Alex
As far as I know Hawker records 20 aircraft DELIVERED to Belgium all diverted from a RAF contract. What happened to those five never put in service is so far unknown. They did NOT enter RAF service UNLESS of course they returned through some unknown back door and entered RAF service under different serial numbers! Nothin as far as I know indicate this. It has always been assumed that the Belgian Hurricanes received their own serials in RAF serial order simply because the earliest Hurricanes were delivered first and so on. Since one photo exists of a Belgian marked aeroplane before delivery it has been assumed the serials were factory painted in England. (see also further down in my e-mail). As far as I know there is however no written proof that Belgian serials matches the former RAF serials in such an order... !!
Of course one of the main problems is that Belgian military records BEFORE WW 2 are very much incomplete and there remains many questions to be answered. At this stage I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the Belgian statement that only 15 Hurricanes entered service. As of course you are aware there are many explanations circulating such as the Belgian Hurricanes never were delivered as 1 - 20 at all but in fact as H15 to H34 (Reason for this is the existance of a photo taken of H19 before delivery) and that no re-serialling took place. Others claim that H19 is a mis-painting and actually was H20.... My own belief is that the British records probably only recorded Belgian Hurricane number one, number two etc, that is a sort of running number and not a serial at all. My own belief is also that Britain DID supply Belgium with 20 Hurricanes. As far as I know there is NO correspondance in Britain anywhere which deals with complaints from any Belgian authority that 5 Hurricanes are missing from their order etc etc. To my mind at least SOME correspondance should remain somewhere if that was the case!! So why the five missing Hurricanes did not enter service with AeM has to be found in Belgium and not in Britain.
However the above clearly shows the unfortunate state Belgian records are to be found. Presumably large quantities of records were hastily destroyed upon the arrival of the Germans so we will probably never get a satisfactory answer to this problem.
One other thing which is interesting is that the FIRST Fairey/SABCA built Hurricane was serialled H42 (H-10042 with tiny digits on the fuselage side)
H43 was also flown before the German onslaught. Feels strange to begin with H42 and not 41? Another anomaly is that the first four interned Hurricanes were serialled H35, H37, H38 and H39. What happened to H36?
Was that a Hurricane that NOT quite made it??
The final impressed Hurricane is reported to be H45. Even more strange since THAT puts it right in the middle of the Fairey/SABCA built batch...
But I guess that was about the last the Belgians were concerned about at that stage, historic logic...
Cheers
Stig