It's not really surprising that when one looks at the era in military aviation just after the war ended than many air force of the countries that were occupied by Germany during the war used Spitfires, Mustangs and Dakotas, since they were almost given away as being surplus.
This Royal Netherlands Airforce Spitfire being a good example.
It was not just a way of rebuilding the airpower in those countries but also rebuilding them using then-state of the art material which came cheap.
But it wasn't just British and American planes which found good used post-war. The planes that powered the Luftwaffe were still pretty much cutting edge and because many of the aircraft plants in those occupied countries were used by the Luftwaffe to produce planes, many of the jigs and materials were still there, so production of those planes could be quickly resumed.
One German plane that found plenty post-war users was the feared Messerschmitt 109.
A Swiss Me 109
A Finnish Me 109
But in the case of both Switzerland and Finland (Which used their 109's until the early sixties!) the 109's they used were bought directly from Germany during the war. And because so, they were stock. In other post war use of the type, the supply of the Daimler-Benz DB-601 12 cylinder inverted V engine was slowly drying up, forcing the builders to become creative.
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Spanish 109's in the Civil war.
Spain had been using the 109 since the Spanish civil war both German supplied and indigenous built examples. Hispano Aviacion had obtained the licence building rights to the later marks of the 109 the Me-109G "Gustav" but with the DB-601 engine getting harder to find, started fitting their own Hispano engines to the airframes, creating the Ha-1110 "Tripala"
The Tripala had its share of troubles, because the new engine rotating in the opposite direction of the DB-601 there were many accidents due to stability issues. So the decision was made to look for another engine and they found one in the unit that powered the 109's main adversaries: The Rolls-Royce Merlin.
The Hispano Ha-1112 "Buchon"
And with fitting the Merlin to the 109, Hispano unknowingly created a movie star. Because when in 1960, shooting for a movie called "The battle of Britain" began, all of the "Messerschmitts" were Hispanos, flown by Spanish pilots.
"Buchons" in "The battle of Britain"
Many 109 that still flies today is actually a "Buchon" either fitted with retrofitted DB-601 engines or with its stock Merlin.
Two "Buchons" flying in formation, one painted to represent the Me 109-F flown by the Africa corp, the other to represent the Me-109-E as used in the early days of the war. Both planes are units used in the movie.
But Spain wasn't the only country who faced that problem of having to replace the increasingly hard to get DB-601 engine. In Czechoslovakia, they resorted to fitting the Junkers Jumo inverted V12 which was meant for the Junkers 188 Bomber. The result was the Avia S-199
But the Jumo was heavier than the DB-601 which then created stability issues and the S-199 turned out to be a very stubborn and unforgiving plane. So stubborn in fact that the pilots named their planes "Mezek" which is Czech for "Mule"
But the Mezek had one export customer, one that still makes people go "HUH?" when they find out about it.
The airforce of Israel flew a dosen Mezeks against Spitfires of the Egyptian airforce. The circle of Messerschmitt against Spitfire was round again, although this time around the Messerschmitts did not wear swastikas.
But the Me 109 wasn't the only German fighter that saw action after the war, the Focke-Wulf FW-190 also found plenty of post-war use, albeit not in as great as numbers and by only two airforces.
A squadron FW-190's of the Turkish airforce.
The other Post-war user of the FW-190 was France where the type had been build during occupation. It was only a matter of starting production again and the French built Nord NC-900 came to be. The fench flew them only briefly since the jet age was coming and the BMW radial engines weren't that dependable.
But while France's FW-190 was not a big success, their Messerschmitt Me-108 absolutely was.
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The French kept building the Me-108 as the Nord-1000 "Pingouin"
(Penguin) well into the fities and even developed it further as the Noralpha.
Many of those planes still fly and as is the case with the Buchon, many wear German markings.
This Noralpha has a turboprop engine.
And this thread wouldn't be complete without the Junkers-52. The "Tante Ju" was build post-war by France and Spain as the Amiot AAC 1 Toucan and the CASA 352 respectively.
A Toucan as used by Air France in 1948. The Toucan was the most built post-war version of the Ju-52 with a very respectable number of 415 made.
Post-war, the Junkers 52 was used all over the world making it by far the most successful WW2 era German Plane ever.
