Regent Horthy's Ju 52/3m g 4e

Personal Ju-52 of Hungarian Head of State
First Ju-52 aircraft were bought by Magyar Légiforgalmi Rt. (MALÉRT, originally Magyar Aeroforgalmi Rt, Hungarian Airtransport Holding Co.) between 1936 and 1941. First 7 aircraft arrived in 3 different versions (3e, 4e and 7e). The very first one, which was flown from Dessau by Ádám Krudy and Gyula Timár in 1936, manufacturing no. 5600, was Ju-52/3mg4e. It had only 8 passenger seats, but also a conference room. This particular machine was reserved by the command of the secret Air Force for Head of State - Regent Miklós Horthy.
Aircraft received civil registration HA-DUR (in Hungarian 'hadúr' means a warlord, also used as a title of the chief of the armed forces) and LÜH number 1001 (see SAFO No. 77), and had been named after the best scoring Hungarian WWI ace - lt. József Kiss. Despite civil registration aircraft was in a permanent (clandestine) military service. In 1938 it was temporarily lent to civil transport as HA-JUC. It was requested back (together with other two MALÉRT Ju-52) as military transport (but without any modification) in June 1941, with S.101 serials, and put for some months to a short front service (102/1 Transport Sq.). In 1942 (April 13) all the other civil Ju-52 were also enlisted. Hungarian manufactured armed Ju-52/3mg14e (PIRT - Pestszentlörinc Ipari Telepek (Pestszentlörinc Industrial Workshops)) received 'S' serials, ex-MALERT Ju-52 became 'U' series. S.101 became thus U-863. It was shot down by ground fire on Oct. 17, 1944.