Sir Sydney Camm CBE, FRAeS, 1893 - 1966

Introduction

Sir Sydney Camm, CBE, FRAeS, is what this site and its members is all about. He was born on the 5th August 1893 in Royal Windsor, at 10, Alma Road, the eldest of twelve children. He was educated at the Royal Free School, and left in 1908 at the age of fourteen years. He was inspired by the work of the Wright Brothers and the work of Tom Sopwith and Gustav Hamel. Sydney developed his interest in aviation from a very early age. His interest being further developed with his membership to the Windsor Model Aeroplane Club. His accomplishments as a model aircraft designer and builder saw the development of a man-carrying glider, which he together with other members of the club built in 1912. The photo at the right, Brooklands Museum Archive courtesy of BAe Systems, was taken at the Windsor Model Aero Club, some time in the 1920s.

A Career in Aviation

Sydney Camm joined the Hawker Aircraft Company, which was much later to eventually become Hawker Siddeley, as a draughtsman during 1923. Only two years later in 1925 he was appointed Chief Designer. He together with other members of the design team was responsible for the design of many of the early Hawker biplane trainers and fighters, the beautiful biplanes of the 1930's. These were the Hawker Tomtit, Cygnet, Hornbill, Nimrod, Hart, Audax, Demon and Fury fighter, bomber, army co-operation, naval and trainer aircraft that would take the Royal Air Force to the Second World War.

The War Years.

By 1939, it soon became apparent that Germany under the leadership of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party was again looking towards another war and world domination. In secret after the Versailles Treaty, they trained pilots to fly new fighter aircraft like the Messerschmitt Bf109 and the Heinkel and Dornier bombers which where being built. A new Army and Airborne assault force, was waiting poised to strike out across Europe, with one aim in mind, to defeat humiliate and occupy, in the name of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. Back home in England we knew that war was inevitable, it was then a simple case of — had we time to prepare for it? Camm had started work on the design of an eight gun monoplane fighter in the early thirties. The prototype Hurricane as it was to be named structurally completed at Canbury Park Road, Kingston, by August of 1935. Using the tried and proven biplane technology, Camm's Hurricane comprised of a centre tubular framing held together with steel fishplates, which were braced with stainless steel wires. Onto which wooden formers and stringers were fixed to form the shape. From behind the pilot to the tail this was the main construction method, being finished off with a covering of Irish linen. Early Hurricanes had fabric wings, which later were replaced with metal, which were 70 lbs lighter!. The undercarriage was strong and retracted inwards. The hydraulic power for both undercarriage and flaps was provided by engine powered pump. The brakes were pneumatically operated by a lever on the pilots control column. The finishing off of the Hawker Hurricane was down to Mr. Rolls and Mr. Royce with their development of a new 12 cylinder 1000 h.p. V configuration liquid cooled engine, the PV.12., which would later become the Rolls Royce Merlin.

The prototype Hurricane K5083 first flew from Brooklands, on the 6th November 1935, some four months ahead of Mitchell's Spitfire. Camm's design was approved by the Air Ministry and an initial order for 1000 airframes placed in April 1936. The first production Hurricane was L1547, which flew on the 12th October 1937. Delivery to the Royal Air Force began two months later in December and the first RAF Squadron to receive the Hurricane was 111 (F) in January 1938. The Squadron under the command of S/Ldr. John Gillan, who was to make a flight from Edinburgh to Northolt, breaking the air speed record with a speed of 408.75 mph, which earned him the nickname of "Downwind Gillan". By the outbreak of the Second World War, the Royal Air Force had received about 500 Hurricanes from both Kingston and Brooklands. These were later reinforced by other airframes coming from Langley and from Gloster at Hucclecote. By the first ten months of the war 1,350 Hurricanes had been delivered to the Royal Air Force. The Hawker Hurricane was sent to France, and flying from grass strips with untried pilots at her controls, they took off time and time again to try and halt the Nazi Blitzkrieg that was by now tearing across Europe into France. Without the luxury of radar, the RAF met the enemy where and when they could. The Hurricane proved she was a thoroughbred and was more than a match for the German bombers and fighters. But together with the French the attrition rate was high on pilots. The German pilots had experience, where many of the RAF pilots were Auxiliaries, weekend flyers with little experience. Yes they learned quickly, but the price in pilots in between was high. As the Nazi War Machine pushed the British Expeditionary Force and the Royal Air Force back towards the French Coast, Sir Winston Churchill made one of the first of his famous speeches. "What General Weygand called the Battle of France… is over. The Battle of Britain is about to begin". As the Royal Air Force licked its wounds and retreated back across the Channel, it had already lost approximately 400 Hurricanes.

The Battle of Britain.

By the time the Battle of Britain began, now recognised as being the 10th July 1940, Fighter Command had repaired some of the damage, new pilots, new Hurricanes and Spitfires as well as two Squadron's of Defiant fighters. But their secret weapon was radar — radar that would tell the Fighter Squadrons exactly where and how many of the enemy were forming up across the channel. So at the very last moment to conserve time and fuel, the airfield controllers could vector their Squadron's to exactly where the enemy formations would cross the coast. The Camm Hawker Hurricane is on record as the Fighter which shot down more enemy aircraft during the Battle of Britain than all the other air and land defences combined. It has long been said that the Hurricanes dealt with the bombers whilst the more agile Spitfire took on the German Fighters. The number of Hurricane 'aces' destroys that theory. What she lacked in speed she made up for in manoeuvrability, she was tighter in the turn. She had a better more stable gun platform than her stable mate the Spitfire. It is true that there were thirty two Hurricane Squadrons as opposed to only twenty two Spitfire Squadrons. But one of the Hurricanes winning features was its ability to be repaired and turned round for operational use far quicker than the Spitfire. (See also first item of the Magazine Page).

To be continued...

Trevor Williams, September 2009