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P-40E Warhawk

“ROSE MARIE,” aircraft No. 29 of the 16th FS/51st FG, was flown by 1/Lt. Robert H. Mooney in China during the second half of 1942. Mooney was killed in action flying another P-40E near Yunnanyi, Yunnan Province, on Dec. 26, 1942. (photo: NARA)


The story of the Curtiss H-87 with USAAF units  

 Text: Carl Molesworth

 

The Curtiss P-40 line of fighter aircraft stood out among American fighter types for having remained in front-line operations from the summer of 1941, before the U.S. entered World War II, through the end of the conflict four years later. Only Grumman’s versatile F4F Wildcat naval fighter could match that record.

 

Product of a merger of the companies of aviation pioneers Glenn Curtiss and the Wright Brothers, The Curtiss-Wright Corp. in 1939 was the largest airplane manufacturer in the United States. Its products included not only a wide array of civilian and military airplanes but also the Wright engines to power them.

 

Design and Development

Of all the aircraft lines manufactured by Curtiss, none was more famous than the Curtiss Hawk fighters. From the initial PW-8 of 1924 through the Hawk III, which ceased production in 1938, Curtiss built more than 700 Hawk biplanes in 16 different models for the U.S. Army alone. The steady stream of orders for Hawks from the American Army and Navy plus export customers was a significant factor in Curtiss’ ability to stay afloat during the lean years of the Great Depression while also keeping pace with the technical advances of this period.

A more modern monoplane Hawk came along in 1935. In response to an Air Corps design competition in the fall of 1934 for a new aircraft that would usher in the modern era of single-seat military fighters, Curtiss produced the Hawk 75, which the Army designated the P-36. Chief designer Donovan R. Berlin created “stretch” in the 75’s airframe that would allow it to accommodate high-horsepower engines that were not yet developed. Specifically, he wanted to provide adequate wingspan and area to ensure combat effectiveness at 25,000 feet and above.

Though the P-36 exhibited excellent flying characteristics, its top speed barely topped 300 miles per hour. The Army considered this speed acceptable in 1937, but by the following year, the P-36 lagged the latest European fighters, particularly the British Spitfire I and German Bf 109E, by at least 50 mph. Curtiss decided to mate the 75 to the new Allison V-1710, a liquid-cooled V-12, to produce the Hawk 81, which the U.S. Army designated the P-40. Though the plane offered only modest performance improvements over the P-36, the Army issued a record-setting contract to Curtiss on April 26, 1939, for 524 P-40s at a cost of nearly 13 million USD. Again, foreign customers came calling at Curtiss. France was first to order the export version of the P-40, tagged the Tomahawk by Curtiss, and Great Britain soon followed suit.

The 57th Pursuit Group, USAAC, flew P-40Es in the U.S. prior to deploying to North Africa in the summer of 1942. Capt. Phil Cochran, commanding officer of the 65th FS “Fighting Cocks,” flew No. 50 from the airbase at Windsor Locks, Connecticut, during that period.

(photo: author’s collection)


Curtiss built 525 Hawk 81s in three versions of the P-40 for the U.S. Army. Only a few of these saw combat in Hawaii, the Philippines and Iceland early in the war. More than twice as many export Hawk 81 Tomahawks were built. These 1,181 aircraft fought extensively with the British Commonwealth air forces in North Africa, the American Volunteer Group of Chinese Air Force in Burma and China; and with the Red Air Force on the Eastern Front.

There was no denying that the Hawk 81 was a commercial success for Curtiss, but a challenge was looming for the company’s design staff. Thus far, Curtiss had been unable to wring sufficient performance from the Hawk 81 to match the best European designs, and one of the main problems was that the plane was underpowered. The output of the 1,090 HP Allison V-1710-33 engine, with its single-stage supercharger, was insufficient to propel the airframe to its maximum capabilities for speed and service ceiling. The U.S. would soon need fighters with more power than the current C-series V-1710 could deliver, so Allison designers went to work on the problem.

Unfortunately, the fix wasn’t so simple as merely souping up the engine. The C-series V-1710 delivered power to the propeller via an internal spur reduction gearbox, but this device was only able to handle 1,100 horsepower, and the engine already was pushing this limit.

The new Allison, and all F-series Allisons to follow, featured an external propeller reduction gearbox drive, which was beefed up sufficiently to absorb the 1,150 horsepower of the V-1710-39 (F3R) and more. The reduction ratio remained 2:1, but the new engine was 10.16 inches shorter than previous versions, and the thrust line was raised several inches so the gearbox could mount between the cylinder banks at the front of the engine.

