The casual visitor to the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy facility at Dulles Airport near Washington, DC, might be surprised to discover, hidden among such famous airplanes as “Enola Gay” and a Concorde, a number of beautifully restored German aircraft of the Second World War. These include the Ar 234 jet bomber, the Do 335 push-pull fighter, the He 219 night interceptor, and a bomb-carrying Fw 190. But does the visitor ever pause to consider how these airplanes come to be on display at such a prestigious museum?
Shortly after Germany declared war on the U.S. late in December 1941, an organization known as ATI (Air Technical Intelligence) was formed, based largely on the British A.I.2(g) model. As preparations proceeded for the Allied invasion of Europe in June 1944, a “European Division” of ATI was established and began to compile a “Black List” of German aircraft types and equipment that it wished to examine. To coordinate the search, the U.S. established the CIOS (Combined Intelligence Objectives Sub-Committee), which was made up of personnel from both the American and British intelligence communities. Following the successful invasion of Normandy and the Allied penetration deep into Western Europe, the need to exploit the results of advanced German technology became more and more important. Consequently, on April 22, 1945, a special order was issued to undertake this task under the code name Operation Lusty (Luftwaffe Secret Technology).
Major Watson, his Whizzers and the shopping list
To lead the operation, the USAAF appointed Colonel Harold E. Watson, a former Wright Field test pilot who had already made several test flights in a captured He 177 bomber—”a clunker of an airplane” as he was later to describe it. Watson had already had some experience in flying jets, testing the experimental Bell P-59 in early 1944 having
