The Curtiss P-40 Warhawk might not be as bright in popular memory as the stylish P-51 Mustang or the brute-force P-47 Thunderbolt, but in the eyes of people who research World War II aviation, it has a well-deserved reputation. It was never the most glamorous fighter in the air, but it was reliable, rugged, and piloted by some of the most tenacious pilots of the war.
Its ancestry goes back to the Curtiss P-36 Hawk. Instead of beginning anew, Curtiss designers used the P-36 airframe as a starting point, substituting the Allison V-1710 liquid-cooled engine in place of the P-36’s radial. The product of this was a single-engine, single-seat fighter with an unusual appearance and the image of taking a tremendous amount of battle damage and still returning its pilot safely to base.
On paper, the P-40 was a good performer. It had a top speed of about 318 knots (589 km/h) because of its 1,240-horsepower Allison engine. Its standard armament was two .50 caliber Browning machine guns in the nose and four .303 caliber guns in the wings.
The Warhawk had a ceiling of 29,000 feet, could climb at 2,100 feet per minute, and was used for a range of missions. Though it did not surpass the most agile or quickest fighters, it excelled at durability and reach, traits that made it a tremendous asset for air defense as well as for attacking the ground. Pilots returned from missions in planes riddled with bullets, their Warhawks beaten but still flyable.
The P-40 engaged in almost every theater of the war—North Africa, the Pacific, and the China-Burma-India Theater. It could escort bombers, dive-bomb enemy ground targets, or engage enemy fighters.
The plane’s most legendary pilots were the Flying Tigers, a unit of American volunteer pilots who helped protect China prior to the U.S. entering the war officially. Their shark-toothed nose art is one of the most iconic images of the war.
One of the P-40’s pilots, Keith Bissonnette, was the epitome of the kind of toughness the P-40 is known for. A professional minor leaguer before the war, Bissonnette enlisted in the Army Air Forces in 1942 and flew with the 88th Fighter Squadron, 80th Fighter Group.
He flew P-40s and then P-47 Thunderbolts on over 200 combat missions in the China-Burma-India Theater—bombs, strafing, and even hazardous supply flights over the Himalayas referred to as “the Hump.” His service ended in tragedy in March of 1945 when his P-47 crashed near Keng Tung, Burma. He received the Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal, and Purple Heart for bravery.
Pitted against its German equivalent, the Messerschmitt Bf 109, the P-40 did not always win on sheer performance. The Bf 109’s 1,455-horsepower Daimler-Benz engine provided it with more speed, superior altitude performance, and superior climb rates.
But the Warhawk responded with toughness, more protection, and greater resistance to damage—traits which frequently made the difference between living and dying. The two pilots embodied different philosophies: German concepts of agility and quickness, and American ideals of hardness and flexibility.
As the war ended, the advent of jet aircraft sent the P-0 and other piston-driven fighters into retirement. Only a few survived, and now only a few Warhawks exist in museums or have been returned to flight status.
Though it was never the darling of the limelight, the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk forged its reputation through reliability, versatility, and the determination of the flyers who flew it. It is an icon of the lesser-known air war heroes—men and machines that fought as hard as the greats but without as much acclaim.
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