Junkers Ju 87 near Sagan, 13 Ju 87s and 26 crew members were lost when they crashed into the ground almost simultaneously. The planes dived through cloud, expecting to release their practice bombs and pull out of the dive once below the cloud ceiling, unaware that the ceiling was too low and unexpected ground mist formed, leaving them no time to pull out of the dive. On 1 September 1939, the Wehrmacht invaded Poland, triggering World War II. "Generalquartiermeister der Luftwaffe" records indicate a total force of 366 Ju 87 A and Bs were available for operations on 31 August 1939. The first
Junkers Ju 290 were constructed for "special purposes" by Junkers. Their works numbers are unknown. What those "special purposes" were, or if they ever came to be, is unknown. A number of Ju 290s survived the war, the Allies evaluating at least three examples, none of which was known to have survived intact into the 21st century. Junkers Ju 290 The Junkers Ju 290 was a German large, four-engine long-range transport and maritime patrol aircraft used by the Luftwaffe late in World War II that had been developed from an earlier airliner. The Junkers 290 was developed directly from the Ju 90 airliner,