Why Everyone Feared The "Flying Pencil" | Dornier Do 17 

From reading a book owned by a friend, I had understood the origin story to be the third variation. As that is a single source, it cannot be considered to be the whole story. With the degree of bad feeling toward almost all other countries, and the desire to show that they were still a great nation rampant in Germany around that time of the Do-17's genesis, I could see the second variation as being possible.

Variant 3 sounds to fit right in with "Grosstraktor" and whatever codename nonsense the Navy used... DO-217? Didn't that one also have a nickname? Flying lighter/zippo? Does not sound too confidence infusing...

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@@Ugly_German_Truths The flying lighter was the Heinkel He 177.

most accurate wt sponsorship

Relaxing is what gives us complete schlock in the first place. I say never relax.

Dark skies, dark seas and dark bullsh!t!

The Dark bods get it wrong time and again, you try to point out basic errors and it's just ignored so I have blocked them, only answer.

@@owen368 :)

@@GeneralJackRipper You'll give yourself an ulcer! :)

It's a shame that willful ignorance seems to be considered a virtue of these days.

​@@BlackMasterRoshi sadly it is, and it's only getting worse, especially in the US. It's now become a calling card of "truth seeker" conspiracy nuts, fundamentalist evangelicals, and ultra right wingers in general ( and there's plenty of overlap between all those groups ). The more evidence there is for something, the more they see signs of conspiracy or persecution and stick to their irrationally even more staunchly.

"When I learn something new, I change my mind. What do you do?". Attributed to Gandhi.

Tuba skinny

Thanks, captain understanding. Well said.

Very nice post to Rex. As a history student of some 40 years, I find these videos both entertaining and informative as they provide an accurate and unbiased perspective. I do not play video games and fear with such quality work, we will lose Rex to mainstream media. Our loss.

Also aviation aficionados and interested in military history, as me and many others following.

That sir is a commendation of absolute gold. Well done!

No offense but people with college degrees aren't necessarily smarter than others anymore. Sadly the university system is failing many people these days. Not about critical thinking or breaking new barriers, instead it's an indoctrination factory using revisionist history or flat out lies

Not to mention they'd done similar things before, calling tanks "tractors".

Yes, the Airfix Do17E/F was also one of my first kits I built alone. I painted it in the Spanish delivery. I made the mistake to not paint the interior of the model which was horrible with its light blue plastic. Lesson learnt, all next models I built (more than 100) would be painstakenly painted and detailed inside. Also almost 50 years ago.

Since retirement, I'm enjoying my second childhood. I completed one about a month ago.

the Do-17 was the 3rd Airfix (plane) Kit i built , the first was a Mirage IIIC (didnt have platic glue at the time she fell apart after few weeks) , 2nd was the two plane Dogfightseries MiG-15 and MirageIII , half arab and half german i changed the Decals , the MiG-15 got the Star of David and the superior MirageIIIC the Egyptian markings. Built Army too Tanks Trucks, a lot of Centurions because i like Centurions saw them every autum during the big manouvres and because i liked Trucks 3 Matador Trucks, i wished Airfix had modern BAOR Trucks , Bedford RL, Antars, Landrovers at the time, so i had to go with Matadors and Scammel Tank Transporters, the Landrover came later with the Big C-130 Hercules i buyed two of them because of the Landrovers. Spend lot of money as a Kid for Airfix models, had / owned over 60 Tanks plus Trucks nearly 30 Planes and over 1000 Soldiers before i switched to Tamiyas , ESCI`s 1:35 kits.

I think we all have that one first model that dragged us down this rabbit hole of modelling. For me though the Do-17 in 1/48 scale, a MonoGram kit if I recall, was probably my most beautifully painted aircraft model. I was never great at painting up my kits but I tried my best of course and I always recall in my mind that Do-17 Z was the point of pride for my aircraft collection.

The first bomber model kit I ever got was a B-29, but it came with two wings from the same side and I could not finish it. I ended up making it a "crashed plane" diorama.

