Hurricane - The Silent Hero

[Music] it had already done it stuff very adequately brilliantly in the Battle of Britain now for me but it's gonna be the hairatan mulku the Huracan did most of the work of the battle burden well I was a very inexperienced hurricane pilot at the done and the time was by date 1941 November and I took this Harrigan on a on a flight over Glasgow I was a little bit distressed to notice that my temperature of the engine is going up and up and up and this wasn't family because I've had to dry for a week before Anna title of this is like ellipticity equivalent of getting an antifreeze leak in your motorcar so I took the birds down of it but still the temperatures went out so I decided to shut down the engine which I did and I slammed the switches off and then to plow at about 6,000 feet when I got to five and a half thousand feet I remembered that the mountains in the area somewhere in the region to an after 2,000 feet so I decided it to an hour thousand feet if there was no health and staying with this airplane because I could easily didn't matter so I slid back a cockpit hood and put my hands up and drag myself up and the airplane wobbled and instinctively I don't know why I did it but just instinctively sat down again but then I realized when I looked at powder major when I was down to under two thousand feet and to bail out of that two thousand feet with mountains and to that plate it's going to be just as disastrous as staying with the airplane and I broke cloud nine hundred feet I was delighted to see the ground for the first time and I haven't got a lot of time waiting to mind up what I was going to do with the airplane but I'd gone through a period of wondering whether I was going to live or not I didn't it didn't find him but I was certainly aware of the fact that I could easily die I saw little flat a little farmhouse there was a few cattle around and a few sheep as one would expect to see in the in the area I selected the field near the farmhouse because I knew that if I turned the airplane over on landing that maybe there was somebody would come and dig me out rather than leave me in a burning bit of equipment there was no way with this be aeroplane you're gonna go down it wouldn't land it just I was feeling it down but it I couldn't get it down it wouldn't stall in finally when I saw a flaming great mound in front of me and I thought no I'm not going to hit that because it was about twenty thirty feet high and I was only with about fifteen or twenty feet up so I gently ease the stick forward until the old herecome nosed into the ground well Huracan had a huge radiator underneath the engine and that before sacked it as a scoop and it stopped the airplane pretty fast and when the airplane stopped I didn't so I shot four and hit my face on the gun side but I did miss this flaming great man and there was blood pouring out of everywhere as I got into the ambulance I said to the farmer I said by the way where am I and he said during Gil's land and I said to the farmer I said by the way what was that bloody great mound over there and he said open it I said you're never knock that down that's Hadrian's Wall and of all the places I had chosen Hadrian's Wall and but I got away with that one that was a about the only hairy time I had a hurricane the hurricane story starts long before any conflict with Hadrian's Wall it dates back as far as the history of aviation itself to the times of King Edward the seventh coronation at the beginning of this century [Music] though Kittyhawk USA was the site for the first sustained flight it was Europe particularly France that saw most of the aeroplanes early development [Music] the bike lanes were originally in the ascendancy but it was a monoplane that made one of the first significant breakthroughs Rui Blair EO took off from French soil on July the 25th 1909 in his own Blair EO 11 this and conquered the English Channel [Music] that same year 1909 at a competition in Wien sparks it was a monoplane that won the champagne contest for districts the meetings most coveted prize so the monoplane was doing well but then things started to go wrong a series of accidents due to structural failures led the English War Office to impose a ban on single wing machines though this ban would only last for a few months it continued to influence official thinking for many years to come and it was again the biplane that surged ahead planes like the de Havilland and the Sopwith here [Music] this was the situation at the outbreak of the first world war in 1914 when the freshly recruited volunteers arrived at the front in northern France the planes overhead were without exception biplanes of various manufacture whether German French British or later America [Music] the war that was supposed to last for a few brief months finally came to a close in 1918 and brought significant social changes women's position in society had to be redefined sports became the entertainment for the many rather than a pastime for the privileged hue and most importantly technology fired the imagination of everybody however it was presented and not least the airplane air displays had become a popular spectator sport and joy rides were available at virtually every one of the numerous new aerodrome being established throughout Europe [Music] increased reliability now also meant that the airplane could be used for wider practical purposes in 1919 the RAF established the first scheduled aerial post between Hawking and the British forces on the Rhine [Music] [Music] this first service was rapidly built into a larger network and formed the basis for a wider and very useful aerial postal service [Music] there were many challenges for the aircraft in these early pioneering days great stretches of oceans yet to be conquered mountains to be crossed and vast deserts to be