Messerschmitt Bf 109 E
German fighter from the Blitzkrieg and Battle of Britain

Messerschmitt Bf 109 E and T
Type: German fighter plane or fighter-bomber from the Blitzkrieg and the Battle of Britain (Bf 109 T carrier plane).
History: At the outbreak of WW2 the Luftwaffe had a strength of 1,056 Bf109s. Many of these were Bf 109Ds, but this series was already being replaced in increasing numbers by the Messerschmitt Bf 109 E.
This had first appeared (as the V14) in mid-1938, and the E-1 was produced both as a fighter (with four MG 17s) and as a fighter-bomber (carrying one 250 kg or four 50 kg bombs). Later E-1s standardised on 20mm MG FF cannon in place of the two wing-mounted MG 17s.

Messerschmitt Bf 109 E-4/Trop of JG 27, North Africa, summer 1941.

Against all types of opposing fighter during the Blitzkrieg throughout Poland, Norway, France, Belgium, Holland and southern England, with the exception of the Spitfire (which it greatly outnumbered), the Messerschmitt Bf 109E proved itself superior in both performance and manoeuvrability; only its range let it down.

One of the last Messerschmitt Bf 109 E sub-types, this is an E-7, seen with a large dust filter on the engine air inlet. It was operating on the Leningrad front in 1942 with JG 5.

Production accelerated to the extent that Germany could afford to export sub­stantial numbers of the Messerschmitt Bf 109 E-3 (which appeared at the end of 1939 and was the principal version to be used in the Battle of Britain) to Bulgaria, Hungary, Japan, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland, Russia and Yugoslavia. In addition, a small batch was built during 1941-43 by Dornier's Altenrhein factory in Switzerland.

A German Bf 109 E together with two Romanian Messerschmitt's guarding Ploesti oilfields, Romania.

In July 1940 the Gerhard Fieseler-Werke began to convert 10 Bf 109 E-1s to Bf 109T (for Trager = carrier) extended-span configuration. These were to have been development aircraft for the Bf 109 T-1, intended for use aboard the proposed aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin, but after the carrier programme was terminated the 60 T-1s ordered were completed instead as land-based T-2s.

A Romanian Messerschmitt Bf 109 E in 1942.

Various other E models, up to E-9, were produced for fighter or reconnaissance duties, with powerplant or equipment variations.
Meanwhile, Messerschmitt had been developing what was to become the finest of all the many versions, the Bf109 F.

Users: Germany, Bulgaria, Hungary, Japan, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland, Russia, Yugoslavia (Bf 109 E and T).

Messerschmitt Bf 109 E from the Yugoslavian Air Force, 1940.

Taken from a German propaganda film of 1941, this photograph depicts a pair of Bf 109 E-4/Trop fighters of I/JG 27 flying over the Cyrenaican (Libyan) desert, soon after the entry of the Afrika Korps.

3d model Messerschmitt Bf 109 E

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