Hawker Hurricane - Dispelling Historical Myths

On November 10th Stephen Philpott addressed thirty Members live and twenty by Zoom on the enduring fallacy that the Supermarine Spitfire ‘won’ The Battle of Britain’ (BoB) and that it was pre-eminent throughout WW 2. He was introduced by our Chairman, Chris Roberts, who said that after working for the MoD Stephen joined BAe at Kingston in 1989 as an operational analyst and market researcher. There his belief that the Hurricane was undervalued relative to the Spitfire by ‘historians’ led him to research the RAF service history of the type seeking original data: National Records Office material, Squadron historical records, pilots’ log books and so on. His book, ‘Hawker Hurricane - Defender of the Skies‘, was the outcome of his studies comparing the combat records of the Hurricane and Spitfire
Stephen started by stating some basic fact about the Hurricane. It was easy to build using the simple manufacturing techniques developed by Hawker for their very successful ‘beautiful biplanes’. The Spitfire was more complex with a modern stressed skin airframe, less robust than that of the Hurricane, not able to sustain as much battle damage and not so easily repairable. The Spitfire also needed a more protracted test and development programme resulting in fewer aircraft being available in the Summer of 1940. 1,715 Hurricanes flew with fighter Command during the BoB, many more than all other fighters combined. This superiority in numbers led to the outcome of the BoB: actual enemy losses credited to Hurricanes 661; to Spitfires 518 (56%:44%).

    The Hurricane fought in 33 campaigns in theatres from the ‘phoney’ war in France to Yugoslavia via the North African desert, the defence of Malta, southern Europe, the Middle East, east Africa, Russia, Singapore, Java and Burma, to name but the main ones. In contrast the Spitfire didn’t leave Britain until 1942. In the Far East Hurricanes were operational for 3 years 8 months, the Spitfire 1 year 11 months.
   Over WW2 looking at air combat only, actual enemy losses to the Hurricane were 1427, to the Spitfire 1732; whilst Hurricanes lost were 1631, Spitfires lost were 1822, ‘showing’ superior results for the Spitfire. But does it? Stephen contended that this was not a fair comparison because the Hurricane was not used in the air combat role after 1942 whereas the Spitfire was until the end of the war. So if you exclude results post 1942 the Hurricane is still responsible for 1427 actual enemy losses but the Spitfire count reduces to 1258.
   After his talk Stephen answered questions from the floor before being thanked by Speaker Secretary, Frank Rainsborough.
   This talk is available to members on You-Tube. There were some problems with the sound recording but most is satisfactory. Copies of Stephen’s book can be obtained from the author at 19 Andrews Close, Epsom, Surrey. KT17 4EX for £19.99. Phone 07986 764408, e-mail stphphlptt@aol.com.
Editor’s comments.
   We must remember that the Hurricane was, as Stephen pointed out, essentially of an earlier generation so its success rate is even more remarkable. The conservative and practical Camm chose to retain his simple, rugged, tubular steel structure for his first production monoplane using the existing skills of the Hawker workforce, whereas Mitchell embraced the new, initially troublesome in manufacture, stressed skin construction technique concentrating on achieving high performance. The result, fortunately for the United Kingdom, was that the RAF had two fine complementary fighters in sufficient numbers when they were needed. Subsequently the Spitfire was considerably developed throughout WW2 while Camm‘s Hurricane successors, the Typhoon and Tempest, were modern stressed skin designs with, in the case of the Tempest, thinner (elliptical) wings.