04/15/2018. Remarks by Johan Visschedijk: "The pictured aircraft was a long-range photographic reconnaissance version modified for tropical use. First flown with the German markings "NP+MK" in June 1943, it was delivered to the German ally Romania. Coded yellow "1" it was operated by 2./Rum.Fernaufkl.St. (Luftflotte 4 East) and based at Mariopol on the Ukraine front. It carried the Romanian AF markings only briefly as on July 22, 1943, the Romanian Fl.Sgt. Nicolai Theodoru defected and flew the aircraft to Limassol, Cyprus and surrendered to the British forces. Named Baksheesh and carrying the RAF serial HK959, it was flown to the British Airways Repair Unit at Heliopolis Airfield, Cairo, Egypt, on July 27, 1943.

Subsequently the aircraft was handed over to the USAAF 26th Air Depot Group at Deversoir AB near Ismailia on the Suez Canal, on October 1, 1943. With the fake tail code "43-0650" (derived from the c/n), the aircraft left Deversoir AB on October 8, 1943, and was flown to the USA via Khartoum (Sudan), Maiduguri (Nigeria), Accra (Gold Coast/Ghana), Ascension Island, Natal and Belem (Brazil), Georgetown (British Guyana), Borinquen AAF Field (Puerto Rico) and West Palm Beach (Florida), and arriving at Wright Field AAF, Dayton, Ohio, USA on October 14, after a trip of some 11,000 mls (17,700 km).

The aircraft received the code "FE-1598" and was test flown in Arizona by pilots from Technical Data Laboratory of Materiel Command. To prevent being attacked by unknowing American military aircraft, the Junkers had, besides the standard USAAF markings, American flags painted on top of the fuselage and on both sides of the vertical tial. Renumbered on paper only as " T2-1598" the aircraft was stored at Davis Monthan AAB, Arizona in 1946 and transferred to the museum of the USAF at Wright-Patterson AFB, Dayton, in 1950. In the 1970s it was painted up as "F6+AL", representing the Luftwaffe Ju 88 D-1 of 3.(F)/122. The aircraft was restored in the 1990s and finished in the markings of Romanian AF Ju 88 A-4 of Grupal 5 Bombardament (coded yellow "105") it was put on display indoors."