Fighter Aircraft of the Battle of Britain - the Hurricane

 While the Spitfire was the "glamor girl" of the RAF, the Hurricane was the unsung heroine of the Battle of Britain. Hurricanes destroyed more enemy aircraft than Spitfires and were flown by more RAF pilots on more squadrons. The Hurricane might not have captured the hearts of the nation nor intimidated the pilots of the Luftwaffe, but the men who flew her swore by her, and pilots familiar with both the Hurricane and Spitfire found much to praise about her.

The Hurricane was a less radical design than the Spitfire. It evolved from earlier generations of fighter aircraft, and was still partially a wood and canvass construction; although the cockpit, engine and wings were metal, the tail and rudder remained wood and canvas. Antiquated as this sounds, some aviation experts argue that it was actually an advantage because cannon shells that exploded on impact with the metal casing of a Spitfire, simply passed straight through the canvas without exploding or impairing the Hurricane's flying abilities. Furthermore, RAF riggers were familiar with this kind of construction and adept at making repairs -- something they often could not manage on the more sophisticated Spitfires. Indeed, Hurricanes could be packed in crates, shipped to distant theaters of war and re-assembled with equipment available in the field. Industrial manufacturing of the Hurricane was also easier and cheaper than for the Spitfire, requiring just 10,300 man-hours for the Hurricane compared to 15,200 man-hours to produce a Spitfire.

 

Unlike both the Spitfire and Me109, its wings were strong enough to support not only eight guns but the aircraft itself. Then meant that the retractable undercarriage could fold inwards from positions under the wings giving the aircraft a stable base which made it easy to taxi, land and take off. Its cockpit was designed to sit high on the distinctive "hunchback" giving the pilot unparalleled, all-round vision -- better than that of any other fighter in service at this time.  Furthermore, as many pilots testified, it was an incredibly stable gun platform. In addition, the Hurricanes guns were better concentrated and could do greater damage to the well-armored bombers. These three factors help explain why Hurricanes accounted for 60% of all German aircraft shot down during the Battle of Britain.

 

RAF test pilots soon determined that the Hurricane was "simple and easy to fly and ha[d] no apparent vices." [McKinstry, Leo. Hurricane: Victor of the Battle of Britain. London: John Murray, 2010.] With a top speed of 340 mph it was slower than both the Me109 and the Spitfire. On the other hand, it had a faster rate of climb (2780 ft/min vs 2,600 ft/min) and a service ceiling just 500ft lower than the Spitfire and identical to the Me109.  Significantly, it had a tighter turning radius than any of its contemporaries. It could turn inside both the Spitfire and the Me109. All-in-all this aircraft was highly competitive and, as it proved, could well hold its own in the company of the Spitfire and Me109.

 

It was also popular with the pilots who flew it -- and particularly the squadron and flight commanders who had go into combat with young pilots with very little flying experience. As already noted, it was a responsive aircraft that was easy to learn to fly and could be flown effectively without many hours of practice. Because it could take direct hits without necessarily falling apart, fledgling fighter pilots stood a better chance of surviving an unlucky encounter with the enemy than had they been flying a Spitfire or Me109. This is the reason Battle of Britain Ace Bob Doe, who flew both Hurricanes and Spitfires in the course of the war, said the Hurricane was the better machine for the "average" pilot, although an expert pilot could get more out of a Spitfire. (Photo below courtesy of Chris Goss.)

 Although Stephen Bungay in his excellent analysis of the Battle of Britain [The Most Dangerous Enemy, Aurum Press, 2000, p.83] claimed the reserve fuel tank was insufficiently protected by the Linatex, a substance that was self-sealing and helped prevent fire, there is no evidence that fires occurred more frequently in Hurricanes than Spitfires or Me109s. Not one of the pilots who flew Hurricanes makes any mention of this and there was clearly no reluctance on the part of squadrons to fly Hurricanes, which should have been the case if the pilots thought they were more likely to be incinerated in a Hurricane than a Spitfire. Nor would a particularly dangerous aircraft have continued in production for so long nor found so many roles as was the case of the Hurricane. So any disadvantage caused by this arrangement must have been comparatively marginal.

Over 14,000 Hurricanes were produced altogether and the aircraft saw service in every theater of the war. Hurricanes served as night as well as day fighters. It was catapulted from Armed Merchant escorts, and flown from carrier decks. It was used as a close-support fighter-bomber and fitted with skis to serve in Russia. 

