Curtiss P-40 Warhawk
American single-seat fighter developed from the P-36 Hawk around a liquid-cooled Allison V-12, built in large numbers from 1939 to 1944 and flown by most Allied air forces. Outclassed at altitude by the best opposing fighters, it fought hardest at low level in North Africa, the Pacific and China, where Chennault's American Volunteer Group made it famous.
Why It Mattered
The Curtiss P-40 is not ranked among the best fighters of the Second World War, but it was a rugged, effective design that America and her allies had in large numbers early in the war, when they urgently needed them. Curtiss built 13,737 P-40s, and the type served with many Allied air forces across almost every theatre. It is remembered above all for the Tomahawks flown in China by Claire Chennault's American Volunteer Group, the Flying Tigers. The Smithsonian notes that the group's shark-mouthed aircraft remain among the most popular aeroplanes of the war.
Design Notes
Donovan Berlin designed the radial-engined P-36 Hawk in 1935, and the P-40 began as an attempt to keep that airframe competitive. His first try, the turbo-supercharged XP-37, was fast when its engine behaved, but the supercharger was unreliable and the set-back cockpit restricted the pilot's view. In 1938 Berlin instead put a liquid-cooled Allison V-1710 into another P-36 airframe; designated the XP-40, it first flew on 14 October 1938. Production aircraft grew armour plate, better self-sealing fuel tanks and more powerful engines as experience mounted. The P-40E standardised six wing-mounted .50-calibre machine guns, and the last model built in quantity, the P-40N, was the lightest of the line.
Operational History
Production began in March 1940, and France ordered 140 aircraft; when France fell, Britain took delivery of them instead and named them Tomahawks. The Tomahawk performed poorly in high-altitude combat over northern Europe, so the British relegated it to low-altitude operations in North Africa. The Soviet Union bought more than 2,000 P-40s, though the Smithsonian notes that details of their operational history remain obscure. When the United States entered the war, P-40s equipped many front-line Army Air Corps fighter units, and in the Philippines P-40E pilot Boyd Wagner became the first American ace of the war in mid-December 1941. In China, the American Volunteer Group flew its first mission on 20 December 1941. The group's victory tally is contested: the Smithsonian's museum credits the AVG with about 115 Japanese aircraft destroyed in under seven months, while Smithsonian magazine credits almost 300. Chennault later wrote that Japanese airmen never again tried to bomb Kunming while the AVG defended it. The group disbanded on 4 July 1942, its assets passing to the Army Air Forces' 23rd Fighter Group in the new 14th Air Force. P-40s went on to fight in almost every theatre of the war, most effectively, on the Smithsonian's account, in China, Burma and India. Newer fighters such as the P-47 and P-38 soon took over the front line, and production ended in late 1944.
Afterlife
When the Smithsonian searched in the 1960s for a P-40 with a documented Flying Tigers history, it found none. The museum's P-40E is a former Royal Canadian Air Force Kittyhawk, restored in 1975 to represent a 23rd Fighter Group aircraft of the 14th Air Force and displayed at the Udvar-Hazy Center. Elsewhere, P-40s survive in museums and in the air: the Planes of Fame museum in California flies its P-40N regularly, an aircraft that itself served with the Royal Canadian Air Force. That aircraft has also appeared in the films Pearl Harbor and Valkyrie.