Identity of Hurricane shot down about May, 1940, France?

[Larry Hickey]

Can anyone identify this Hurricane which appears to have crash-landed during the French Campaign. It appears to have an aircraft letter of "X" or "R?" It was sold on eBay last weekend to "sudek13."

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...e=STRK:MEDW:IT

Thanks,

Larry Hickey

[markjsheppard]

Larry

Unfortunately cannot make out the serial. could be P3300? although could not zoom in to read it.

Difficult task. About 200 Hurricanes were lost between 11May and 18th June and many of the record cards indicate France with no unit designation. This was the same problem I had with P3351 when I was researching it. It was listed with 73 Sqn from 18th June 1940 but actually joined the unit on the 2nd June 1940.

Could it br a K?

Nice photo though.

regards

Mark

[Larry]

I agree that it certainly looks like P3300, which was lost in France in 1940 without proper records showing its allocation to a Squadron. The second possibility is P3390 also 'lost in France May 1940'. It could have been P3320 but that Hurricane went on to serve in the FAA. All the other P33.. numbers show losses or SOC dates etc at different times.

P is the most likely first letter of the serial as N3300 was a Miles M.9 prototype followed by a batch of Defiants using N3306 etc and R3303 etc were Ansons. As the wings are not fabric its unlikely to be an L and anyway L3300 was in a batch of Hawker Henleys!

The code letter could be an R if you think that the top of the vertical gets wider on the right, where it would continue out to complete the loop of the letter. Its hard to say whether you can see more or the R through the ripped fabric. It could be K with a 'bent right leg' (similar to Russian style code letters carried by Hurricanes in Russia) but I am less convinced.

Note the variation to the fin stripes, which are post 1st May 1940 but of equal width, rather than having the red cover a large patch of the forward fin. These equal width stripes were also seen on Fairey Battles in France at the time.

[robert_schulte]

Originally Posted by Larry Hickey

Can anyone identify this Hurricane which appears to have crash-landed during the French Campaign. It appears to have an aircraft letter of "X" or "R?" It was sold on eBay last weekend to "sudek13."

Larry,
if this could be of any help, I could provide you with an email-address of the buyer, I sold her (!) some pictures last year. Perhaps she knows more about the photo.
Please contact me off-board if you like.
Regards
Robert