The Lufthansa was pretty much Germany's civilian Luftwaffe, thus circumventing the Versailles Treaty. Besides regular business, it served as cover for procurement of "civilan" aircraft so the air ministry wasn't compromized. Another major role was training pilots and ground crews. Civilian glider schools/clubs provided basic pilot training.

@@ottovonbismarck2443 Every country in the world's aviation industry relied on subsidized airlines and mail contracts to keep its aviation industry going as well as the Military. The Versailles treaty tried to destroy Germany's aviation industry with complete bans on engines over 100hp and then forced them to build motorists. I have no issue with them finding a way around the Versailles treaty. Aviation could not make a profit till aircraft like the DC-3 and Boeing Model 247 and maybe the Ju 52. Seaplanes like the Dorniers eg Do 26 and Fw 200 were all needed. The Do 17 probably did carry mail quite fast and well.

The FW 200 Condor was built as a civilian aircraft. It had exceptional range but was compromised as a fighting machine so “only” saw service as maritime reconnaissance and submarine hunter. Dornier did away with the civilian bit.

@@davidelliott5843 Dornier had no choise, the airministry said you build warplanes or you loose the factorys.

Source?

Which one was the prostitute?

You missed the PANCAKE!... how dare you?! 😂

Wait what was that last one?

@@spacecatgaming3304the B-26 Marauder

@@SebPaez you learn something new everyday don't you. thank you good sir.

Me too.

amazed how long propaganda could work.

i mean thats kinda true, DHL was just used as a coverup

Just looking at it, it seems implausible it was honestly meant to ever carry passengers.

@@j.f.fisher5318Agreed

I did not know about the opening of military factories in the European part of the USSR, but that would answer some questions that nagged at me, but just wasn’t smart enough to ask. I ‘heard’ of the joint training, but nothing substantial. I’m not certain if Hitler had intended on invading the USSR at this point, but I am almost positive he was prejudiced against people he considered Slavic - I think he demonstrated a lot of forethought here, regarding the Soviets. I had assumed he was acting impetuous when he invaded, but maybe he had been letting things stew in his mind for over a decade.

