Hawker Hurricane Mk IIC
Serial Number HL887
"They shall mount up with wings as eagles."
Isaiah 40:31
This is one of two photographs of HL887 coded AK•W (the other is on the previous page) when it was piloted by Flying Officer Albert Houle of 213 Squadron in "Operation Chocolate" (November 13-16, 1942). The objective was to harass Axis forces and motor transport still retreating after the Second Battle of El Alamein that had come to a fitful end nine days earlier. Beneath the wings of the Hurricane Mk IIC are fixed 44-imperial gallon (200 liter) ferry tanks. Fitted with immersed electric pumps, fuel was transferred directly from the auxiliary to the main wing tanks whenever they dropped below five gallons.
Although the Royal Air Force stipulated that the official camouflage colors of day fighters in desert areas were to be a scheme of Dark Earth (brown) and Middle Stone (tan) on the upper surfaces and Azure on the underside, the pattern of HL887 includes an overspray of Dark Green, which is especially prominent behind the "K" in the airplane code. The letter of the individual plane ("W"), which had been added by the unit, also is not quite to regulation.
Another modification was the removal of both outboard 20mm canons, leaving only the inboard ones. Doing so brought the remaining guns closer to the plane's center of gravity and reduced weight so far out on the wing which, in turn, improved speed and maneuverability—both no doubt having been impaired by the drag of the massive sand filter installed over the carburetor intakes.
These 20mm cannons had been developed by Hispano-Suiza ("Spanish-Swiss"), a Spanish manufacturer of luxury cars whose co-founder and chief engineer, the Swiss-born Marc Birkigt, designed and patented the gun. There were several important modifications by the British, however, including a belt-feeding mechanism that allowed the cannons to fire continuously from a disintegrating link belt (so called because the links holding the cartridges were stripped of that connection after firing and ejected). The original HS.404 became known as the Hispano Mk II—and was the standard heavy armament for the RAF.
Previously, its planes had been armed with license-built American Browning machine guns that fired .303 (7.7mm) bullets—the same caliber used in the Lee-Enfield rifle carried by British and Commonwealth troops on the ground. In the air, however, they simply lacked the kinetic energy to be effectual, especially against heavily armored German bombers (a He 111 could carry 600 to 700 pounds of additional armor plating). In a history of the Battle of Britain, Holland recounts that 7,000 such rounds collectively fired by a squadron of fighters failed to bring down a German Dornier Do 17 bomber (possibly because its pencil-thin fuselage offered relatively little to hit).
Looking very carefully, one can just discern a thin vertical post on the engine cowling in front of the windscreen. It is the forward mounting point for a "ring and bead" gun sight. Much like the iron sights on a rifle, a post or bead mounted in front was centered on a concentric ring mounted above the instrument panel. When an enemy plane was sighted in front of the bead and the bead itself was centered in the ring, the pilot would fire. By late 1942, it seems a curious anachronism, given that the plane then was equipped with the standard Reflector Gunsight Mk II that projected the ring and dot onto a square glass reflector screen. But it also was obsolete to have the rear fuselage and flight control surfaces shaped by spruce formers and long wooden stringers over which was stretched doped Irish linen—rather than stress-skin aluminum held in place by flush rivets.
HL887, its wings detached and stored next to the crated fuselage, had been shipped to Takoradi, the principal RAF port in what is now Ghana, where it arrived on August 15, 1942. The plane then was reassembled and threaded its way between Vichy French Sudan and French Equatorial Africa to Khartoum and north up the Nile River valley to Cairo, a journey of some six days. According to the daily Operations Record of 213 Squadron, the first mention of HL887 after its arrival was on October 7, when Houle flew the plane to Edcu (Idku), a RAF base on the Mediterranean just east of Alexandria, "for readiness." Intermittent flights continued throughout the month and into November when on the thirteenth, as part of Operation Chocolate, he strafed the Libyan coast road from Agheila to Agedabia (south of Benghazi) and then on November 16, the landing ground at Gialo in Cyrenaica. Later that day, the secret base at imminent risk of attack, LG125 was evacuated and HL887 flown to LG101 at Sidi Haneish west of Cairo.
