Heinkel He 111

The Heinkel He 111 is a German twin-engine medium bomber, developed by Heinkel Flugzeugwerke and first flown in February 1935, initially built in both civilian airliner and military bomber forms before entering Luftwaffe service that same year and becoming, by the outbreak of the Second World War, the most numerous bomber type in the German air force. Distinguished in its later production versions by an extensively glazed nose that gave the crew wide visibility, the He 111 served as a strategic bomber during the Battle of Britain in 1940, as a torpedo bomber in operations over the Atlantic and Arctic, and as a conventional medium bomber on the Western, Eastern and Mediterranean fronts through most of the war. A total of 6,508 were built between the mid-1930s and 1944, but as Germany progressively lost air superiority over its own bomber formations the type was increasingly relegated to transport duties in the war's final years, unable to continue safely in its original bombing role.