Junkers Ju-87 Stuka: What Made the Luftwaffe Vulture So Fearsome?
The Ju-87 Stuka terrorized civilian populations in the early days of the Nazi blitzkrieg during World War II.
Here s What You Need to Know: The Stuka served in every theater of World War II where the German war machine was deployed.
One of the deadliest and most effective airplanes of the Axis powers, the Junkers Ju-87 Stuka, owed its origin to a fearless World War I ace and, ironically, to innovative American aviation visionaries in the peaceful early 1930s.
After shooting down 62 planes, ranking second only to the famous “Red Baron,” Manfred von Richthofen, and surviving the 1914-1918 war, Frankfurt-born Ernst Udet became a stunt pilot and barnstormed over Africa, Greenland, the Swiss Alps, and South America. While visiting the United States in 1931, he observed dive-bombing techniques being developed by the U.S. Navy.