Houle was an ace in the Royal Canadian Air Force and, invariably, it is his planes that are modeled, either AK•W or AK•U, the Hurricane he had flown for 213 Squadron in defense of Alexandria—which was distinguished by the motif of a hornet superimposed over the plane's roundel. It should not come as a surprise, therefore, that the Squadron's motto was Irritatus lacessit crabo, "The hornet attacks when roused."
When the plane was assigned to 225 Squadron, its LX code was not adopted, which for some months had been discontinued, and only the plane's identifying serial number was retained. Too, it may have been deemed imprudent to send a plane on tactical reconnaissance flying low over enemy territory with a new call sign in letters four feet high. German intelligence already knew the locations of many RAF squadrons, and it would not do to help in identifying the forward airfields from which they flew.
On November 27, eleven days after the conclusion of Operation Chocolate, HL887 was flown by F/O Ian Ingram of the Royal Australian Air Force, who acted as "weaver" or wingman on a Tac/R flight over the area of Djebel Abodid-Mateur on the northern coast of Tunisia. There, he was "bounced" by a late model Bf 109G-4 and the Hurricane, which was twenty meters above the ground, crashed. The young pilot died at three in the morning in a casualty clearing station two days later. He had been in North Africa exactly three weeks, the plane itself for just three months.
HL887 was "Struck off Charge" and given a Category E designation, signifying that it was no longer serviceable. So the plane, so the pilot. F/O Ingram (No. 403343), just twenty-two years old, was "Struck off Strength of RAF" and categorized DOI (Died of Injuries). Duly noted, men and machines were dispassionately jotted down in the ledger.
This digital model shows his Hurricane as it might have looked before taking off that morning.
Just above the serial number are mounting points for aerials attached to the outer edge of the tailplane. It was part of a system of Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) that had been introduced just after the Battle of Britain. When the Mk II radio transponder received a ground radar signal, it transmitted a coded pulse in reply that identified the plane as friendly. But the transponder added weight (approximately 40 lbs) and the aerials, drag (perhaps 2 mph). The two outboard cannons and their ammunition drums weighed almost 340 lbs and already had been removed. The IFF system may have been taken out as well. The port-side aerial is not visible in photographs of the plane, but its mounting point can just be discerned.
F/O Ingram was the great uncle of Paul Tyers, an airline pilot himself who has expertly constructed HL887 as a physical model—certainly a less-forgiving exercise than moving a mouse.
What appears to be a recoil spring on the gun barrel actually are cooling fins to dissipate the heat generated by sustained firing. The Hispano Mk II cannon was too long to be housed completely within the relatively warm confines of the wing and at high altitude the protruding barrel, so characteristic of the Hurricane and Spitfire, was susceptible to freezing in sub-zero temperatures, the lubricating oils thickening to the point where the gun jammed. Too, as the wing tapered, the outboard gun extended even farther out—and was more exposed still.
A flight over trackless desert wastes demands range rather than maneuverability, and the ferry tanks that had been added for Operation Chocolate likely remained in place when Ingram flew the plane days later. Weaving behind the lead pilot, who concentrated on reconnoitering the ground below, he was expected to protect his principal against enemy fighters from above. The extra fuel weighed 634 lbs, but that of the two auxiliary tanks and their mounting hardware is wildly indeterminate, with figures varying from 180 lbs (or less) to numbers twice that (or more). If there was an encounter with a patrolling Bf 109, this additional weight (whatever the figure) would have made the wingman's responsibility an almost impossible task.
Like the Supermarine Spitfire, the Hawker Hurricane was powered by the Rolls-Royce Merlin XX engine, which was designed to run on leaded 100-octane fuel imported from the United States in bulk or 55-gallon drums (notice that the rolling rings have been nicely abraded). A new catalytic refining process had allowed the production of high-octane aviation fuel from crude oil, a significant advance over the 87-octane gasoline used by the Bf 109.
The higher octane almost doubled the manifold pressure of the Merlin engine, which in turn increased airspeed by 25 to 30 mph at higher altitudes and offered a faster rate of climb. As Kalichevsky noted in his 1943 history of the petroleum industry, "It is an established fact that a difference of only 13 points in octane number made possible the defeat of the Luftwaffe by the R.A.F. in the fall of 1940. This difference, slight as it seems, is sufficient to give a plane the vital 'edge' in altitude, rate of climb and maneuverability that spells the difference between defeat and victory.
The Hurricane was a tall plane and its cockpit noticeably higher than that of a Spitfire. To facilitate access, there was a retractable "stirrup" mounted behind the port wing that was linked to a spring-loaded flap on the fuselage. To clamber on board, the pilot pulled down the footstep, which automatically opened the handhold, and hoisted himself onto a non-slip walkway. Before stepping into the cockpit, he then closed the hinged flap—which retracted the footstep.
Introduced during the Battle of Britain, the rectangular brass mirror mounted above the windscreen was standard equipment on the Hurricane, enabling the pilot to see behind him as he continually monitored his "six o'clock." So few mirrors were available at the time that automotive shops were scoured for spares. The tread marks in the sandy soil and especially the streaks of engine oil on the main wheel doors when they were closed are subtle touches indeed.
The digital recreation of Ingram's Mk IIC Hurricane is based on a collector's model from IL-2 Sturmovik: Great Battles (Stalingrad), an online combat flight simulator. The camouflage pattern was added and colors matched to the official RAF handbook.
Air Ministry Order A.664/42 issued on July 2, 1942 (and amended by A.1096/42 on December 24, 1942) defined the official Desert Scheme of the Hurricane Mk IIC in North Africa and the Mediterranean. The upper surface was a disruptive pattern of Middle Stone (a sandy tan) and Dark Earth (a darker brown) and the lower surface, Azure Blue—although on Ingram's plane, there are patches of Dark Green. The spinner was Mid-Stone (but on HL887 with a dark blue tip) or Dull Red (a reddish-brown shade the color of brick). For day fighters in the desert, the letter codes officially were to be Sky (a very pale blue), but official colors sometimes were disregarded.
Code letters were added after receipt of the aircraft from its maintenance group and applied according to regulation: the letters to be 48 inches high, 6 inches wide, and a varying shade of white in color. The black serial number, however, which was initially applied by the aircraft manufacturer and remained with the plane independently of its squadron affiliation "should be faithfully copied when an aircraft is being re-finished."
At least on the port side, the digital model adheres as faithfully as possible to the markings of the plane as photographed at LG125, the landing strip in the Saharan desert. So, too, does the Hurricane Mk IIC Trop by Arma Hobby (kit 4005) in 1:48 scale as modeled by my friend and neighbor Paul, who masked and painted the wing roundels by hand so as not to obscure the detail of panel lines and rivets.
The Aircraft Movement Card (Form 78) notes that HL887 was "Cat E S.O.C." on November 27, which is confirmed by the Operation Records Book for 225 Squadron (AIR 27/1395), where the plane is "taken off Unit charge." Curiously, the Operation Records Book for 213 Squadron (AIR 27/1316) records that HL887 was in the air that day, flown by Sgt T. A. Jowett on patrol over Benghazi harbor. Such is the fog of war.
References: "The Desert's Hornets' Nest" (1964, December) by Alfred Price, Flying Review International, 20(3), 44-45; British Aviation Colors of World War Two: The Official Camouflage, Colours and Markings of RAF Aircraft, 1939-45 (n.d.) edited by John Tanner (RAF Museum, Hendon); The Battle of Britain: Five Months that Changed History, May–October 1940 (2012) by James Holland; The Amazing Petroleum Industry (1943) by V. A. Kalichevsky; Hawker Hurricane: Pilot's Notes: Air Publication 1564B (December 1940).
