Honestly, if you ask a casual aviation buff about the best fighters of World War II, you’re going to hear a lot about the P-51 Mustang or maybe the Spitfire. The Curtiss P-36 Hawk? It usually doesn't even make the top ten list. People tend to look at it as just the "older, slower brother" of the P-40 Warhawk.
That’s a mistake.
The P-36 was actually a revolutionary piece of technology when it first hit the scene in the mid-1930s. It was the bridge between the old-school fabric biplanes and the sleek, metal monsters that would eventually dominate the skies. It wasn't just a placeholder. It was a dogfighting machine that, in the right hands, absolutely wrecked supposedly superior German and Soviet aircraft.
Why the P-36 Hawk was actually a big deal
Back in 1934, most air forces were still messing around with wood and string. Don R. Berlin, an engineer who had come over from Northrop, decided to change that. He designed the Curtiss Model 75 as a private venture. He wanted something fast, all-metal, and modern.
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It had a retractable undercarriage that was kind of weird—the wheels rotated 90 degrees to lay flat in the wing. Curtiss actually had to pay royalties to Boeing to use that specific patent. But it worked. The plane was incredibly agile. Pilots who flew it often raved about how "harmonized" the controls felt.
The engine problem
The biggest gripe anyone had with the P-36 was the engine. Early versions used the Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp radial. While it was reliable, it didn't have a high-altitude supercharger.
Basically, the higher you went, the more the Hawk gasped for air.
At 10,000 feet, you were doing okay. At 20,000 feet? You were a sitting duck for a Messerschmitt Bf 109. This is why the US Army Air Corps eventually got bored with it and asked for the P-40, which was basically just a P-36 with a long, pointy Allison V-12 engine stuffed into the nose.
The French Connection: Where the Hawk truly shined
While the Americans were using the P-36 for training, the French were desperate. They saw war coming with Germany and realized their own planes were... well, not great. They ordered hundreds of the export version, known as the Hawk 75.
The French Air Force (Armée de l'Air) loved this plane.
When the Blitzkrieg hit in 1940, the Hawk 75 was the most successful fighter in the French inventory. Check this out: even though the Hawks made up only about 12% of the French fighter force, they were credited with nearly a third of all German planes shot down during the Battle of France.
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- French Victories: 230 confirmed kills.
- French Losses: Only 29 aircraft lost in combat.
That is an insane kill-to-loss ratio for a plane that was supposedly "obsolete." French pilots like Edmond Marin la Meslée became aces in the Hawk, proving that maneuverability often beats raw speed in a low-altitude scrap.
The pajama pilot of Pearl Harbor
You’ve probably seen the movies where only P-40s get into the air at Pearl Harbor. That's a Hollywood myth. On December 7, 1941, five Curtiss P-36 Hawks from the 15th Pursuit Group actually managed to claw their way into the sky from Wheeler Field.
One of the most famous stories involves 2nd Lt. Philip Rasmussen.
He didn't have time to get dressed. He literally jumped into his P-36 wearing his purple silk pajamas. While the Japanese Zeros were strafing the runways, he took off and engaged a group of Aichi D3A "Val" dive bombers.
His plane got absolutely shredded.
A Zero jumped on his tail and chewed through his canopy. Two cannon shells hit the radio right behind his head, which basically acted as improvised armor and saved his life. When he finally landed, mechanics counted over 500 bullet holes in his aircraft. The P-36 might have been slow, but it was built like a brick outhouse.
The Finnish "War within a War"
If you want to see where the P-36 really cemented its legend, you have to look at Finland. After France fell, Germany captured a bunch of Hawk 75s. They didn't want them, so they sold them to the Finns, who were busy fighting the Soviet Union.
The Finnish pilots were masters of the Hawk.
They called it the "Sussu" (Sweetheart). Between 1941 and 1944, Finnish P-36s claimed 190 kills against Soviet aircraft while losing only 15 of their own. That's a 12-to-1 ratio. Legendary Finnish ace Kyösti Karhila scored 13 of his 32 victories in a Hawk.
It turns out that in the cold, low-altitude dogfights over the Finnish forests, the Hawk's ability to turn on a dime was way more important than having the latest turbo-supercharger.
Technical specs at a glance
If you're a numbers person, here is what the P-36A was packing under the hood:
- Top Speed: Around 313 mph (504 km/h) at 10,000 feet.
- Armament: Usually one .50 caliber and one .30 caliber machine gun in the nose. (French versions often had four or six 7.5mm guns).
- Range: About 825 miles.
- Weight: 4,555 lbs empty.
It wasn't a heavy hitter. The armament was actually pretty weak compared to the eight-gun Hurricanes or the cannon-armed Bf 109s. Pilots often had to get dangerously close to the enemy to do any real damage.
What happened to them?
By 1943, the P-36 was pretty much done as a front-line fighter for the major powers. The British used them (calling them the Mohawk) in Burma and India because they didn't have anything else. They were great for ground attack and fighting the Japanese Oscar, which was another lightweight maneuverability king.
Surprisingly, the Hawk stayed in service in some parts of the world for a long time. Argentina was still flying them in the 1950s.
Today, seeing one in the air is like finding a unicorn. Only two or three are actually airworthy in the entire world. One of the best-known survivors is at the National Museum of the USAF in Ohio—it’s the very first P-36A delivered to the Army.
Actionable insights for history buffs
If you’re looking to learn more or even see these things in person, here is how you can actually engage with the history of the Curtiss P-36 Hawk:
- Visit the Museums: If you're in the US, head to the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. They have a pristine P-36A. In the UK, The Fighter Collection at Duxford occasionally flies a Hawk 75A-1 in French colors.
- Simulation Training: If you’re a gamer, planes like the P-36 are featured heavily in War Thunder and IL-2 Sturmovik. Flying them there gives you a real sense of why that low wing loading made them so dangerous in a turn.
- Read the Primary Sources: Look for the memoirs of French or Finnish pilots from 1940-1942. Their accounts of fighting the Luftwaffe in "obsolete" American planes are some of the most underrated stories of the war.
The P-36 wasn't the plane that won the war, but it was the plane that didn't know when to quit. It fought for the Allies, it fought for the Axis (via Finland), and it even fought against itself when Vichy French Hawks engaged American Wildcats during Operation Torch in North Africa. It’s a messy, complicated, and surprisingly successful piece of aviation history that deserves way more respect than it usually gets.
To get a true feel for the era, look up footage of the P-36's unique landing gear sequence; it's a fascinating look at 1930s mechanical engineering that you won't see on any other fighter of the period.