Quote:
Originally Posted by Graham Boak
Francis Mason claimed that the Hurricane scored more than half of the RAF's claims during WW2, but I'm afraid that I don't recall the number quoted, nor the percentage he gave to the Spitfire. I believe that it was in his book for Aston/the RAF Museum, so if anyone has that perhaps they can confirm this.
In this context, it is worth remembering that the Hurricane not only outnumbered the Spitfire 2:1 in the Battle of Britain, but served in several overseas theatres at times when significant numbers of targets were available. The Spitfire spent most of its war in theatres where enemy aircraft were comparatively rare.
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Hello,
Whilst I have a copy of the Royal Air Force Museum Edition of Francis Mason's. "The Hawker Hurricane" (1990 - my copy is No.399, with the Tom Gleave bookplate), identical information is also available in Crecy's 2001 edition (p/b) of the same title (pp.210-11):
APPENDIX III Highest-scoring RAF pilots who fought in Hurricanes (Solo victories only).
Those that claimed 15 or more aircraft are then listed, followed by:
The above figures, reflecting the claims by 55 of the RAF's 109 highest-scoring fighter pilots, total 1,044 enemy aircraft claimed shot down, of which 759 (72.7 per cent) were claimed by Hurricane pilots, 161 (15.4 per cent) by Spitfire pilots and 124 (11.9 per cent) by pilots of other fighter aircraft. Compared with the claims recorded in 11,400 traceable air-to-air combat reports (Forms 1151), covering all RAF fighter pilots' claims, 55 per cent were by Hurricane pilots , 33 per cent by Spitfire pilots and 12 per cent by pilots of other fighters. If claims by bomber crews are taken into account the figures are modified to become 51.5, 30.5 and 11.0 per cent respectively, with 7 per cent claimed by the bomber crews.
Col.