overcome an American team had made it across the Atlantic but with a stopover in the Azores the first successful non-stop attempt was made by all-cotton Brown when they flew a vickers constructed by plane from Newfoundland towards iron finishing up in a local bar but without sustaining any personal injuries Ross and Keith Smith made it to Australia Cobham reached Cape Town England from Croydon to Darwin in 15 days Gino Watkins mastered the Arctic amongst the women pioneers were Amy Johnson he is seen returning from her England to Australia flight in an Argus II and to a tumultuous welcome the first solo non-stop crossing of the Atlantic was made by Charles Lindbergh in 1927 in his spirit oxen blue and still to this day the flight we associate with Atlantic crossing he has welcomed home to the USA with a hero's ticker-tape parade the Germans were pushing their own frontiers by developing larger and larger airships culminating with the now infamous Hindenburg docking in New Jersey after her maiden flight from Germany to the USA the Hindenburg exploded in a ball of flames killing almost all her passengers and crew the cause of this accident has been a mystery ever since accident act of God or more sinister sabotage whatever the reason this was the biggest aviation disaster to date these successes and even the tragedies in aviation in the 1920s and 30s resulted in a rapid development program though in the main within biplanes the public's interest in aviation was unabated over those years and thousands attended the yearly airshow at Hendon in North London where they were treated to the best aerobatic display to be seen anywhere in 1935 the RAF marked king george v jubilee with a great review it was a great occasion but would also be a great farewell to the biplane the brief ban on mono planes had been influencing the air ministry's decisions for 23 years but this impressive display was in reality the biplanes swan song a new and impressive single winged fighter plane was waiting in the wings the Hawker hurricane first made headlines on the 11th of February 1938 on the previous afternoon Squadron Leader JW Gillen had flown one of these new fighters from turn house in Scotland to Northolt near London a distance of 327 miles in 48 minutes averaging 409 miles per hour the fact that this high-speed only had been achieved because of an exceptionally fast tailwind was not mentioned in any official statement the intention was to achieve maximum publicity effect and for two reasons firstly to encourage the British people by intimating that a new and revolutionary fighter was available to defend the country Neville Chamberlain notwithstanding there was a real fear of war and secondly offsetting the recent achievement of the German bf109 designed by Willy Messerschmitt the 109 had created headlines of its own during the summer of 1937 winning climb dive and speed competitions as well as the circuit of the Alps race the 109 had also captured the world speed record for land plains reaching three hundred and seventy nine point three eight miles per hour with a specially supercharged engine on the 11th of November 1937 and it may indeed have been this record that made the British claim for the hurricane believable to the Germans [Music] [Music] the first hurricanes had been delivered to number 111 Squadron at RAF Northolt in December 1937 but the planes history stemmed back as far as 1933 when hawkers chief designer Sidney cam met with the air ministry's directorate of technical development to discuss the prospect for a monoplane fighter [Music] however the idea of monoplane was in those days anathema to official thinking despite the success of monoplanes competing for the Schneider trophy and the fact that the Italian match EMC 72 monoplane had established a world speed record of four hundred and twenty three point eight two miles per hour but Hawker Aircraft decided to go ahead and designed a monoplane fighter based on the Hawker fury biplane initially using the rolls-royce goshawk engine though this was later replaced by the stronger rolls-royce P v12 engine this was the engine that led directly to the famous Merlin the prototype was constructed around the air ministry specification F 36 - 34 and was first flown on the 6th of November 1935 official trials began in February 1936 the plane that took to the air then was powered by the 990 horsepower rolls-royce Merlin C engine driving a two blade fixed pitch propeller and with fabric-covered wings and fuselage the trials were successful and even the most optimistic speed predictions were easily exceeded on the 3rd of June 1936 Walker received an initial order for 600 hurricanes and a new chapter in the RAF history was launched the Huracan one was as mentioned first delivered to number 111 squadron and soon afterwards numbers three and fifty six squadrons were also equipped and by the end of 1938 about two hundred hurricanes had been delivered to RAF Fighter Command during the production run of the hurricane one totaling almost 4,000 aircraft a number of improvements were made the two blade propeller was replaced by a de Havilland free blade and the wing had been replaced by one with metal stress skin other improvements included the Merlin 3 engine a bulletproof windscreen and some armor protection for the pilot [Music] [Music] the hurricane armament came throughout the Second World War in a variety of configurations early on it was equipped with eight 7.7 millimeter machine guns a new wing allowed for no less than 12 machine guns in addition to which it could carry two 250 or 500 pound bombs later the machine guns were replaced by four 20 millimeter cannons and some versions even sported two forty millimeter anti-tank guns [Music] the story of the Hawker hurricane is as we've seen inextricably linked to the competition between monoplanes and biplanes