P/O John Haviland and his Hurricanes

Hi Mark V,

Thanks for the information. Now that would be an amazing treat to have two Hurricanes at Oshkosh 2008 (NX96RW might also be there in 2008)!

Where will this Hurricane be based when it’s finished?

The painting was finished in July and the aircraft arrived back at her home in Virginia Beach, VA, (USA) on 3rd August. Hopefully she will make it to Oshkosh next year.

Where will this Hurricane be based when it’s finished?

Finished result

A couple of shots courtesy of Sky Harbour Aircraft:

Should be finished and ready to roll out today/Friday!

And the picture wot I drew 🙂

Well the aircraft is now in the paint shop in Goderich, Ontario – and around half way through the re-paint. She is in the good hands of Sky Harbour who are carrying out the work in conjunction with Warbird Colour Services. I will be there to work with Sky Harbour on the detailed markings and stencils once the main camouflage colours are on next week.

I will see if I can get some progress pictures posted in the meantime.

Hope it’s useful for you.

That, my friend, is an understatement! Thank you so much for your help so far 🙂

PS: PM sent – please contact me by e-mail!

Here is P3320 mentioned by VoyTech.

[ATTACH]148769[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH]148770[/ATTACH]

I just discovered my old notes from one of the first visits to National Archives (then Public Record Office) and I am sure that code letter O for V6793 was found in 151 Sqn ORB. I have listed several serial numbers connected to code letters.

There were:
V6955 – M
V3515 – V
V6543 – I
V6931 – D
V6934 – Y
V7222 – X
L1750 – L
V3650 – H
P3813 – L
V7647 – F
V7234 – Q
V7286 – J
V6793 – O

Hope it’s useful for you.

I presume you misspelled the serial here?

I certainly did! 😮 It should have been V6934 (now corrected). Thanks again for the extra info 🙂

The tie-ups we have so far are:

DZ-B (P3304)
DZ-D (V6931)
DZ-E (L1754)
DZ-O (V6793)
DZ-R (V7434)
DZ-Y (P3320, V6934)
DZ-Z (L1750)

Any more info greatly appreciated!

He did fly V7434 (a later DZ-Y) though.

I presume you misspelled the serial here? V7434 seems to have been DZ-R in a well known photo.

It would still be helpful to see a photo of P3320 (I have seen the other photo).

I don’t have a scan at hand, but you can find it in “Poles in Defence of Britain”, if you can access the book.

Has he flown P3320 DZ-Y or V7434 DZ-R? Photos of both are known.

Thanks but sadly he flew neither of these. He did fly V6934 (a later DZ-Y) though. It would still be helpful to see a photo of P3320 (I have seen the other photo).

At the moment its looking like favouring DZ-O, we just need something to verify the code/serial tie-up.

Has he flown P3320 DZ-Y or V7434 DZ-R? Photos of both are known.

I have code letters DZ-O for V6793. This aircraft was flown once by Sgt Henryk Skowron on 20 October 1940.

Thats very helpful indeed – thank you! Haviland flew this aircraft in action at the end of September 1940 and during October (but not 20th), including 18th October, nine flights in all.

I do not know how come, but in my records of Polish-manned Hawker Hurricanes I have code letters DZ-O for V6793. This aircraft was flown once by Sgt Henryk Skowron on 20 October 1940.

We have now discovered that he flew a very famous Hurricane indeed….. V7467. No prizes for guessing who was the ‘owner’ of that one. Haviland flew it three times and was obviously very careful indeed to bring it back in one piece!

The analysis of the logbook over the period in question (late September ’40 to February/March ’41) produced interesting results: 79 Hurricane flights, 24 different Hurricanes, mainly only one or two flights a day but one exceptional day in October with five sorties. Strangely, out of the 24, only two of them were used by Haviland with any regularity (12 or 13 times each). All the others were two or three flights on each. There must have been quite a turnover of aircraft in the squadron.

I can’t add any info, but great stuff on the repaint! I saw the Hurricane that I assume you’ll be repainting a few years ago, and nice as it is, it will really benefit from a new, accurate paint scheme!

Make sure you get the roundels right though, there are some real nit pickers out there. 😉

Well we are finaly getting somewhere. Looking in detail at the logbooks it appears Haviland flew the cannon armed L1750 several times in December 1940. I believe this aircraft was coded DZ-Z. This particular Hurricane was an historic machine, the first to be fitted with cannons (perhaps it was the first ever British fighter used in combat with cannons?). It was converted in May 1939 to carry the cannons in underwing pods (one weapon per wing) and later evaluated by 151 Sqdn during the Battle of Britain and was used to bring down a Do-17.

Just need a photo now and we are there!

Well unfortunately we are not really any further advanced on this yet and still need a code letter/serial tie up. We have discovered from his logbooks that Haviland also flew Hurricane V7496 a number of times, but again, no code letter is known for this aircraft.