The iconic Supermarine Spitfire is one of the best-known fighters in history. It was a fast, agile fighter and one of the most famous fighters of WW2. It first flew in 1936 and was used by the RAF during the Battle of Britain. With a top speed of over 400 mph, it was also used by the RAF throughout the war and by many other Allied countries as well.
The Hawker Hurricane instead is a British single-seat fighter aircraft that was designed and predominantly built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd for the Royal Air Force (RAF). The Hurricane was first flown in 1935, and it entered service with the RAF the following year.
There are many factors that make the Hawker Hurricane one of the most important aircraft to serve during the Battle of Britain. First, it made up 60% of RAF fighters at the start of the battle in July 1940. Second, a total of 14,533 Hurricanes were built by various manufacturers over nine years from 1936 to 1945 to meet demand from all branches of Britain’s armed forces. Third, they were used in a wide variety of roles besides aerial defense—ground attack, interceptor, and reconnaissance missions were commonplace for this plane.
During combat trials, the Hurricane demonstrated superiority over all contemporary enemy aircraft except for the Messerschmitt Bf 109E Luftwaffe fighter, and its performance exceeded other British or Allied types such as France’s Morane-Saulnier M.S.406 or America’s Curtiss P-40 Warhawk.
The Messerschmitt Bf 109E is another example, often known as the Me-109E or sometimes simply “Emil,” was a German fighter aircraft that first saw combat in the Spanish Civil War. It was used extensively during the Battle of Britain and was primarily tasked with defending against British bombers. The Me-109E had a top speed of around 350mph, but it wasn’t quite as maneuverable as the Spitfire; however, its 4x20mm cannons were more formidable than the Spitfire’s 2×7.7mm machine guns and 4×0.303in Browning machine guns.
The Messerschmitt Bf 110-C4, on the contrary, was a German aircraft that did not excel in close combat. This is because it was designed with long-range missions in mind and thus had great speed and was very well armed, but poor maneuverability. Due to its large size, it often required two crew members to work the cockpit. The two crew members were a pilot and a radio operator/gunner. The Bf 110-C4s were heavily armed with two fuselage-mounted 7.9 mm machine guns and four 20mm cannons mounted on the wings. They also had a bomb bay for carrying bombs for ground strikes or naval attacks as well as hardpoints under its wings for mounting external fuel tanks or bombs.
While the battle raged above, in places like the airfields of East Grinstead and North Weald, the combat was taking place on three different fronts: the sky over London, deep within Nazi-controlled territory, and out at sea.
The aerial warfare of 1940 was breathtakingly technical. In addition to high-flying bombers and fighters that could outfly and outgun their foes, a host of other aircraft had been developed during World War I that were used as observation planes or troop carriers. They included biplanes like the Bristol Blenheim—used in both ground attack and bombing roles—and monoplane types such as the Handley Page Hampden (tanker/troop transport) and Armstrong Whitworth Whitley (transported troops). Still, others were variations on these types, including Fairey Battle (equipped with cannon), Lockheed Hudson (transported paratroopers), Vickers Wellington (landing craft), and Gloster Gladiator (bomber trainer), Avro Anson (cattle carrier). And this is only a partial list; there are several more examples to be found online.
The following list contains some of the most common aircraft used in the battle divided by nation.
On the British side: Spitfire, Hurricane, Defiant, Blenheim, Wellington, Hampden, Whitley, and Halifax.
On the German side: Messerschmitt 109E-4/Bf109E-4; Messerschmitt 110C-2/Bf110C-2; Junkers 88A-1/Ju88A-1; Dornier 17Z/ Do17Z; Heinkel 111H3/ Hs111H3.
The Battle of Britain may have been the first major defeat for Hitler’s Luftwaffe in World War II, but it left a lasting impression on the people of France and England that endures today. It was also the first time that aircraft were used so extensively in a military conflict, and planes like the Spitfire became instantly iconic thanks to their role in the war. Today, many of these historic aircraft are preserved at museums across Britain and France, in part as a reminder of a crucial chapter in World War II history. The Battle of Britain may have been waged before radar, GPS, and modern weaponry existed, but it proved that aerial warfare is no longer a game exclusively for experts – anyone can fight in any battle.
