Whoever conjured up the proverb “The pen is mightier than the sword” didn’t bother commenting on how the pencil fit into that discussion. Granted, a pencil isn’t generally thought of as a warfighting implement, but it can certainly be improvised as a tool for inflicting serious pain at the very least (cue the late great Dennis Farina as Jimmy Serrano in the 1988 action-comedy classic “Midnight Run”).

However, there was one deadly bomber belonging to Nazi Germany’s Luftwaffe whose shape earned it the nickname Fliegender Bleistift (“Flying Pencil“) or the Eversharp. Say “Guten Tag” to the Dornier Do 17.

Dornier Do 17 Initial History and Specifications

The Do 17 made its maiden flight on November 23, 1934, and was officially adopted into the operational service of “die Vaterland” in 1937. Classified as a twin-engine light bomber, it was initially envisioned as a Schnellbomber (“fast bomber”) that was intended to use its speed to outrun intercepting enemy fighter planes.

The warbird had the following tech specs and vital stats:

• Crew: four (pilot, bombardier, two gunners)
• Fuselage Length: 15.8 m (51 ft 10 in)
• Wingspan: 18 m (59 ft 1 in)
• Height: 4.56 m (15 ft 0 in)
• Empty weight: 5,210 kg (11,486 lb)
• Max takeoff weight: 8,837 kg (19,482 lb)
• Powerplant: two × BMW-Bramo 323 Fanfir 9-cylinder air-cooled radial piston engines bearing 986 hp (736 kW)
• Max Airspeed: 410 km/h (255 mph)
• Cruising Speed: 300 km/h (190 mph, 160 kn)
• Service Ceiling: 8,200 m (26,900 ft)
• Combat Range: 1,010 km (628 mi)
• Armament:
  • Bombs: 1,000 kg (2,205 lb) of bombs carried internally, either 20 x 50 kg (110 lb) bombs or 4 x 250 kg (551 lb) bombs
  • Guns: six × 7.92 mm (.312 caliber) MG-15 machine guns in front upper/lower, rear upper/lower and beam positions (all firing from cockpit area)

A total of 2,139 Do 17 airframes were built by Dornier Flugzeugwerke. The plane was also adopted by the Royal Yugoslav Air Force, the Bulgarian Air Force, the Spanish Air Force, and the Finnish Air Force.

Operational History and Combat Performance

The “Flying Pencil” was first “blooded” in combat in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War as part of the Luftwaffe’s Condor Legion that fought on behalf of Spain’s Nationalist faction, where it proved itself to deadly effect. That deadly effectiveness was again demonstrated during Adolf Hitler’s blitzkrieg (“lightning war”) against Poland in September 1939, which officially kicked off World War II, and again during the Battle of France in 1940. Indeed, the Do 17 shared status with the Heinkel He 111 as the Luftwaffe’s main bomber in the early stages of WWII.

However, the plane’s weaknesses were exposed during the Battle of Britain, where notions of it being able to simply outrun opposing fighters turned out to be a pipe dream. As noted by the BattleOfBritain1940 website:

“Even with greater defensive firepower, the Do 17 proved vulnerable to RAF fighters and units continued to suffer losses throughout the Battle. On 15 September, twenty Do 17s were destroyed and thirteen damaged. Among the casualties was Dornier Do 17Z-2 ‘F1+FH’ (Wk-Nr 2361) of 1.Staffel/KG 76, brought down by Sergeant Ray Holmes of No. 504 Hurricane Squadron. Holmes decided to ram the bomber after his machine guns failed, cutting the tail off with his port wing and causing the Do 17 to crash close to the forecourt of Victoria Station in central London. Holmes was forced to bail out of his badly damaged Hurricane, which crashed near the grounds of Buckingham Palace.”

The Do 17 would soon be succeeded internally by the Do 217 and externally by the more powerful Junkers Ju 88. However, the Do 17 wasn’t completely put to pasture, remaining in service with the Luftwaffe for the remainder of the war in various secondary roles, including as a glider tug, research, and trainer aircraft

The Finnish Air Force was the last entity to retire the “Flying Pencil,” doing so in September 1952.

Where Are They Now?

For the longest time, it was assumed that no intact “Flying Pencils” survived the war. However, that assumption was dispelled on September 3, 2010, when the wreckage of Werknummer 1160, a Dornier Do 17Z-2 variant which had been shot down by a Bolton Paul Defiant back on August 26, 1940, was discovered largely intact in 50 ft (15 m) of water on the seabed off of Goodwin Sands, Kent. On June 10, 2013, the wreckage was successfully raised by a salvage team, which sent the airframe to the Royal Air Force Museum Midlands, located in Cosford in Shropshire (approximately thirty minutes from Birmingham) for restoration.

Fast-forward to November 2024, and BBC reporter Chloe Hughes penned a story stating that the museum would put the restored plane on display sometime in early 2025:

“‘After more than ten years of intensive conservation, treatment and stabilisation,’ the display would represent ‘not only the culmination of an extraordinary salvage operation but a unique way of understanding the Battle of Britain,’ said Dr Harry Raffal, head of collections and research at the attraction in Cosford … He added: ‘This is a remarkable moment for aviation history in Britain.’”

About the Author: Christian D. Orr

Christian D. Orr is a Senior Defense Editor for National Security Journal (NSJ). He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He has also been published in The Daily Torch, The Journal of Intelligence and Cyber Security, and Simple Flying. Last but not least, he is a Companion of the Order of the Naval Order of the United States (NOUS). If you’d like to pick his brain further, you can ofttimes find him at the Old Virginia Tobacco Company (OVTC) lounge in Manassas, Virginia, partaking of fine stogies and good quality human camaraderie.

Image: Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons.