Messerschmitt Bf 109B-2 "Berta"
Unit: 2./J88 'Legion Condor'
Serial: 656
Pilot - CO of J88 Gotthard Handrick
(5 victories). 18 June 1937 - 10 September 1938.

Steel grey version for Spanish, North Africa campaigns 
in the 109E and 109G slots,adapted from files by Jan
Tuma and DeanH.

cheers
Ade Kelly 'flying tiger'
Nov 2006


Notes of Interest:

656 - A case in point, and a source of confusion.

Interestingly, it may well be the most photographed 
Condor Legion Bf 109 of all, 656, that has contributed 
to much of the confusion. This was a long-serving aircraft,
initially flown by Gotthard Handrick (who scored 5 "kills" 
in it in Spain), then by Walter Grabman (Who scored 7 "kills")
and finally being handed over to the Spanish Patrulla Azul.

While used by Gotthard Handrick, this machine had an emblem
of the Olympic rings painted on both sides of the spinner - 
on one side with the date 1936 (Handrick won a gold medal 
in the modern pentathlon at the 1936 Berlin Olympic games),
and on the other with the inscription "1940?" (Presumably he 
hoped to win another medal in the planned 1940 Tokyo Olympic 
games), as well as a stylized "h" on the fuselage roundel on the 
port side. Images of this machine were, not surprisingly, used by
the German propaganda machine.

It has been suggested that when Handrick returned from Spain 
to Germany in 1938, the German propaganda industry did not 
have all the pictures it desired, and since 656 remained in Spain, 
another machine was painted with the same markings and 
photographed in Germany. 

This could explain why there are two distinct versions of the Olympic 
rings symbols and "h" seen on photographs ('though it could also 
have been a re-paint in Spain, of course, but why that should result 
in a change in the placement of the rings is unclear). One set of 
photographs shows a typically arid Spanish background, no sign
 at all of wing guns, and with the Oxygen filler and electrical socket 
below the cockpit of this machine (see below), so I am in no doubt 
that 656 was a Bf 109 B-2.

Source: D.R.Nash - Messerschmitts in Spain. 2003 