Thanks for taking the time to read this and I hope this post is allowed. I was wondering if anyone was familiar with this set of aircraft pictures I recently acquired. There are about 3 dozen of them, all German, Japanese and Italian aircrafts with descriptions and specifications on the back side of the cards. In a lot of cases the little story on the back uses present tense. The cards themselves are printed on regular paper and they are 7x4.5. Any info is appreciated. Thanks
The cards are from a set titled "36 Enemy Planes. German and Jap Fighters and Bombers". Aircraft recognition cards, including trading cards and cigarette cards, as well as official training materials, were common during the war, as a way to familiarise the public and servicemen with enemy equipment. It's hard to date the cards, but some of the text refers to the US B-17 and B-24's operating over Europe, dating some of the the cards to 1942-1943 at the earliest. However, some images are incorrect, and show prototype and pre-war variants of aircraft that never saw service. Interestingly the JU-88 pictured features US markings, and appears to be the long range recon variant captured by the British and handed over to the US in October 1943. You can read about this aircraft here. You can see more of the 36 enemy planes on this page.
As a followup, I was wondering if anyone has more information about the claim on the Me109 card that the plane's leading-edge slats were (I guess licensed would be the claim here) from the British company Handley-Paige.