The redesign of the V-1710 had major implications for Curtiss, because the new engine, with its shorter overall length and raised thrust line, did not conform to the nose contours of the Hawk 81. It not being practical to craft a new nose for the Hawk 81, Curtiss designers took this opportunity to draw up an entirely new fuselage. The change was considered sufficient to cause Curtiss to give the plane a new designation, the Hawk 87. The U.S. Army continued to call it a P-40, designating it the model D, while the Royal Air Force gave it a new name, the Kittyhawk.

Col. Robert L. Scott was the first Commanding Officer of 23rd FG. He scored 13 aerial victories during the War making him one of five top scoring USAAF P-40 fighter pilots. A member of the ground personnel is pointing on the five victory marks on Scott’s second P-40E. (photo: NARA)


On the way to better Hawks

The Hawk 87 incorporated a number of improvements over the Hawk 81. The fuselage was not only 6 inches shorter but also slightly shallower, top to bottom. Up front, the nose guns were eliminated, and a deeper cowling with a larger opening held the coolant and oil radiators under the engine. Because the propeller hub sat higher on the nose, landing gear legs could be shorter and still allow clearance for the propeller during takeoffs and landings.

To improve visibility for the pilot, the cockpit opening was deeper with a larger sliding canopy and an enlarged windshield with flat, bulletproof glass in the center panel. The rear-view coves behind the cockpit also were bigger. In addition, the airframe was stressed to carry one 500-pound bomb or a drop tank of 52 or 75 gallons under the belly.

The wing and tail designs were relatively unchanged from the Hawk 81. The new plane’s guns were mounted in large bays in the wings and aimed so their fire would pass outside the arc of propeller, converging about 300 yards in front of the plane.

The Hawk 87 line was a superior warplane to the Hawk 81, but not by much. While the changes in armament made it more versatile, the new model’s performance remained unimpressive. As a result of all the changes, the combat gross weight of the Hawk P-40D rose to 8,809 pounds. At the same time, the new V-1710-39 engine produced just 60 horsepower more than its predecessor. Despite having a slightly sleeker profile than the P-40C, the P-40D boasted a top speed just 5 miles per hour faster than the previous model, at 350 mph. Because the new engine retained a single-stage supercharger, the P-40D’s service ceiling and peak performance altitude of 15,000 feet were virtually unchanged from the P-40C.

 The U.S. Army placed an order with Curtiss for 23 P-40Ds in 1940 and took delivery of the new planes in mid-July 1941. Great Britain, meanwhile, took over a French order with modifications to RAF specifications. Designated Kittyhawk Is, these aircraft began rolling of the assembly lines in August 1941. The first 20 were four-gun equivalents of the P-40D, but the rest of the Kittyhawk Is in the 560-plane order mounted six guns, like the U.S. Army’s 820 P-40Es that were built alongside. Deliveries of both continued through the end of the year, by which time the United States had entered the war. A very similar version, the P-40E-1/Kittyhawk IA, had beefed up wing structure to allow it to carry more external stores. Curtiss built 1,500 of these and about one-third of them went to the Allies under Lend Lease.

Capt. Bill Hennon, a veteran of the Java campaign, flew P-40E No. 36 with the 7th FS/49th FG during the defense of Darwin and northern Australia during 1942. (photo: NARA)


Operational History

Curtiss produced its first Hawk 87s, 22 P-40Ds, for the U.S. Army in July 1941. Deliveries of 820 P-40Es, which was essentially the same airplane as P-40D but with the armament increased from four wing guns to six, began the following month and continued into May 1942. 

Virtually every model of the Hawk 87 followed the P-40D into training duties around the United States. Initially, they were assigned to first-line combat squadrons preparing for overseas service while providing air defense for areas such as coastal cities deemed vulnerable to attack from the sea and industrial centers in the Midwest. As the war progressed and tour-expired combat veterans became available in mid-1943 to provide operational training to new pilots just out of flight school, P-40Es did yeoman duty in replacement training units.

The P-40E made its combat debut in the skies over Luzon in the Philippine Islands on Dec. 8, 1941 (Pacific Time), the day that the United States entered World War II. Through no fault of the pilots or the P-40Es of the 24th Pursuit Group, the performance was anything but impressive.

Word of the Pearl Harbor attack was radioed to the headquarters of Gen. Douglas MacArthur in Manila shortly after Japanese bombs stopped falling on Battleship Row in Hawaii. It was 3:55 a.m. December 8 local time in the Philippine Islands, and within hours a Japanese triumph even greater than the destruction of the American fleet at Pearl Harbor would begin to unfold.

