6 May 1944, RAF Hucclecote Hawker Tempest Mark Vs, new and shiny, after leaving the Gloster Aircraft Company production line.

Read more: Hawker Hurricanes and the Battle of Britain

In 1934 the British Air Ministry issued specification F.36/34, for a monoplane eight-gun fighter.

The response of Hawker and its associated companies became the iconic Hurricane – 100 mph faster than anything previously flown. More specifically, the Hawker Hurricane was the first monoplane fighter of the Royal Air Force and the World’s first eight-gun monoplane fighter capable of surpassing 300 mph in level flight with a full war load.

Designed by Sydney Camm, the Hurricane was based on his earlier biplane fighters and would go on to influence such later aircraft as the Typhoon, Tempest and Sea Fury.

The Hawker Hurricane was in full production at the outbreak of war in 1939 and, with Mitchell’s Spitfire which shared the same Rolls Royce Merlin engine, it formed a major part of Fighter Command strength during the Battle of Britain. The News Chronicle hailed Camm as the man who saved Britain and he was made CBE in 1941.

The first prototype Hurricane flew on 6 November 1935 and production examples began to equip 111 Squadron in January 1938. In February 1938, Squadron Leader John Gillan flew a 111 Squadron Hurricane from Edinburgh to London in 48 minutes, averaging 408.7 mph, or seven miles a minute. In contrast, the same journey by rail at the time would have taken six hours.

More Hawker Hurricanes were used in the Battle of Britain than any other RAF fighter type and their pilots claimed 75 % of all victories. In fact, 29 squadrons of Hurricanes took part in the Battle of Britain compared to just 19 of Spitfires. In RAF Fighter Command’s 11 Group, covering the South East of England, 17 squadrons of Hurricanes served alongside 8 of Spitfires.

Moreover, Flight Lieutenant James Nicolson, who was Fighter Command’s only VC in the Second World War, flew a Hurricane. Nicolson, of Boscombe Down based 249 Squadron, was awarded his decoration after an engagement with Messerschmitt 110s near Southampton on 16 August 1940, when he was hit by 4 cannon shells, 2 of which wounded him while another set fire to the gravity tank.  When about to abandon his aircraft because of the flames in the cockpit, he sighted another Messerschmitt 110.  This he attacked and shot down, although as a result of staying with his aircraft he sustained serious burns to his hands, face and legs.  Afterwards, Nicolson did bail out and was convalescing in Torquay when he heard that he had been awarded the VC.

Although slower than a Spitfire due to its thicker wing, the Hurricane had a smaller turning radius (of 800 compared to 880 feet) and could also out turn its Luftwaffe adversary the Messerschmitt Me109. Unlike both the Spitfire and the Messerschmitt too, the Hurricane had a wide track undercarriage, making it easier to land on either a grass airfield or the deck of an aircraft carrier.

Indeed, one advantage of the thick wing and closer concentration of guns was making the Hurricane a steady gun platform compared with the Spitfire, which tended to wobble when the eight machine guns were fired. Once on the ground after a sortie, too, the Hurricane was faster to rearm and refuel – taking just nine minutes to the 25 of the Spitfire.

Similarly , compared to the all metal Spitfire, the fabric fuselage of the Hurricane was relatively easy to repair. Altogether during the Second World War, 4 000 damaged Hurricanes were put back into service and 60% of all Hurricanes that crashed on British soil were put back into service.

Hawker Hurricanes continued in use until the end of World War II and its rugged design lent itself to the ground attack role with rockets, bombs and even 40mm tank-busting canon.

The Mark 1 Hurricane combined fabric covered wings with a Rolls Royce Merlin II engine and 2 600 rounds of .303 ammunition for its eight machine guns. The Mark 1 revised, with metal covered wings, armour plating for the cockpit and a constant speed metal propeller, saw 4 200 examples produced.

The Mark IIA introduced the Merlin XX engine with two speed supercharging while the IIB had 12 Browning guns in the wings. Some IIBs were also fitted with bomb racks and tropical variants had Vokes filters to keep dust out of the engine.

Known as the “Hurribomber”, the Mark IIC was fitted with a pair of 20mm Hispano Canon in each wing as well as hard points for bombs. 4 711 were built, while the IID had two Vickers 40mm canon for attacking tanks and armoured vehicles. This was nicknamed “The Flying Can Opener” (pictured above) while the Mark IV had a universal wing which could carry a wide range of armament.

During 1941-2, Hurricats – Hurricanes launched by rocket powered catapult from 35 merchant ships – played a vital role in the Battle of the Atlantic. Nine German aircraft attacking the convoys were shot down although without any landing options after their flight the Hurricat pilots were obliged to ditch in the sea. After 1942, Catapult Aircraft Merchantmen were replaced by escort carriers.

The first Gloster-built Hawker Hurricane appeared on 27 October 1939 and the 1 000 th example exactly a year later. A total of 2 750 Hurricanes were built by Glosters up to March 1942: with as many as five aircraft being completed each day.

Up to the end of 1944, a total of 14 583 Hurricanes had been built, including 1 400 in Canada, 100 in Yugoslavia and 80 in Belgium. More than 2 000 Hurricanes were also exported to the USSR to fight Germany on the Eastern Front and non aligned export customers included Portugal, Turkey and the Irish Free State.

The example here combines brown and green camouflage – ideally suited for combat over land – with the half-black half-white underside paint scheme used as a recognition aid by the RAF early in World War Two.

N2358 – as modelled above – was flown in these markings by 73 Squadron RAF Berry-au-Bac, France in May 1940 although the same machine – with the same prominent letter Z – had been flown by Pilot Officer C.D. “Pussy” Palmer of 1 Squadron  at Vassincourt in November 1939 with lighter shades of brown and green camouflage and a light grey underside.

On 7 October 1940 meanwhile, Pilot Officer Ken Mackenzie of 501 County of Gloucester Squadron ran out of ammunition in combat so used the wingtip of his Hawker Hurricane to knock the tail plane off a Messerschmitt Me109, sending it plummeting into the sea. He then managed to land his stricken Hurricane with a damaged wing, earning the nickname “Super Mack”.

 

Slightly later in the war, Hawker Hurricane IV KW919 wore the FJ code of 164 Squadron RAF. The Argentine-British unit reformed at Peterhead, Aberdeenshire on 6 April 1942, initially with Spitfire VAs. In January 1943 the squadron moved to South Wales to train as a ground-attack unit, where it was equipped with both Mark IID “Can Opener” and Mark IV universal wing Hawker Hurricanes. Operations against enemy shipping and coastal targets with rocket projectiles and bombs began in June 1943 until the squadron re equipped with Hawker Typhoons in February 1944. 164 eventually became 63 Squadron RAF on 31 August 1946.

Although the RAF Victory fly-past over London in September 1945 was composed entirely of Spitfires, in 2015 there were still 13 Hawker Hurricanes flying around the World.

Named The Last of the Many, the final Hawker Hurricane built was a IIC allocated the serial number PZ865.  First flown at Langley, Buckinghamshire on 22 July 1944, it was retained by its manufacturer for trials work and moved in 1950 to the Hawker factory at Dunsfold Aerodrome. On 1 May 1950, PZ865 was given the civil registration G-AMAU and flown to second place in the 1950 King’s Cup Air Race by Group Captain Peter Townsend. Ten years later, G-AMAU was used as a chase plane during trials of the P1127 VTOL aircraft seen in the background above. G-AMAU also appeared in the 1969 Guy Hamilton film The Battle of Britain and in 1972 was donated to the Royal Air Force’s Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.