@@ronjon7942 "I’m not certain if Hitler had intended on invading the USSR at this point, but I am almost positive he was prejudiced against people he considered Slavic - I think he demonstrated a lot of forethought here, regarding the Soviets. I had assumed he was acting impetuous when he invaded, but maybe he had been letting things stew in his mind for over a decade." Hitler didn't become reich chancellor until 1933 and fuhrer until August 1934. So that means that the German plans of secret re-armament "as early as 1928" were already conducted by the *Weimar Republic* . In other words these plans existed years before Hitler came to power. In the 1928 German general elections the nazis just got 2,6% of the votes and were the 9th largest party. Any thoughts of a war or invasion was definitely not on his mind at this point because Germany was his sole focus. Before Hitler came to power he had two goals: 1) To support a "traditional, strong man" who represented how Germany was before 1918, which is why he backed Ludendorff in the failed in 1923 coup, and 2) Make himself and his party come to power and "set Germany straight again" by removing anything "non-German". The way Hitler saw it Germany itself was perfect and pure but had become "infested by foreign ideas, art, music and entertainment". Jazz clubs were popular in the 1920's Germany and fact is several American black jazz musicians both performed and intermingled with the locals. French style cabarets appeared too and quite a few of them were operated by distinguished German jews. Young people began to consume foreign culture in the 1920's. Now this happened all over the world in the 1920's and is nothing strange at all today but back then Hitler (and many like him) didn't like this development at all. Why listen to black swing music when you could listen to Wagnerian symphonies and why admire modern art from Picasso and surrealists from all over the world when those were clearly (in Hitler's mind) degenerate and damaging to the German public who should look up to "classical art". In a hypothetical scenario in which allied countries didn't impose sanctions and trade embargoes on Nazi Germany it's possible Nazi Germany becomes like North Korea is today. Highly dictatorial and sealed off from pretty much all over the world. So what exactly set Hitler on a different path to start a war? Well, it was well-known in world media that the nazis were very harsh against the German Jews. Powerful Jewish bankers (the Rothschild family possessed the largest private fortune in the world at the start of the 1900's) and businessmen began boycotting business with Nazi Germany (who can blame them?) so Hitler was enraged and thus they imposed the 1935 Nuremberg Laws which stripped Jews of their rights as German citizens. At this stage *segregation* of Jews was the policy with plans of future deportation of all Jews. By making more and more enemies in the world Hitler realized Germany might find itself at war in the future and that it was nowhere near ready to go to war with the tiny army they had at this point. Fact is that during the German invasion of the de-militarized Rheinland (which the Versailles Treaty clearly stipulated was off-limits) in 1936 Hitler had order his generals to immediately retreat if the French attacked as the few regiments the Wehrmacht had and no heavy-weapons meant they'd be obliterated. Unlucky for us but lucky for Hitler the French did nothing. With access to the manufacturing industry in the Rheinland Hitler could finally start re-building a huge German army. *That is* he still wanted to avoid war as long as possible to make sure Germany was strong enough. The army naturally took priority however a strong navy was also on Hitler's mind. Unfortunately building a strong enough navy would take until 1944 if things went to Hitler's plan. Here's what really started the war in 1939. Nazi Germany's rapid re-armament had resulted in such a huge trade deficit for Nazi Germany foreign banks were filled to the absolute limit with Reichsmarks. They could accept no further payment in Reichsmarks. This meant that the market was oversaturated with this currency and it was beginning to lose its value. Economic historians have revealed that Nazi Germany was facing an economic collapse in late 1939 (this was btw already obvious to some Germans in the high command who planned an assassination of Hitler in 1938). War therefore had to start in September 1939 with the invasion of Poland so that Nazi Germany could switch to a war economy... There was no other option. Btw, the fragile German economy actually would have faced a collapse *before* if not for the seized gold reserves of Austria (by anschluss) and Czechoslovakia (which Hitler got without a fight thanks to Neville Chamberlain) which provided the economy with a steroid boost. That was the problem - the inefficient economy of Nazi Germany couldn't sustain *itself* so Nazi Germany "solved" that by occupying countries and pillaging their resources. Needless to say this made them extremely unpopular wherever they went and made them several times more enemies. Eventually it dawned on Hitler that there really was one huge countrie which sat on enough natural resources and invading it was the logical next step. The Soviet Union. However in the mid 1930's neither Hitler nor anybody else thought much of the Soviet Union because it was widely believed to be a poorly-industrialized country stuck in the 1800's way of living. As such it was not seen as a threat. The Soviet Union had also lost the Polish-Soviet war of 1919-1921 and pretty much sealed itself off from the rest of the world. European communist parties got support from Stalin but none of those ever had a majority of followers. The Soviet Union super power was *after* WWII. In the 1920's and 1930's very few considered it a potent military power. Unbeknownst to Hitler (and everybody else outside the Soviet Union) Stalin was well aware of this too and decided (wisely) to start a rapid and vast industrialization of the Soviet Union in the mid 1930's. That was one of the reasons for the Ukrainian famine too for Stalin took any peasant or local he could to both build these giant factories and to work in them. So when Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa in 1941 they faced a Soviet Union far better armed and with far larger industrial capability than they knew. In short Hitler hated communism but wanted it cleansed from Germany first and foremost. Once it became clear the economy of Nazi Germany was being blockaded and boycotted as well as the very costly re-armament program it became imperative to invade other nations and seize their resources. Obviously the Soviet Union became the final target for the nazi ideas of "living space". This ruthless pillaging meant Nazi Germany gained enemies everywhere it went.

​@@McLarenMercedesnice essay

Now that was _schnell_ ...

To be fair to Rex, the DO 17 first flew in 1934, the Mosquito in 1940...

Ahhh Wings. I loved that programme, I still pop it on now and then, it does however send me to sleep…

Dornier was trained by Graf von Zeppelin. It lead to the first smooth skinned all metal aircraft. The Do 215 was the export variant of the Do 17 with DB601A liquid cooled engines instead of Bramo radials. A version with DB601N with 1175hp (1275 for 3 minutes) could manage 510kmh/316mph. Had the Nazi regime subsidized Daimler Benz Geisingham Engine plant the DB601 Dorniers would have been nearly impossible to intercept by the Hurricane. Food for thought.

