Ecuador's first fighter: Curtiss-Wright CW-21, or CW-22, or P-35A?
 

There seems to be a great deal of confusion as to what type and how many US Lend-Lease fighters were received by Ecuador in WWII.

Below are some of the options drawn from a variety of more or less reputable sources on and off the internet:

1) 10 x Curtiss-Wright CW-21.
2) 6 x Curtiss-Wright CW-22 Falcon.
3) 4 x Seversky “P-35-type” conversions from civilian racers.
4) 6 x Seversky P-35A.
5) 12 x Seversky P-35A.

Can anyone definitvely disentangle this confusion?

Many thanks,

Sid.

Re: Ecuador's first fighter: Curtiss-Wright CW-21, or CW-22, or P-35A?
 

The finest researcher on the subject is Dan Hagedorn. I'm not sure which of his works will answer your question, and I am not sure that any of the types you mention will have been supplied specifically under lend-lease. Certainly not any conversions from Seversky civilian racers - if indeed as many as four examples of such ever existed.

Unfortunately, I can find no reference to deliveries to Ecuador during WW2 in either of his major works, Latin America Air Wars and Conquistadors of the Sky.

At the time of the Peru-Ecuador war, Ecuador converted three Curtiss CW-19R aircraft. Perhaps these are the ones you are thinking of, or do you specifically mean after this event?

Re: Ecuador's first fighter: Curtiss-Wright CW-21, or CW-22, or P-35A?
 

Graham,


Thanks for the reply.


The pre-war-supplied Curtiss-Wright CW-19Rs are already accounted for.


It is the wartime deliveries of fighters that are obscure.


The 4 x Seversky “P-35-type” conversions from civilian racers should be treated separately. They were an emergency response to the brief war with Peru in July 1941. They were certainly bought by a US company on behalf of the Ecuadoran Government for conversion to fighters to avoid breaching US neutrality legislation, though it is less clear they were ever delivered.

All the others are mentioned in connection with Lend-Lease.

The CW-21s are in an official list from 1946 of Lend-Lease supplied to Latin America in the war. However, I have seen no supporting evidence for their delivery.

The P-35As are not mentioned in that list, but they are widely mentioned elsewhere in varying numbers. It is, perhaps, possible that they are sometimes mixed in with the "P-35-type" converted racers.

Anyway, the situation remains obscure.

For what it is worth, I supect that an unclear number of P-35As are the real deal, but at the moment there are too many contradictions and possible alternatives to be sure.

Many thanks.

Re: Ecuador's first fighter: Curtiss-Wright CW-21, or CW-22, or P-35A?
 

Just to ask if anyone has had any further ideas on this obscure subject?

Sid

Re: Ecuador's first fighter: Curtiss-Wright CW-21, or CW-22, or P-35A?
 

Thought I would bump this up . Maybe something new came up.
Thanks
Rick

Re: Ecuador's first fighter: Curtiss-Wright CW-21, or CW-22, or P-35A?
 

Hello,
Have you looked on the Scramble.nl website ?

http://www.scramble.nl/index.php?opt...db&view=search

They give 6 - CW22's ; 1 - CW19 and 1 CW16 in the WW2 period.
As for the P-35's they give 6(?) Starting in 1941.
Alex

Re: Ecuador's first fighter: Curtiss-Wright CW-21, or CW-22, or P-35A?
 

Dan Hagedorn has an article on Latin American lend-lease in the Summer 1989 issue of the AAHS journal. He lists the Ecuadorean deliveries as:

19 AT-6, 12 BT-13, 17 PT-19 and 3 PT-22

Fighters were delivered to Brazil, Peru, Mexico and Guatemala.

If Ecuador received any CW-22s they must have been acquired pre-lend-lease.

Re: Ecuador's first fighter: Curtiss-Wright CW-21, or CW-22, or P-35A?
 

Further to my previous posting I have now come across another Hagedorn article in the AAHSJ, concerning the Seversky aircraft. He says that he has not been able to find any evidence that Ecuador received ex-U.S. Army P-35s. The country did purchase four Seversky aircraft in October 1941, serialled C-I to -4:

C-1 Seversky EP-1
C-2 Seversky SEV-DS
C-3 Seversky AP-7
C-4 Seversky SEV-S2

Re: Ecuador's first fighter: Curtiss-Wright CW-21, or CW-22, or P-35A?
 

Thanks guys.