Flying Legends

Hawks flock to duxford

- Frank B. Mormillo

One of the most impressive routines seen during the 2018 Flying Legends Airshow at Duxford, England, the weekend of July 13–15 was a three-ship formation display featuring the Fighter Collection’s Curtiss Hawk 75, P-40C Warhawk, and P-40F Warhawk. Considered state of the art when they entered service with the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC, later known as the United States Army Air Forces, or USAAF) in the late 1930s and early ’40s, the Curtiss Hawk series of monoplane fighters were actually considered somewhat out-of-date by the time that the United States was formally drawn into World War II by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Nevertheless, the rugged Hawks acquitted themselves well in combat, with the P-40 Warhawks, in particular, holding the line against the Axis forces in the South Pacific, the China Burma India Theater of Operations, the Mediterranean, and the Aleutians until more modern fighter planes were introduced into service with the USAAF later in the war. They were fighting at Pearl Harbor and continued until the last day of the war.

The Legend Is Born