They weren’t ships.

@@rovercoupe7104 'Ships' was also a common slang term for aircraft.

It makes more sense too and in line with other measures that the German military was taking to develop new weapons without obviously breaking peace treaty.

@@Hiznogood Rheinmettall just happened to have unwanted armoured half-track prototypes lying around ...

​@@jeffkeith637 don't we all?

Do u remember the fantastic historical manual the game came with? All before the time information was readily avaialble on the net....

@@showandtell4265 oh yes, definitely. it even had details on like the difference between like the BF 109 and 110s that were The fighter versus fighter bomber. You can still find scannrd copies of it on line, I looked it up once a few years ago.

@@showandtell4265 I still have mine 😎 A boxed air sim was a wonderful think in those days - squinting at pixels as they wriggled across the acres of space on your 13" CRT while you brought your Hurricane in to bear down on them. Hilarious now, but incredibly immersive 😁😁

Oh man that brings me back. I absolutely loved that game must have put thousands of hours into it.

Question for u guys... The hundreds of hours i put into leveling up my german pilots in channel raids, ive only been hit by an aa round once... Despite the impressive graphics of my stukka dive bomber being enveloped by flak... Did anyone else have a similar experience?

What is a legal pad? Something like a mouse pad but exclusively for lawyers?

That is the Nightfighter version of its bigger brother the 217

Alfred Price's "The Hardest Day" has always been my favourite Battle of Britain book since reading it years ago aged 12 in 1981. Read it many times since then and the 9th Staffel attack on Kenley is beautifully researched. 12 year old me suddenly became fascinated with the Dornier 17Z as a consequence and didn't rest until I'd built the old Frog model of the aircraft. As a side note, I picked up a hardback copy of "The Hardest Day" a couple of years back. Unbeknown to me, inside was a newspaper clipping about the 1978 reunion at Kenley and the book was signed by Harry Newton and Gunther Unger. It's now become my favourite possession.

@@fightersweep Thanks for this excellent reply. That's quite something to have a signed copy by those erstwhile opponents over Kenley. I'm very struck, by the way, in that photo of Günther Unger, Harry Newton and Franz Bergmann facing page 129, that Günther and Harry are wearing matching shirts! In the Remembrance Sunday spirit of reconciliation between nations it's a perfect illustration that we're all the same, after all. Regarding Franz, I know that they were the enemy and all, but one has to take one's hat off to what the air gunners equipped with just a single, hand-trained Rheinmettal M 15 could achieve, defending their aircraft in broad daylight against some of the best fighter types on the planet at the time.

@@christopherbentley7289 Added respect also for facing off those attacking fighters while all grouped together in those flimsy looking glasshouse cockpits. It must have been very scary at times. I had another look at "The Hardest Day" today. I was taken by the photo of Unger's Dornier flying at 60 feet on the left wing of the photographer's aircraft just after they had crossed the coast. To look at that photo and realise the book is signed by Gunther makes it very special. The 12 year old me that read the paperback version all those years ago would have been very pleased. To scratch another itch, I picked up a 1/48 Do 17Z from Eduard. Lovely model and I would love to build Unger's aircraft, but as of yet, finding the individual aircraft letter of his aircraft seems impossible. None of my references seem to know. Shame, as I had plans to build Newton's Hurricane too to go with it as I thought it would make a nice display. I think I'm going to have to read the book again.

@@fightersweep Yes, it was a work of prescient genius to have Rolf von Pebal accompanying the 9th Staffel on that raid and it was also fortunate that his photos survived as they must be one of the greatest selections of photographic record of the conflict around. Your remarks on the possible pairing of those kits puts me in mind of the 'Dogfight Doubles'. I'm not sure if they're still made but a 'Special' on that theme would be superb. I don't know if you've knocked around my RU-vid profile but if you have you will have seen that my real current field of expertise is in the 'lost world' of the female Pop music of the Satellite Nations of the former Soviet Bloc. Part of the back story that led there was the discovery in the attic of my former address of a photo of a singer called variously Carene Cheryl and Karen Cheryl - she shares my birthday! - whose real name is Isabelle Morizet in an old 'Paris Match' magazine. She was born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye and lived in Hodent, near Magny-en-Vexin, then the Île de Migneaux in Poissy. Hodent is very near Cormeilles-en-Vexin so it might be good to go, one day, to her erstwhile place of residence and to the former airfield, having already visited Kenley.

