The Ambulance That…Dropped Sea Mines? | Heinkel He 59 [Aircraft Overview #32]

F.A.Q Section Q: Do you take aircraft requests? A: I have a list of aircraft I plan to cover, but feel free to add to it with suggestions:) Q: Why do you use imperial measurements for some videos, and metric for others? A: I do this based on country of manufacture. Imperial measurements for Britain and the U.S, metric for the rest of the world, but I include text in my videos that convert it for both. Q: Will you include video footage in your videos, or just photos? A: Video footage is very expensive to licence, if I can find footage in the public domain I will try to use it, but a lot of it is hoarded by licencing studies (British Pathe, Periscope films etc). In the future I may be able to afford clips :) Q: Why do you sometimes feature images/screenshots from flight simulators? A: Sometimes there are not a lot of photos available for certain aircraft, so I substitute this with digital images that are as accurate as possible. Feel free to leave you questions below - I may not be able to answer all of them, but I will keep my eyes open :)

One of the most unusual aerial battles in WWII involved a HE-59 and a Blackburn Roc 4 gun turret fighter. It was a running gun fight at wave top height with both opponents getting hit but still making it back to their respective bases.

'In 1939 the bomber version had been withdrawn from service, being deemed obsolete for any direct offensive roles' Royal Navy reply: 'Hold my Swordfish' 😁 Good and interesting video!

These He59 aircraft were featured in a wartime U.S. propaganda film ("Action In The North Atlantic") starring Humphrey Bogart: old film footage and fairly accurate model work were used in a scene where German aircraft attack an Allied convoy of ships taking supplies to a Russian port. As someone has pointed out, He59s weren't being used as attack-aircraft by 1942 (the period depicted in the picture), but maybe the studio only had a clip of He59 film that could be used to help depict a German air-attack on shipping.

I don't comment nearly enough, as I know it helps the algo and I should, but I really love your content. So well done and well researched, and a pleasure to watch

This has quickly become one of my most anticipated channels. I love seeing you pop on on my subscription feed! It’s great aviation content about rare planes that no one else covers.

I love to see all this old footage from my hometown Rostock! (unfortunately most of the Heinkelworks were either destroyed or, after WW2, disassembled by the Soviets - but I grew up in one of the many remaining houses, build for the Heinkel-employees in the late 1930s)

Nice. I love seeing these more obscure second-line aircraft.

Like Rex said, there isn´t a lot of photographs or info about this aircraft but during the Spanish Civil War, it was widely used in the Mediterranean Sea by the Nationalist forces on anti-ship missions. Some weeks ago I found a wonderful He-59 Model online and it had this curious explanation of it´s combat use during the war: "After the outbreak of Spanish Civil War in July 1936 already in October ten He 59s appeared there withing group AS-88 (Aufklarungstaffel 88 - so by name a recce squadron) in Legion Condor. They were based in Pollensa on Mollorca. They were able to carry 1 t of bombs or torpedo and front MG was replaced by 20 mm gun. In fact they were used mostly as patrol-bombers to attack merchant ships transporting supply for Republicans. During operations 27 He-59 were used within AS-88, 17 of them were lost however they sunk 52 ships. They were also used in some actions like regular bombers, for example in a raid over a bridge in Catalonia, bombing raids on Tarragona... " - Honestly, I highly doubt that they sunk 52 Republican ships, but it´s still interesting.

I love your content, and as a Norwegian, this episode proved extra interesting. The aggressive tactics employed by the Germans, their willingness to take risk and initiative, outmanouvered and disorganized the confused Norwegian underfunded and undertrained army to a large degree, and led to many partially mobilized areas to simply give up and surrender during the first week of fighting.

You say an uninteresting aircraft, but as always an extremely interesting and informative program on another lesser known aircraft. Thanks again for all your research.

Another reason to favour the float version completely over the land version, is that people get suspicious if you build an airfield, but you don't have to build 'the sea'

Maaan he looks so cool. 1930's flying boats are the best planes ever. Big thanks for your narrative.

Great as usual. Thanks for sharing your hard work.

Interesting aircraft indeed! Keep 'em coming, Rex!

"aggressive ambulance" lol

Absolutely love your channel mate! Fantastic research and great presentation. Look forward to anything you feel like teaching.

Thank you for making this happen !

A Red Cross marked HE 59 featured in a brief segment in the BBC series piece of Cake of 1988.

Great work I love all your vids