On paper, the fighter strength deployed by the Far East Air Force’s 5th Interceptor Command on Luzon in early December 1941 looked substantial. Of approximately 100 P-40s in four squadrons, 75 percent were new E-models, while the 20th Pursuit Squadron flew P-40Bs and the 34th Pursuit Squadron had even more outdated Seversky P-35As. These squadrons made up the 24th Pursuit Group, but the unit was far from ready for war. The obsolete P-35As had been in service for nearly two years and were worn out. The P-40Bs at Clark Field, delivered in the summer of 1941, were in good condition, but their guns had never been fired due to a shortage of ammunition on Luzon for target practice. The P-40Es were brand new and subject to several teething problems, including engine fires.

Just as important, many of the pilots were fresh out of flying school and unfamiliar with their P-40s. Meanwhile, 300 miles north of Manila on the island of Formosa, Japan had amassed a force of nearly 200 A6M Zero naval fighters, 200 navy bombers and about 150 army aircraft. Many of the men who flew these planes were veterans of combat in China.

Tensions had been building in the Far East for several weeks prior to word of the Pearl Harbor attack. Still, despite ample warning of attack, U.S. Army air units in the Philippines were all but wiped out on December 8. A handful of P-40 pilots managed to engage enemy aircraft during the day, and each of them got a nasty shock when they experienced the climbing and turning performance of the heretofore unknown A6M Zero fighters firsthand. Nine victories were credited to five pilots (plus one in a P-35A), but several P-40s were shot down and nearly all suffered battle damage at the hands of the Zero pilots. Most American aircraft were destroyed on the ground.

After scoring two aerial victories in the defense of the Philippines and three more over Java, Capt. George “King” Kiser destroyed four more Japanese aircraft at Darwin, Australia, with the 8th FS/49th FG. All of his victories were scored in P-40Es.  (photo: NARA)


Philippines and Java

P-40Es continued to fight in ever decreasing numbers in the Philippines for four excruciating months. The U.S. military’s first ace of World War II, Lt Boyd “Buzz” Wagner of the 17th Pursuit Squadron, scored his fifth victory in a P-40E on December 16, 1941. The 37th and last confirmed victory by a P-40 pilot in the Philippines occurred on April 12, when Lt. John Brownewell of the 17th Pursuit Squadron shot down a Japanese floatplane near Del Monte on Mindanao. The campaign ended on May 6, 1942, when starving American forces in the island fortress of Corregidor surrendered. Meanwhile, P-40Es also had been heavily engaged in the defense of Java, a six-week campaign that again ended badly for the United States and its allies. On January 25, 1942, 13 P-40Es of a new provisional pursuit squadron, also named the 17th, arrived in Soerabaja, Java, to provide air defense against the expected Japanese invasion of this oil-rich island. 1/Lt. George E. Kiser, one of several veterans of the early fighting over Luzon who flew in the 17th throughout the Java campaign, wrote this account: “Soon after we arrived in Soerabaja, we moved to Blimbing, a newly constructed (and well camouflaged) field. … We flew many missions from Blimbing Field. In fact, a lot of us flew about 150 hours during the short stay there. At all times we were outnumbered at the least 10 to 1, but still we managed to get official credit for in excess of 65 victories (author’s note: the currently accepted total is 49) with only a loss of nine pilots killed or missing. … On March 1, 1942, the Japanese landed on Java in force, and after attacking this huge armada of ships with only ten P-40s, it was decided that the situation was hopeless, so the entire squadron retreated, along with the 19th Bombardment Group, to Australia.”

At the start of its operations, the 343rd FG was led by Lt. Col. John Stephen Chennault, the son of legendary “Flying Tigers” leader Col. Claire Lee Chennault. The “Aleutian Tigers” adopted the tiger motif and adorned noses of their aircraft with stylized tiger heads. (photo: NARA)


Darwin

Australia suffered its own version of the Pearl Harbor attack on February 19, 1942, when JNAF land- and carrier-based aircraft struck the northern port city of Darwin in two devastating raids. A convoy of ships, loaded with equipment and troops bound for the defense of Timor Island, was caught in the harbor and mostly destroyed. Dock facilities, a nearby airfield and even a hospital were bombed as well, with a great loss of life incurred.

Ten P-40Es of the just-formed 33rd Pursuit Squadron (Provisional) were in Darwin at the time to escort the convoy while enroute to reinforce the 17th squadron in Java. But nine of these planes were destroyed in air and on the ground during the day. Only one American pilot was able to make a claim.