 

The Hurricane flew against the Luftwaffe in Norway, the Battle of France, over Dunkirk, in the Battle of Britain, and in North Africa -- where it was a particularly effective "tank buster." The RAF's highest scoring ace, Squadron Leader "Pat" Pattle, flew Hurricanes in defense of Greece against both the Italians and the Germans. Hurricanes also confronted the Imperial Japanese Air Force, seeing successful service in Burma, Ceylon, Singapore and the Dutch East Indies.  Hurricanes flew in the defense of Malta, and also engaged on the Eastern Front. Hurricanes were initially sent to the Soviet Union to help protect convoys coming from the West to Murmansk and two RAF squadrons were detailed to operate them. During their deployment in August and September 1941, they accounted for 25% of the Luftwaffe aircraft shot. After the RAF withdrew, however, the Soviets tried to mount heavier guns which made the Hurricane slower and less maneuverable, so the "Soviet" Hurricane cannot be compared to its British counterpart. Likewise, Soviet "assessments" of the Hurricane are utterly irrelevant as they refer to the mucked-up machine they themselves mangled not the real Hurricane.

If there had never been a Spitfire, the Hurricane probably would have been the mechanical heroine of the Battle of Britain. The beauty and glamor of the Spitfire, however, cast a shadow over the image of the Hurricane. That shadow was darkened by the  "Spitfire snobbery" of the Luftwaffe pilots (who frequently refused to admit they had fought -- and lost -- to Hurricanes) and the equally bigoted attitude of the Soviets, who mucked up a perfectly good fighter to no purpose at all. Yet, there can be no doubt that the Hurricane played a vital role in the Battle of Britain. 

 

Park's preferred tactic was to send Spitfire squadrons, with their faster aircraft, to divert and engage the Me109s while Hurricane squadrons, with their more stable gun-platforms and concentrated fire, sought to claw the bombers out of the sky. The standing orders to controllers to operate the different squadrons in this manner show the extent to which the Hurricane and Spitfire complimented each other during the Battle of Britain. Neither aircraft would have been as effective alone. In the remaining years of the war, both aircraft likewise went on to play different yet equally valuable roles in all theaters of war.

It was in part to give greater credit and visibility to this under-appreciated fighter that I chose a Hurricane squadron as the focus of my novel Where Eagles Never Flew: A Battle of Britain Novel.

“Where Eagles Never Flew” shows the Battle of Britain from both sides of the Channel by following the fate of German characters as well as British ones. The British characters are members of the fictional No. 606 (Hurricane) Squadron based at Tangmere. The German characters are the pilots and women auxiliaries of a Me109 Gruppe based in Northern France.  Find out more about “Where Eagles Never Flew” at:  https://crossseaspress.com/where-eagles-never-flew or watch a video teaser at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnAoMC0d6Mo

 

Buy now!

 direct from Itasca or from Barnes and Noble

Buy on Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

 

 

Fighter Aircraft of the Battle of Britain - Spitfire

 No aircraft is more closely identified with the Battle of Britain than the Supermarine Spitfire. No matter that more Hurricanes flew in the Battle or that the Spitfire made major contributions in other campaigns of the Second World War. The Spitfire, with its unique elliptical wings, is quite simply THE symbol of the RAF -- of "the Few" -- in the Battle of Britain. 

If the Me109 descended from gliders, the Spitfire's forefathers were racing aircraft designed to win trophies for speed. So, it is perhaps not surprising that the Spitfire was the fastest of the four fighters that figured prominently in the Battle of Britain with a maximum speed of 360 mph -- or (a very marginal) three mph faster than the Me109 and ten mph faster than the Me110. Yet it was not the Spitfire's speed that made it the fighter most feared by the Luftwaffe. It was her sheer mastery of the air.

For those focused merely on the technical specifications, this statement is not comprehensible. The Spitfire could not dive as steeply as the Me109 -- her Merlin engine, which did not have fuel injection, cut out if she dived to steeply. Nor could she climb as rapidly as the Me109, at least at altitudes below 20,000 feet. Furthermore, the Me109 packed a harder punch in the form of two cannon rather than eight machine guns. 

Yet the focus on the purely technical aspects of an aircraft -- at least in the 1940s -- is dangerously misleading. In the Second World War, aircraft had to be flown by humans, and it was the symbiosis between pilot and aircraft that accounted for combat (as opposed to test) performance.

Both the Me109 and the Me110 required considerable strength to handle at high speeds or altitude. The Me109 had a number of other bad habits such as right torque. The Spitfire, in contrast, could be controlled with the pilot's fingertips. She could be trimmed practically to fly herself. Pilots report coming to after losing consciousness in a dive or spin to find that the Spitfire had  literally trimmed  herself to fly straight an level. Pilots loved her -- unabashedly and uninhibitedly. Their confidence in her made them bolder. Their trust in her sustained morale even at the darkest moment. Their love of the Spitfire enabled them to perform on average at a higher level than had they been in a different aircraft.