and as a combat aircraft a fighter the Huracan would in so many ways be the best argument for its type [Music] I was given a book I'm told you get into a hurricane and flight now most I think young pilots would say well I flew a hurricane and it was it was easy for me it wasn't and I've got proof of it because it's in my diary on Friday the 16th of October 1942 I flew a miles master for 20 minutes and then I pushed off in a hurricane I was very careful indeed I'm sure that it took me 20 minutes to do he even do the cockpit check and I carried that out about three times eventually I was ready to go I opened the strata and I got off ok I fumbled and was unable to find the undercount lever there was terrible moments I wasn't expecting to spin the aircraft in at any moment the aircraft was backing about all over the bloody place I climbed it a thousand feet and then I selected wheels down found myself at 1,700 feet I forgot my radio procedure completely I was there unable to remember me callsign but suddenly I came across wind on my landing run I turned in to land and it all became calm and this airplane came in as gentle and uneasy as a bird and then I had now at long last a hurricane has flown me it was not to be long after its record-breaking flight that the hurricane was to be given a chance to prove its true worth Europe was about to go to war the signs from Germany were only too clear and the British government started full-scale rearmament stepping up production of vital equipment [Music] the RAF recruited and trained thousands of young men to fly their Spitfires and hurricanes in the battles that were short account [Music] in Germany after the Anschluss of Austria and the invasion of Czechoslovakia Hitler and his staff were planning the imminent attack on Poland ignoring the French and British ultimatum attack Poland and we declare war so the French and British notwithstanding Germany launched a ferocious attack on Poland on the 1st of September 1939 and the world witnessed for the first time blitzkrieg at its most devastating virtually all Polish resistance was eliminated within six weeks [Music] despite the French and British declaration of war there were no serious hostilities between Germany and the Allies in the wake of the attack of Poland and it was hardly surprising that Hitler was more than willing to take the next step he invaded France the following spring and finally England and France were forced into action the British Expeditionary Force and French regulars were now preparing for the imminent German assault on France which was Swift to come with the German Panzers bypassing the Maginot Line at the Ardennes Forest the BEF had been reinforced with three hurricane squadrons who for the first time encountered the highly efficient me-109 against one their minds well Farah Pandith office no it wasn't without its problems yes there certainly were problems but the Hurricanes fought valiantly and did manage to inflict some serious damage on the look back on who had the disadvantage of very long supply lines [Music] the end result was however never really in question the German divisions were unstoppable despite brave attempts at places like Arras Allied soldiers and French refugees were pushed further and further west [Music] the subsequent evacuation of more than 300,000 troops from the beaches of Dunkirk was a miracle but still a devastating defeat for the Allies [Music] there was now only a few miles of water between the Germans and England and Stukas could freely attack British shipping but Germany's High Command decided to finish the French campaign before any invasion to be contemplated [Music] the remaining French forces did not pose any serious opposition to the German divisions and when Paris fell the French were faced with the humiliation of having to surrender in the very same railway carriage that only a few years earlier had witnessed the Germans signing the Versailles Treaty now flush with success Hermann Goering promised Hitler that his Luftwaffe could adequately deal with not only the British fleet in the channel but with the RAF and thereby making the coming invasion a certain success but his sneakers and even any 109s came up against unexpected tough opposition from RAF Fighter Command the fighting was so fierce that the area around over became known as hell's corner we had a big day clobbered quite a lot of them and I'd rush back to refuel and talking you see in the cockpit where armors were refilling the wings we're what ammunition and the chaps were pumping for me and the capital was pumping throwing of course was standing by the cockpit in his house [ __ ] free tank and I was watching looking up and there was a battle going on above us one of the 109 to defraud bang kept filling my tank with water as well and suddenly a body jump out they went online and the paraffin some pilot came floating not and my refueler looked at me the look of utter disgust on his face and said first he said oh all right we've got one and then with disgust appeared he said ah look them jammy bastard he's bailed out he was very upset yet again Goering failed to read the signs he now decided that attack on harbor installations in southern England was just what was needed [Music] it did not work supplies were still coming through with little or no difficulties orders were now coming through from Hitler to step up efforts and waves of bombers supported by fighter planes were launched against southern England and the military installations placed there listening-posts place throughout England southern coast they fight a command a fair chance to scramble its Spitfires and hurricanes to take up what did appear as an uneven fight but these early days of what was later to become known as the Battle of Britain proved what the combination of determination sound strategies and good equipment could achieve [Music] not all strategies worked out as designed as the faster aircraft the Spitfires were designated to deal with the me-109 whilst the Hurricanes should concentrate on the Bombers that was the plan and so whereas we'd been to hurricanes Auden's start with a Biggin Hill one of them was moved out and we first perspective on the idea of being as you say that spit plowers we'd all go off together Spitfires were taking the five for escort leaving us free for technology rarely happen any often as I was getting in most polished I would been jumped by the fighter and the Spitfires were busy mingling with the fighters but for enough German fighters to say okay we've got chaps play with them a half and we all take on these hokum so I shot down the odd bomber but just about everything I thought I was a fighter it was I kept getting tangled up with them [Music] [Applause] [Music] one of the major targets for the German bombing raids were British airfields but their success was limited as most planes on the ground were heavily camouflaged and German losses kept mounting despite the Huracan success it was the Spitfire that came out of the Battle of Britain covered with glory as this informational propaganda film indicates [Music] take cover [Music] [Applause] [Music] well wouldn't you think about it's the Battle of Britain the Spitfire was outnumbered two to one by the hurricane and so in in effect you should one would have thought that the hurricane should have been the aircraft that came one of the highest honors but no the hurricane has you know he would any sort of book for anything the Huracan the hardly mentioned for some extraordinary reason it the Spitfire comes out as the sort of Savior of the battle but mulku the hurricane did most of the work in the butterman [Music] they were both superb that goes without saying looking at the two aircraft side-by-side they are totally different in design they okay they're single they're monoplane fighters they both carry date guns and things of that sort having said that they were quite different structurally big as the hurricane horses that much before this before a lot of it is canvass of Spitfires all-metal but a compared to aircraft is a bit unfair in a way because I don't think it's comparing like with like American was that much earlier it had already done its stuff very adequately brilliantly in the Battle of Britain when there were 2.5 hurricanes to every Spitfire yes and the hurricane also accounted for two-thirds of all the kills proving itself extremely efficient and now England had started to hit back Wellington bombers were making daily sorties against German targets on the continent and the reactions from Hitler and his generals were to target London and its civilian population [Music] well math calling planes hurts three miles southwest [Music] planes approaching from southwest [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] german losses were considerable and the loss of highly trained pilots either interned as prisoners of war or killed was a big blow to the Luftwaffe that had never really recovered from london didn't escape unscathed despite fighter commands best efforts bombers still got through and some 30,000 civilians were killed during this period but the populations fighting spirit might just have been reflected in this propaganda film made at the time oh the two dates okay [Music] I mean I don't they've got you me yeah I had me fingers crossed [Music] despite the ruins London was not yet a broken city and the Luftwaffe kept piling on as much pressure as they were now capable of though the emphasis was on more fighters and less bombers maybe the Luftwaffe simply had fewer bombers available but whatever they sent the hurricane pilots were still eager to do battle I came across after a battle for 100 lines on their way home on their own of the Reformation and I thought there's a splendid they haven't seen me I shall just creep up behind them pick them off one by one when I got closer almost within range the one on the right starting clear enough to the right and I knew he was looking over his shoulder and could see me coming up behind and I thought fine I draw I'll be satisfied with one I'll pick him off forget the other three big big big mistake because as I opened fire on him pull up into a steep climb pile of power on and meanwhile all hell broke loose behind me things thumping into my aeroplane in making horrid holes and of course I'd take my eyes off the other through the wonderful trap I was I was frightened and I was very angry in Berlin Hitler was still despite the evidence assuring the German people that the Luftwaffe was victorious in the skies over England but things were changing rapidly all three are daughter yessiree [Music] British Lancaster bombers made their biggest bombing attack on a target within Germany the city of Bremen the city and vital harbour installations were devastated finally some attention was removed from Fighter Command Spitfires and hurricanes but Goering wanted revenge for this audacity and launched an all-out attack on the city of Coventry and its civilian population an attack reminiscent of the total destruction of Rotterdam a few months earlier [Music] [Music] [Music] Coventry was smashed as badly as the polish capital of Warsaw during the Polish campaign [Music] the people of Coventry dug their loved ones out of the blasted ruins saw them to their last resting place in a common grave [Music] between Coventry and London more than 70,000 Englishmen women and children lost their lives thousands more were injured the king and queen visited but the spirit of the nation was yet again represented by the common people dive-bombed high-level bomb machine-gunned been through to invasion scares the last lot we had to have the house down about our ears if you're still sticking it and we have don't a stick it was very much a joke just cause I wasn't really any option I had joined the air forces of Korea no option or just cause events in London and Coventry and the excesses of the Nazi regime were powerful motivations for joining Fighter Command or other branches of the armed forces Joseph Goebbels successful propaganda against German Jews dating back to the early days of the Nazi administration was known throughout Europe and viewed with increased distaste but what was to follow could not easily be believed let alone understood in those days we knew nothing about Holocaust although I did know a little bit about it because des Cahoon and I used to dance at the aiming YWCA every Saturday night with one particular German girl called Ursula and she was a tall they're good looking game she used to be of course it's you know before that was a bit strange he was a dome title way up and he danced the last wall together it's like dancing with him but that really she was a lovely girl and we knew something of the young of the travels new trials of the German Jew racism the showers and the ovens were efficiently wrung and could stand up to the inspection of the man in charge Heinrich Himmler even though he found the smell a little nauseating there is no describing this human suffering it is beyond both our intellectual and emotional comprehension Adolf Eichmann knew this when he claimed that the world would be outraged if it became known that three children had been gassed but if you gassed three thousand you could get away with it it was just too unbelievable if sanity had to be preserved and Hitler let himself be applauded by the people who could only recognize the hero and not the villain one was very afraid that if we lost the Germans what could invade us and my wife I was married in 1939 in March before war started just before my wife would probably finish up in a German bottle and I'd be shot against a wall or something so you didn't really have much option other than to get stuck in oil is vital for any war effort and the Middle Eastern oil fields in allied hands had to be protected at all costs the task for the British Seventh Army later to become known as the Desert Rats the first hostilities were instigated by general grazie on ease Italian forces but they were easily dealt with by the British though they were aligned on outdated equipment including ancient bike lanes most of the Italians were taken prisoner a long time before they could get within sight of the mosques of Cairo it was a far more significant confrontation when Rommels Afrika core based Montgomery's Desert Rats at the battles of El Alamein though often seen as predominantly a tank battle airpower played an important role on both sides [Music] so I went back on another ship to West Africa and then flew across from Takoradi in West Africa to Khartoum up the Nile a bit like Peter Ustinov and then up to Cairo where I converted onto hurricanes that was something of a surprise but there were very few Spitfires in North Africa or the desert as that was it was indeed the hurricane that did most of the air cover from the El Alamein through to the final victory in Tunisia I joined the front line part of the squadron and we started moving westwards at the time of El Alamein the role of the hurricane had changed by now it still did interception of bombers but it also performed the role of a very efficient tank buster [Music] the 40 millimeter gun fitted to some versions of the hurricane was a formidable weapon against the German Panzers even the panzerkampfwagen for that went on all the way up through the desert through Tripoli and Beyond gabey's monastere up to Tunis and it was a Tunis that the Germans made their last stand in North Africa during this campaign many hurricanes were used as night fighters and against German transport planes attempting to bring supplies and reinforcements to the remains of the Deutsche Africa for [Music] victory in Tunisia at the end of all German presence in North Africa coincided with the demise of the Huracan as a fighter plane unlike the younger Spitfire it could not be developed further despite its obvious limitations the hurricane continued in service through to the end of the war and beyond but in a different capacity besides being successful against tanks both against the Germans in North Africa and against the Japanese in Burma it was also the first allied aircraft to be fitted with air-to-ground rockets something that resulted in a newspaper headline claiming that the hurricane packed a punch equivalent to the broadside of a destroyer [Music] the last squadron to receive replacement for their hurricanes was the RAF number 6 squadron in January 1947 but for all its apparent longevity this little fighter should be remembered for some of its early achievements as the first single wing fighter plane breaking the by play monopoly and for its role during the Battle of Britain for which it deserves far more recognition than it has been given and not least it should be remembered for the brave men that flew her and lots of church for cool and his name does appear on the Runnymede memorial where there's another twenty thousand planes aircrew with no name great when you're 18 the whole of life lies ahead of you whatever job you're doing and I suddenly looked round left saw this 109 strap of my wing typically would show gave me a nasty fright say the least of it anybody will he says so but what's like I've I had no imagination or bullshitting I think everybody [Music]

Channel: undefined

Views: 156,940

Rating: 4.5616884 out of 5

Keywords: Hawker Hurricane, Royal Air Force, Fighter Command, Battle of Britain, World War II Fighters, Warbirds, Dogfights

Id: JWzJ1IlxYxg

Length: 52min 10sec (3130 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 26 2017