German Pilots Tested A Captured Hawker Hurricane... Their Verdict Stunned The Luftwaffe

What the Luftwaffe wrote in their official report after flying a captured Hawker Hurricane against their own Messerschmitt Bf 109 at Rechlin in August 1940. What they realised by the end of October. And why the gap between those two verdicts kept the German army out of England. In the weeks after Dunkirk, the Luftwaffe rolled at least three intact Hawker Hurricanes off French airfields and shipped them to Erprobungsstelle Rechlin, Germany's central aircraft test centre north of Berlin. There, Major Werner Mölders, commanding Jagdgeschwader 51 and the leading fighter pilot in Europe, flew the captured British aircraft against a Bf 109E in comparative trials. His verdict was confident. The Hurricane was "good-natured," he wrote, but "decidedly inferior" to the Me 109. The official Luftwaffe report was circulated to every German fighter and destroyer unit in France within weeks. On paper, Mölders was right. The Hurricane was slower than the 109, climbed worse, carried no cannon, and its carburettor cut out under negative g. And yet by the end of October 1940, that same despised aircraft had shot down 656 Luftwaffe machines, against 529 for the Spitfire. Roughly 60 percent of all Fighter Command victories. More than every other British defence combined. This is the story of how the most professional air force in Europe judged the Hawker Hurricane correctly on every individual measurement, and got the most important question completely wrong. The story of Sydney Camm, the Windsor carpenter's son who built an aircraft a country could afford to lose. Of James Brindley Nicolson VC, who climbed back into a burning Hurricane to shoot down an enemy fighter. Of Polish 303 Squadron, whose Hurricanes destroyed 126 German aircraft in 42 days. And of the gap between the verdict written at Rechlin in August and the Luftwaffe casualty returns by October. TOPICS COVERED IN THIS VIDEO → The August 1940 Rechlin comparative flight trials, Bf 109E flown against the captured Hurricane, captured Spitfire and Curtiss → Werner Mölders' personal verdict after flying the Hurricane → Oberst Josef "Beppo" Schmid and the Studie Blau intelligence failure of 16 July 1940 → Sydney Camm's design philosophy at Hawker and the choice of steel tubes and fabric over stressed-skin construction → The production economics: 10,300 man-hours per Hurricane versus 15,200 for the Spitfire, and 9-minute turnarounds versus 26 → Lord Beaverbrook, the Ministry of Aircraft Production and the British industrial advantage → Flight Lieutenant James Brindley Nicolson VC, the only Fighter Command Victoria Cross of the Second World War → Polish 303 Squadron, Sergeant Josef František and the highest-scoring squadron of the Battle → The 656 victories statistic and what it actually meant for the outcome of the Battle of Britain → Adolf Galland's "squadron of Spitfires" quote, what he actually wrote in The First and the Last, and why it has been misunderstood for eighty years MAJOR RESEARCH SOURCES → Stephen Bungay, The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain → James Holland, The Battle of Britain: Five Months That Changed History → Imperial War Museums archive records on Hurricane and Spitfire combat statistics → Royal Air Force Museum, Hendon, Battle of Britain exhibition and research portal → RAF Air Power Review, A Comparative Analysis of RAF and Luftwaffe Intelligence in the Battle of Britain → Werner Mölders, comparative trial quotes via Alfred Price, Spitfire Mark I and II Aces (Osprey) → Adolf Galland, Die Ersten und die Letzten (The First and the Last, 1953) → Peter Townsend, Duel of Eagles (1970) → The London Gazette, James Brindley Nicolson VC citation, 15 November 1940 → The Rechlin comparative trial report, Ob.d.L. Führungsstab Ia Nr. 8092/40, August 1940 FURTHER READING → Leo McKinstry, Hurricane: Victor of the Battle of Britain → Patrick Bishop, Fighter Boys: Saving Britain 1940 → Adam Zamoyski, The Forgotten Few: The Polish Air Force in the Second World War → Hans-Werner Lerche, Luftwaffe Test Pilot: Flying Captured Allied Aircraft → Len Deighton, Fighter: The True Story of the Battle of Britain → Richard Overy, The Battle of Britain: Myth and Reality → The Battle of Britain Memorial Trust, Capel-le-Ferne, Kent If your father, grandfather or great uncle served on a Hurricane squadron in 1940, or worked on a Hawker, Gloster or Canadian Car and Foundry production line, please share their name and unit in the comments. These stories are how the memory survives, and there are fewer and fewer voices left to tell them. Honour passes through naming. Historical documentary for educational purposes. Archival material is presented in its historical context. #BattleOfBritain #HawkerHurricane #BritishMilitaryHistory