While the Me109 has been compared to a vamp, the term most commonly used to describe the Spitfire was "a lady." The term was probably first coined by the Supermarine Test Pilot Jeffrey Quill, who allegedly remarked after his first flight in "her": "Here is a real lady." One of the RAF's highest scoring aces, "Sailor" Malan called her "a perfect lady." He claimed, "she had no vices. She was beautifully positive. You could dive till your eyes were popping out of your head ... [and] she would still answer to the touch." Battle of Britain Ace Bob Doe preferred to fly the Spitfire in shoes rather than flying boots in order to obtain a lighter and more direct control of the rudder -- rather like a rider on a young thoroughbred rather than an old hack. He claimed that the Spitfire "became part of you. It was an absolute joy."

The British public fell in love with the Spitfire too. Drives to collect scrap metal were called "Spitfire funds" -- not "Hurricane funds." Bungay in his book The Most Dangerous Enemy claims the Spitfire played "the role of the mythological role of a magical weapon, the equivalent of Achilles armour or the swords Excallibur or Nothing." [Aurum Press, 2000, 82]

Yet the greatest compliment to the Spitfire came from her opponents. The Luftwaffe respected the Spitfire but quite unjustly dismissed the Hurricane. This became known as "Spitfire snobbery." Luftwaffe pilots repeatedly made claims of shooting down  -- or at least dogfighting with "Spitfires" -- when RAF records show there wasn't a Spitfire in the sky at the time and place designated. The Luftwaffe was fighting with and being shot down by Hurricanes -- they just weren't willing to admit it.

The later point is particularly glaring because far fewer RAF squadrons were equipped with Spitfires than Hurricanes during the Battle of Britain: 19 Spitfire Squadrons compared to 33 Hurricane squadrons. Furthermore, in the course of the Battle, Hurricanes accounted for more RAF "kills" at a rate of 3 for every 2 kills made by Spitfires. These kills, however, included bombers, while the Spitfires accounted for a higher proportion of the German fighters shot down.

Historically, the value of the Spitfire was demonstrated by her endurance. The Spitfire not only served in every theater of the war, it served in a variety of roles as 20 different "marks" or modifications of the Spitfire were designed. Spitfires flew from Royal Navy aircraft carriers, they were converted to fighter bombers, capable of carrying a 250 lb bombs under each wing and a 500 lb bomb under the fuselage. They were extremely successful and valuable as high altitude photo-reconnaissance aircraft.

Later models of the Spitfire were capable of speeds of 440 mph and could fly at 40,000 feet. They successfully shot down V1 rockets. Spitfires were not retired from service with the RAF until the introduction of jet aircraft in the early 1950s.

“Where Eagles Never Flew” shows the Battle of Britain from both sides of the Channel by following the fate of German characters as well as British ones. The British characters are members of the fictional No. 606 (Hurricane) Squadron based at Tangmere. The German characters are the pilots and women auxiliaries of a Me109 Gruppe based in Northern France.  Find out more about “Where Eagles Never Flew” at:  https://crossseaspress.com/where-eagles-never-flew or watch a video teaser at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnAoMC0d6Mo

 

Buy now!

 direct from Itasca or from Barnes and Noble

Buy on Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

 

 

The Fighter Aircraft of the Battle of Britain: Part I - Introduction

 The Battle of Britain was a sustained conflict (three months) that hinged on the ability of the defenders (Britain) to stop an assault launched entirely by air.   It pitted two air forces against one another without significant contributions from land or sea forces. It proved for the first time that air defenses -- fighter aircraft -- could play a decisive role in modern warfare. In a five part series I plan to look at the iconic fighters deployed in the Battle: the Hurricane, Spitfire, Me109 and Me110

This series is not intended for Battle of Britain enthusiasts and aviation experts. They will find nothing new or original here. However, readers with only a passing or casual knowledge will, hopefully, find this series a useful summary of the key characteristics and features of the various aircraft. 

Before the Battle of Britain, it was widely believed that there was no effective defense against air assault, and that "the bomber would always get through." Most air forces in the inter-war years focused their attention and budgets on building large bomber fleets with which to cudgel the enemy. The assumption was that the nation that could deliver the most high-explosive on the homeland of its enemy would win the war by breaking enemy civilian morale. The Luftwaffe, notably, took a somewhat different approach, focusing on medium range bombers designed more to support of ground forces than conduct strategic bombing. In both doctrines, however, fighter aircraft played only a secondary role. 

