The history of the Henschel Hs123-A - CAF Chinese Air Force (Nationalist) - 1937 - 1940 

  Henschel HS123 in Chienese Service 1937-1940

Many years ago I bought an Airfix box, rigorously in 1/72, of this aircraft already dated at the time and which allowed the construction of two versions: a "classic" German and one with colors and insignia of the Condor Legion in the Spanish War. The model interested me, but I was not aware of its long operational history and so I began to collect data and information from every source until, when I came across a drawing that portrayed it in the particular livery "assembled" by the Chinese CAF ( aviation of Chang-Kai-Shek to be clear), I was bewitched and a real modeling adventure began for me.

The Hs123 was one of the first aircraft produced, following the war reconversion, by Henschel Werke, a metalworking industry known for the production of railway locomotives and it can be said forerunner of dive bombers, of which the Junkers Ju88 was the most famous. The Hs123 participated in the Spanish Civil War in the ranks of the Condor Legion and then was used during the invasion of Poland which marked the outbreak of the Second World War and where it was flown by the WWI ace Hermann Goering. So it's A well-known aircraft among the professionals but perhaps less known by the vast audience of enthusiasts, particularily in this version bought by the CAF, Chinese Air Force, in 1937 , painted with a very particular livery.

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In 1937, when the Italian-German-Japanese Axis had not yet been formed, as part of a generic program of military assistance (during those years there were many countries that militarily supported the Chinese, including the communist faction of Mao Tze Tung: United States, Italy, France the main ones) 12 copies of the first series were sold to the nationalist China of Chiang Kai-Shek to face the enemy in the second Sino-Japanese War which began in 1937 and lasted until the end of the Second World War with the victory of the allies and the surrender of Japan.

From the historical aspect, I was struck by the irony of fate that saw this "German" aircraft fight against what would later become an ally of the Germans, used to bomb the Japanese shuttles that came up from the mouth of the Yang-Tse Kiang. From the modeling point of view, however, I was immediately fascinated by the very particular livery painted by chinese pilots on a gray-green background.

I will not go into this presentation much more, but I would like to collect in a small monograph what is available on the use of this aircraft in the CAF and I intend to do so as soon as possible by publishing the data on this website. In the meantime I would like to share my modeling experience which required a fair amount of effort, providing some historical hints in my opinion fundamental for a correct realization of the model and the decal sheet of the complete livery for both scales, 1/72 and 1/48 which I have self-produced because the manual realization (whether by brush or airbrush) is particularly difficult, especially on the smaller scale.