The first Darwin attack, followed on March 3 by a strafing attack on the west coast port of Broome and the fall of Java three days later, stirred a wave of invasion panic throughout Australia. Operational training of the green pilots of the USAAF 49th Pursuit Group, many of them recent graduates of flying school, was cut short so they could be deployed to provide air defense. The 49th had arrived by ship on January 28, 1942, and immediately began assembling 100 P-40Es while its pilots put the finishing touches on their training. Fortunately, a cadre of 12 pilots just back from Java, including George Kiser, was available to provide experienced flight leaders for the three squadrons of the 49th.

Japanese air attacks on northern Australia continued sporadically throughout the spring and summer of 1942. The last air raid against Darwin opposed by the 49th (redesignated as a fighter group in May) came on August 23. In this combat, aces George Kiser and Jim Morehead scored their final victories before completing their tours in the Pacific. The total of 15 kills on the day brought the 49th’s final tally during the defense of Darwin to 78 confirmed victories, eight probables and four damaged.

 

New Guinea and Aleutian Islands

In September, with RAAF fighter squadrons now available to assume air defense duties at Darwin, the 49th FG began the next chapter in its remarkable history. The fight for Port Moresby was approaching its climax, and the 7th Fighter Squadron was ordered up from Darwin to fight alongside No. 75 and No. 76 squadrons RAAF in New Guinea.

Under the command of Java veteran Capt. Bill Hennon, the 7th Fighter Squadron arrived at 14-mile Drome outside Port Moresby on September 14 and immediately began flying fighter-bomber missions in support of the Australian troops fighting along the Kokoda Trail. These missions, which included strafing, dive-bombing and escort duties, were very effective at helping the Aussies halt the enemy advance.

The longest service of the P-40E was far north in the Aleutian Islands, where P-40s flew in combat from the attack on Dutch Harbor in June 1942 through the capture of Kiska in August 1943. After that, the three squadrons of P-40s, including the 344th with P-40Es, continued to provide air defense for bomber bases in the Aleutians through the end of the war.

P-40E No. 127 was one of 33 P-40Es sent to China in the spring of 1942 to replace Tomahawks lost in combat by the American Volunteer Group. The plane displays the blue tail band of the 2nd Pursuit Squadron. (photo: author’s collection)


China

On March 22, 1942, the first P-40Es that would see action in the China-Burma-India Theater touched down at Kunming, China, after a long ferry flight from Africa. Ground crews of the 1st American Volunteer Group, which had been in action against the Japanese in Burma and China since the previous December with Hawk 81s, set to work on the P-40Es, replacing their USAAF markings with Chinese sun roundels, painting the AVG's distinctive sharkmouth design on their noses, and repairing various minor problems. Eventually, the AVG would receive 33 P-40Es.

The first combat for AVG P-40Es came on April 8, 1942, when three of them at Loiwing, China, scrambled alongside Tomahawks to intercept a Japanese air raid on the field. Flight Leader Robert L. Little of the 1st Pursuit Squadron, flying one of the P-40Es, was credited with shooting down a Ki-43 Oscar among the 12 victories claimed that day, the first claim in a P-40E by the AVG.

The AVG P-40Es were heavily engaged during the final three months of the unit’s existence. Their most notable actions were a series of raids against Japanese army forces in the Salween Gorge on the China-Burma border in May 1942, when AVG pilots used the P-40E’s dive-bombing capability to devastating effect to halt the enemy advance. Sadly, Bob Little was killed flying one of those missions.

When the AVG disbanded on July 4, 1942, its P-40Es and Tomahawks were turned over to the 23rd Fighter Group of the USAAF, which was activated in Kunming that day to carry on the fight in China under legendary commander Claire Lee Chennault. Meanwhile, a second USAAF P-40 group, the 51st, had arrived in India and was taking up positions in Assam. These two groups, flying from their bases at either end of the air route from India into China, would have the responsibility for protecting transport planes flying “The Hump” from interception by Japanese fighters. By the summer of 1943, most P-40Es in the 23rd and 51st groups had been replaced by later model P-40s.

Pilots of the 72nd PS/15th PG pose with “Squirt,” the P-40E that squadron c.o. Jim Beckwith named for his child, in Hawaii during early 1942. In 1945, Beckwith, by then a colonel, commanded the 15th FG flying Very Long-Range missions over Tokyo. (photo: NARA)

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INFO Eduard is a monthly scale model-historical magazine published in Czech and English by Eduard Model Accessories since 2010. The magazine is available for free on the Triobo platform and can be downloaded in PDF format. Eduard is a manufacturer of plastic models and accessories with over 30 years of tradition. Throughout its history in the plastic modeling industry, Eduard has become one of the world's leaders. Further details about the company and its product range can be found at www.eduard.com. You can subscribe to the INFO magazine and receive product information for free at: https://www.eduard.com/cs/info-eduard/

 

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