The Luftwaffe's experience in Spain, Poland, Holland and France seemed to validate their strategy. The Luftwaffe had generally overwhelmed enemy air defenses by surprise attacks that eliminated enemy air forces while they were still on the ground. This paved the way for the Luftwaffe bomber force to support ground operations by destroying tactical targets selected by the army such as bridges, marshalling yards, rail-junctions and the like. In addition, the Luftwaffe engaged in widespread attacks on enemy cities -- a strategy that struck terror into the hearts of many.

The Battle of Britain, however, presented the Luftwaffe with a new challenge. The Luftwaffe no longer had the element of surprise on its side. Furthermore, the army would not engage until after the Luftwaffe had successfully cleared the skies of British aircraft. Last but not least, Britain was surrounded by water. Nevertheless, the Luftwaffe opened the Battle of Britain supremely confident of its ability to rapidly subdue the Royal Air Force and establish the air superiority necessary for an invasion. The Nazi leadership furthermore believed that the Luftwaffe's ability to strike at targets in Britain would cause sufficient terror -- or at least consternation -- to bring the British to the negotiating table. 

Up to this point, the primary tool in the Luftwaffe's arsenal for destroying enemy air forces had been the Stuka dive bomber. Stukas had wrecked havoc in the campaigns in Spain, Poland and France -- because they had repeatedly caught enemy aircraft while they were still on the ground. However, very early in the Battle of Britain, during the Kanalkampf phase, it became apparent that the Stuka's were themselves extremely vulnerable to RAF fighter attacks unless they were defended by Luftwaffe fighters. 

By the second phase of the Battle (Eagle Day and afterwards) it became clear that all the Luftwaffe's bombers were vulnerable without fighter escort. (A lesson the USAAF had to learn all over again in 1942-1943.) By mid-August, the Luftwaffe had also learned that their twin-engined fighter, the Me110, was likewise no match for the RAF's single-seater fighters. German success in the Battle of Britain increasingly depended on the smaller, single-engine Me109.

From the British perspective, the bombers were the primary targets. Only the bombers could deliver the destruction that would 1) destroy their ability to keep fighting, 2) damage the economy, and 3) possibly shatter civilian morale. But the British very rapidly learned that they first had to peel away the fighter escorts before they could do much damage to the bombers. 

 

As a result, the air-to-air combat in the form of fighter dogfights played a vital -- though not the exclusive role sometimes implied in popular imagery -- in the Battle of Britain. Understanding the characteristics of the four main fighters is therefore valuable to an understanding of the Battle. With the exception of the Me110, which was patently inferior to the other three, the fighters were very well-matched. There are countless instances of both British fighters defeating Me109s, but also of Me109s besting both British machines. Equally telling, all three aircraft remained operational through-out the war. 

This series will start by looking next week at the Me110. At the opening of the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe had great expectations for this fighter, believing it could prove decisive. It is worthwhile considering its characteristics and weaknesses before looking at the three "stars." 

The following week, May 14, I'll look at the Me109. This fighter was produced in larger numbers than any other German fighter. Although the FW190 and, obviously, the later jet fighters such as the Me262 were generally viewed as better, the Me109 remained the work-horse of the Luftwaffe's fighter wing because it was ultimately good-enough -- as the men of Bomber Command and the USAAF can attest. 

 

May 21st, I'll turn to the Spitfire. This iconic aircraft won fame as soon as it appeared, and the Luftwaffe pilots were so awed by it that they often claimed to be fighting Spitfires even when they were facing Hurricanes.  The Spitfire became the symbol of Britain's defiance and victory in the Battle of Britain and remained the RAF's most beloved fighter throughout the war. It underwent multiple modifications and at various times was viewed as inferior or superior to the German fighters it faced, but it proved its worth in six long years of war.

The Hurricane, which I'll examine in more depth on May 28, is probably the most maligned (or at least misunderstood) of the Battle of Britain fighters and is frequently dismissed as 'inferior.' This is utterly unjustified by its performance. It brought down more German aircraft in the Battle of Britain than did the Spitfire (though there are various reasons for that), and although withdrawn from service in Great Britain itself, it was successfully deployed to other theaters of war. In the course of the war, it fulfilled a variety of roles, all of which it performed credibly. Indeed, it can be argued that the Hawker Hurricane was one of the most most versatile aircraft of the Second World War.

“Where Eagles Never Flew” shows the Battle of Britain from both sides of the Channel by following the fate of German characters as well as British ones. The British characters are members of the fictional No. 606 (Hurricane) Squadron based at Tangmere. The German characters are the pilots and women auxiliaries of a Me109 Gruppe based in Northern France.  Find out more about “Where Eagles Never Flew” at:  https://crossseaspress.com/where-eagles-never-flew or watch a video teaser at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnAoMC0d6Mo

 

Buy now!

 direct from Itasca or from Barnes and Noble

Buy on Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk