Hawker Hurricane

The Hawker Hurricane is among the greatest of aviation legends. The first monoplane RAF fighter, it bore the brunt of the British effort in air combat during the Battle of France, and was numerically the most important RAF fighter of the Battle of Britain. Handsome, rather than graceful like the Spitfire, the Hurricane was fast and very manoevrable, and its rugged simple construction endeared it to pilots, for whom it meant survivability and a very steady gun-platform, and to ground crews, for whom it meant easy maintenance and repairs. In all senses. it was a classic fighter, a point that the author carefully reveals, divesting the aircraft of myth to expose its true stature.
Not only in North-West Europe, but in Greece, North Africa and Malta the Hurricane quickly won battle honours as a tough adversary for the German Bf 109 and Italian Macchis and Fiats. The author reviews each campaign and weighs the evidence of both factual documents and 'in action' accounts to produce concise accounts of the Hurricane's true success - allowing the reader to grasp in full the true measure of the success of the aircraft.
By 1941, however, advances in fighter design and development had begun to leave the Hurricane behind. The RAF settled on the Spitfire as its standard day fighter, whose almost unlimited development potential made it more cost-effective to update than the older Hurricane. The RAF realised the value of the Hurricane in the ground attack and support roles where its ruggedness gave it survivability, its stability gave it accuracy and its ability to carry a range of heavy weapons made it lethal. So developed the Hurribomber, able to carry out rapid pinpoint attacks with bombs, rockets or heavy cannon on difficult hard points, troop concentrations, armour, vehicles, parked aircraft and shipping. In North Africa, the development of 'cab-rank' tactics considerably assisted the ground forces, the Hurricanes circling until called down by infantry or armour to take-out difficult obstacles to progress.
The Hurricane shone for a while in the night-fighting role, the all-black painted fighters ranging over benighted Britain during 1941 in search of German intruders. The Hurricane also went to sea, first carried on a catapult aboard merchantmen ready to be launched when a bomber neared a convoy and then ditch in the sea, and later aboard the tiny, rough escort carriers that ploughed through the green rollers of the Atlantic on convoy duty - a hostile environment to which not many land-based fighters could adapt, but the Hurricane did.
The author's painstaking research and clear prose combine to present a true picture of the classic day fighter turned, with unusual success, into a night fighter, carrier-borne fighter and tactical aircraft. The result is a durable study of one of the most evocative aircraft of all time, a book that will both excite the reader and entice him to evaluate in the light of the evidence, arguments and battle stories the true measure of the Hawker Hurricane.
The book is illustrated with 160 half-tone photographs, many previously rare and unpublished, and impeccable 1/72nd scale line drawings of all Hurricane marks, variants and armament types by the noted artist James Goulding.

by Robert Jackson
Published by Blandford 1988 1st edition. 160pp profusely illustrated, index, appendix, 22x28
2 small indentations to front board near spine otherwise fine, including d/j.






Note:
"Long" descriptions, where shown, may have been taken from the book's dust jacket notes, and as such are relevant to the date of publication (e.g. any references to "new edition" "previously unpublished photographs" etc.) and not the present.

other titles which may be of interest:
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Hurricane £18.00 find out more

The Hurricane Story £9.50 find out more

Spitfire The Combat History £17.50 find out more