German Pilots Tested Britain's Captured Hawker Typhoon... Their Verdict Alarmed The Luftwaffe

The Hawker Typhoon began as one of the most troubled aircraft programmes in British aviation history, and finished as the most effective ground attack machine of the Normandy campaign. This documentary examines the engineering, the doctrine and the captured airframe that the Luftwaffe repaired, repainted in German markings and toured around its own fighter squadrons in order to work out how to counter it. Full narration, verified sources, no speculation presented as fact. --------------------------------------- WHAT THIS DOCUMENTARY COVERS Why the Typhoon was very nearly cancelled in 1942, and who argued to keep it The Napier Sabre engine, sleeve valve manufacturing failure, and how Bristol solved it Structural failure at the rear fuselage transport joint, and the fishplate modification Wing Commander Roland Beamont and the January 1943 decision to change the aircraft's role The 3 inch rocket projectile with the 60 lb head, and what it could and could not do Four 20 mm Hispano cannon and their real effectiveness against transport The cab rank system, the Visual Control Post, and the forward air controller on the ground 2nd Tactical Air Force organisation across 83 Group and 84 Group The Battle of Mortain, 7 August 1944, and the counterattack toward Avranches The Falaise pocket and the collapse of German mobility in daylight Why German close air support doctrine structurally could not copy the British method --------------------------------------- THE CAPTURED AIRFRAME Typhoon EJ956, No. 486 New Zealand Squadron, squadron code SA-I Forced down largely intact on the French coast near Fecamp, March 1943 Repaired by the Luftwaffe and evaluated at Rechlin, the German national flight test centre Operated by Zirkus Rosarius under Hauptmann Theodor Rosarius, coded T9+GK Written off in a forced landing near Meckelfeld, south of Hamburg, 10 August 1944 A second captured Typhoon, JP548, carried the same code and is frequently confused with it --------------------------------------- THE VERIFIED NUMBERS 294 Typhoon sorties flown against the Mortain area on 7 August 1944 2,088 rockets and 80 tons of bombs expended that day Around 177 German tanks and assault guns committed to the counterattack Just under 200,000 rockets fired by Typhoon squadrons over the course of the campaign Roughly 3,300 Typhoons built, the overwhelming majority by Gloster 26 squadrons operated the type across the Normandy campaign Of 385 armoured vehicles surveyed in the Falaise pocket, 14 were destroyed by rockets 71 percent of those vehicles were abandoned or disabled by their own crews --------------------------------------- MAJOR RESEARCH SOURCES Air Historical Branch, AP 3235, Air Support, Air Ministry, 1955 No. 2 Tactical Air Force Operational Research Section, Report No. 4, Mortain survey RAF Bombing Analysis Report No. 44, The German Retreat Across the Seine, August 1944 Official despatch of Air Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham, Public Record Office AIR 37/876 RAF Tactical Bulletin No. 45 Doctor Alfred Price, The Rocket Firing Typhoons in Normandy, Air Power Review, RAF Centre for Air and Space Power Studies Imperial War Museums collections and oral history archive The National Archives, Kew Royal Air Force Museum --------------------------------------- FURTHER READING Chris Thomas and Christopher Shores, The Typhoon and Tempest Story Chris Thomas, Typhoon Wings of 2nd TAF 1943 to 1945, Osprey Desmond Scott, Typhoon Pilot Roland Beamont, My Part of the Sky Hans Werner Lerche, Luftwaffe Test Pilot, Flying Captured Allied Aircraft of World War 2 Paul Sortehaug, The Wild Winds, The History of Number 486 RNZAF Fighter Squadron Ian Gooderson, Air Power at the Battlefront, Allied Close Air Support in Europe 1943 to 1945 J. Richard Smith, Eddie Creek and Peter Petrick, Geheimfluge, captured aircraft in Luftwaffe service Michael Reynolds, Steel Inferno --------------------------------------- A NOTE ON ACCURACY The cold open character is a composite, and this is stated openly within the narration. Every name, date, unit, serial number and statistic on the spine of the story is drawn from the sources listed above. Where the record is contested, such as the exact date of the EJ956 forced landing, the documentary says so rather than choosing the tidier version. --------------------------------------- ABOUT BRITISH BASTION British Bastion produces long form documentary history on British engineering, intelligence and military doctrine, from the Battle of Britain and Bletchley Park to the Royal Navy, Bomber Command and the Falklands. If a relative of yours served with the Second Tactical Air Force or with a Typhoon squadron, their name and unit are welcome in the comments. Subscribe for the next chapter. #HawkerTyphoon #RAF #MilitaryHistory #Normandy1944 #AviationHistory