_Mine, too, but only till variant P. The later _*_"Kampfkopf"_*_ wasn't that beautiful _*_. . ._*

@@letoubib21 The E model is my favorite in Wt. Love the inlines on it

Apparently it says this when you do the donation thing. I've never done this before, but this video very much deserved it. Have a pint (or more pinot) on me, Rex.

considering its crapy general performance where is the surprise that British and other allied fighters prefered to take different plane as a target? Why chase Do-17 when you can shot down Heinkel He 111 instead?! One can take 1000kg other can take 2500kg so it is no brainer that you gonna waste your ammo on the more juicy target... And the fact that you can run awey is not as important as your ability to deliver the payload. Also from wikipedia: "Battle of Britain Main article: Battle of Britain During the Polish campaign, the Do 17Z could use its 427 km/h (265 mph) maximum speed to stay away from most enemy fighters, and its light armament was effective. It also fought with success during the Battle of France and losses were relatively light, although when facing modern fighters like the Hawker Hurricane, the bomber proved slow in comparison and more vulnerable. When it faced British fighters during the Battle of Britain, it was shown that fast, well-armed monoplane fighters had changed the balance between bomber and fighter decidedly in favour of the latter. The Do 17 suffered in early raids." And there is this problem that two first air victories in WW2 were two Do-17E shot down over Poland by sergant W. Gnyś -> reported by Germans as an air colision caused by the AA fire -> when in reality the Do-17E was reported to have 7.92mm type of holes and the angles of fire sugest strongly that they were made by Gnyś P.11 machine guns. That is why we can hear in this video about them being shot mostly by AA fire in Poland when the reality is that Germans pilots could not just dive down at full speed all the time -> that trick you can make once and only if you manage to spot the fighter before he is on your 6.

@@Bialy_1 Cope

@@Bialy_1 Messed up thinking. If the plane can evade defenses, it is far more effective than a killed bomber, which cannot deliver a heavy bomb load.

There was an 'export' variant of the Do 17 refereed to as the Do 215 which had the more powerful and streamlined DB601A and a speed of 292mph. Some Do 215 had their DB601A engine removed and replaced by DB601N which in latter forms had 1275hp with war emergency power at higher altitude and drove the Do 215 to an impressive 316mph. There seems to have been 68 of these impressive bombers in service. On the Generalluftzeugmeister meeting on the 22nd January 1941, the Generalstab pointed out the following figures on the number of 'active' DB 601N installed, referring to reports from the units on 1st of January, thus giving us a good picture on the number of Bf 109E-../N types in frontline service on the 1st of January : 2 in Bf 109s Bf 109E-1 : 16 pcs, Bf 109E-3 : 1 pc, Bf 109E-4 : 54 pcs, Bf 109E-6 : 1 pc, Bf 109E-7 : 34 pcs, Bf 109E-8 : 2pcs. Bf 109F-1 : 5 pcs. Total 112 Bf 109E with DB 601N present in service, plus 5 Bf 109F. in Bf 110s Bf 110C-1 : 4 pcs, Bf 110C-4 : 40 pcs, Bf 110C-5 : 12, Bf 110C-7 : 14 pcs, Bf 110D-0 : 18 pcs, Bf 110D-2 : 20 pcs, Bf 110D-3 : 8 pcs, BF 110E-1 : 176 pcs, Bf 110E-2 : 14 pcs. Total : 306 engines, ie. 153 Bf 110s with DB 601N present in service. in Misc. types He 111P : 8 pcs, Do 215 : 68 pcs.

​@@Bialy_1 maybe you should look up the performance of the equivalent British bombers, Blenheim I wasn't as good with equivalent payload. Even the Bf110 was able to catch and shoot it down. Nobody mentions the RAF bomber poor performance but exactly the opposite, they are celebrated.Also Wikipedia is not your friend.