HA-JUC Junkers Ju-52/3m4ge
(c/n J5600)
I am indebted to
Gábor Toth
for the selection of Hungarian pre- and immediate post-war photos
appearing on
this site.
Magyar Legiforgalmi (Malert) (known in the west at Hungarian Air Trans-
port Co.) was formed on 19
November 1922 and was the official government sponsored airline
in Hungary. It began with
Fokker F.3 aircraft on a route from Budapest to Vienna in 1923.
HA-JUC was originally delivered to Malert in 1936 as HA-DUR, named
'Kiss Jozsef', and was
the Presidential VIP
aircraft. It was re-registered HA-JUC in
1938 and converted to regular
passenger
configuration. By that time the airline was
providing service to Munich, Prague,
Warsaw and
Bucharest. Soon
after delivery of this machine, war broke out in Europe and in
the initial stages of this
conflict, at least, most nations began identifying their civil
aircraft
in bold
letters or national
insignia/colors.
ABA, for instance had a very large 'Sweden' painted over
the cabin windows.
Although Hungary,
under pressure from Germany, joined the Axis in 1940,
its civil aircraft were
still identified by
large bands of red white and green in 1940/41. This
would seem to date the above
photograph to circa 1940, or possibly just before HA-JUC was
impressed into the Hungarian
Air Force 102/1 Transport Squadron in June 1941 as S-101.
It was
re-serialed U-863 in April 1942 and was shot down by ground fire in
October 1944.
I have no way of
knowing which of the six or seven Ju 52s operated by Malert the photo
below
depicts. I will append it here since it may be HA-JUC and
taken when the aircraft was the
Presidential VIP aircraft, but that is pure conjecture.
