a defence against the mighty Luftwaffe, but managed to defeat them in the Battle of Britain—the first clear defeat of the Nazi war machine. This not only inspired the people of Great Britain and the Commonwealth, but many in the United States who saw the Nazi menace for what it was. One of those people was Piper Aircraft’s president William T. Piper who came up with an idea to raise money in support of the Royal Air Force’s Benevolent Fund—something that was not a military answer, but rather a humanitarian one, and legal in the United States at that time. The RAF Benevolent Fund (RAFBF) was (and is still today) an independent charity created in the First World War to raise money for the families of RAF casualties—at this point in this war, these were largely the widows and families of men killed and injured during the Battle of Britain.

Piper’s idea was to donate a single Piper J-3 Cub from his assembly line as a prize for a national fundraising program. The Cub was painted silver all over with RAF type-A roundels and fin flash as well as the words Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund on the port side fuselage. This first Piper Cub was registered NC1776 in honour of America’s founding year. He then encouraged Piper dealerships in each of the then 48 states of the union to purchase similarly-painted Cubs from the assembly line to be part of a wider fundraising campaign and then delivered to each of the individual state dealerships to be sold, raffled off or sent out on fundraising tours of their own. All 48 states participated.