Curtiss P-40 Warhawk

Its performance was inferior to the performances of the majority of its antagonists, but this shortcoming was partly compensated for by its tractability and its sturdiness which enabled it to withstand a considerable amount of punishment. It was amenable to adaptation and it was available when most sorely needed.

Not particularly good technically, though very durable, Curtiss P-40s continued to be produced until the end of 1944, serving also with air force units of Turkey, South Africa, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Later versions were known as Kittyhawks to the RAF and its Allies. Not usually realized is that the name Warhawk applied only to the United States Army Air Force P-40s starting with the P-40F version, a much improved plane with a license built version of the British Rolls-Royce Merlin engine installed.

The belief in the "ascendancy of bombardment over pursuit" was rife in 1937 when the Curtiss P-40 was first envisaged, and it is a sobering thought that, with the Bell P-39 Airacobra this product of such a school of thought constituted more than half the strength of all USAAF fighters until July 1943. Prior to September of that year the P-39 and P-40 also comprised more than half the USAAF fighters committed overseas. However, by July 1945 only one P-40 group remained operational.

The prototype P-40 took to the air in the autumn of 1938, and production was initiated in the following year. Performance of the first version of this single-seat fighter had not really come up to expectations, but as several air forces were desperate for new aircraft, the type was welcomed into service. The US had delayed modernizing its Army Air Service until the last minute, so P-40s made up a large part of their equipment during the first years of war. Britain and France also ordered P-40s to contend with the German Luftwaffe, but in the case of France, deliveries came too late and their P-40s were diverted to the Royal Air Force - to be known as Tomahawks. Similarly, the Soviet Union's outdated air force had fared badly at the hands of the Germans, and P-40s were also sent there.

The P-40 was initially designed around the Allison V-1710 liquid-cooled inline engine which offered better streamlining, more power per unit of frontal area, and better specific fuel consumption than did air-cooled radials of comparable power. Unfortunately, the rated altitude of the Allison engine was only some 12,000 feet, rendering combat above 15,000 feet a completely impracticable proposition. The P-40's ancestry dated back as far as 1924; the famed Curtiss Hawk fighters being in the forefront of all US warplanes. But its development was hindered from the start. The overall limitations of its design were such that the addition of multi-speed superchargers was considered inadvisable in view of the pending production of superior fighter designs. The achievements of the P-40 were therefore all the more creditable.

The P-40 was a relatively clean design, and was unusual for its time in having a fully retractable tail wheel. One hundred and ninety-seven P-40s were built in 1939-40 for the USAAF, and many more were sold abroad to Britain and France. In the RAF, which service purchased 140 outright, it was known as the Tomahawk Mk. I, IA, and IB, and carried two .303 in. Browning machine-guns in place of the 0.30in.-calibre guns fitted in USAAF machines. It retained the standard synchronized armament of two 0.5 in.-caliber machine-guns in the top nose decking.

The Flying Tigers

Many US volunteer pilots flew on behalf of Britain, the Soviet Union and China before the United States entered the war. A group of them, equipped with P-40s, went to help the Chinese in their struggle against the Japanese in 1942, where they became known as the 'Flying Tigers' because of their uniquely painted aircraft. This group later became part of the USAAF proper, and P-40s were thereafter used widely in the Pacific.

In the middle of 1941 General Claire Chennault began recruiting for his Volunteer Group--better known as the Flying Tigers--to fight the Japanese from China, for which 100 P40s were ordered for purchase through a loan from the US Government. Ninety aircraft, mostly P-40Bs, were actually delivered, sufficient for three squadrons, plus a few spares. At the time of the USA's entry into the war there were eighty American pilots in the Volunteer Group, and shortly after arriving at Kunming the P-40s drew first blood, six out of ten attacking Japanese bombers being destroyed by two of the AVG squadrons on December 20. There were no American casualties on this occasion, but the third squadron, left behind at Mingaladon, Burma, was less fortunate, and lost two pilots on their first interception, on December 23,1941. The American pilots had underestimated the maneuverability of the lightly built Japanese Zero fighters, and failed to utilize their superior speed and diving ability to advantage. It was soon the cardinal rule that a P-40 should always avoid mixing it individually with a Japanese fighter, owing to the Curtiss machine's inferior climb rate and maneuverability, but the P-40 substantiated a reputation for ruggedness that it was already acquiring with the RAF in the Middle East, and its armor protection saved many AVG pilots in subsequent combat.
 

But some indication of the Curtiss P-40's capabilities in resolute hands is given by the fact that from its inception in December 1941 until July 4, 1942, when it was absorbed by the USAAF, the AVG was officially credited with the destruction of 286 Japanese aircraft for the loss of eight pilots killed in action, two pilots and one crew chief killed during ground attack, and four pilots missing. The top-scoring AVG pilot, Robert H. Neale, was credited with the destruction of sixteen enemy aircraft while flying the P-40, and eight other pilots claimed ten or more victories.

By March 1942, when some thirty P-40Es were ferried to China by air from Accra, in Africa. The improved performance offered by these more potent P-40s was found to be extremely valuable against the Mitsubishi A6M Zero-Sen fighters which, first introduced in the Chinese theatre in 1940, were becoming increasingly numerous. The ground-attack potential of the P-40E was also much superior. The AVG pilots had resorted to carrying 30-lb. incendiary and fragmentation bombs in the flare chutes of their P-40Bs, but it was questionable whether this was not more hazardous to the attackers than to the attacked.