Hawker Typhoon

The Hawker Typhoon began its RAF career as a troubled interceptor and ended it as one of the most effective ground-attack aircraft of the Second World War. Designed as a successor to the Hawker Hurricane and built around the powerful but unreliable Napier Sabre engine, the aircraft struggled through a difficult introduction marked by structural failures and carbon monoxide leaks into the cockpit. Once these problems were brought under control, the Typhoon’s exceptional low-level speed and heavy cannon armament made it the RAF’s answer to fast German fighter-bomber raids, and its later conversion to carry bombs and RP-3 rockets turned it into the mainstay of Allied tactical air power over Normandy and north-west Europe.

Flown by squadrons of the 2nd Tactical Air Force, Typhoons attacked German transport, strongpoints and armour in direct support of ground forces, using a system of standing patrols known as the cab rank. The aircraft’s reputation as a destroyer of tanks grew quickly among both Allied troops and German soldiers, though postwar examination of the battlefield told a more complicated story about what the Typhoon’s rockets actually achieved.

Design origins and a troubled introduction

Sydney Camm and the design team at Hawker Aircraft began work on a Hurricane successor in 1937, while Hurricane production was still under way. The Air Ministry’s Specification F.18/37, issued in March 1938, called for a fighter capable of exceeding 400 mph at 15,000 feet. To reduce the risk of relying on a single new engine, Hawker developed two parallel designs to meet it: one built around the Rolls-Royce Vulture, which became the Hawker Tornado, and one around the Napier Sabre, an ambitious 24-cylinder, H-block, liquid-cooled sleeve-valve engine promising more than 2,000 horsepower. The Vulture-powered Tornado flew first, in October 1939, but development of its engine was abandoned, leaving the Sabre-powered design, the Typhoon, as Hawker’s principal fighter project. Its prototype made its first flight on 24 February 1940.

Experience with the Hawker Hurricane fed directly into the new fighter’s construction, and the Hurricane remained in front-line service alongside it while the Typhoon slowly matured. That maturing process was slow and difficult. The Napier Sabre was still an experimental design when the Typhoon reached the RAF, and during early testing the engine’s unreliability was severe enough that aircraft could sometimes manage only a matter of hours in the air between overhauls. Production had already been committed in quantity by the time these problems became clear, and the Air Ministry judged it more practical to work through the aircraft’s faults than to abandon a fighter that was already reaching squadrons.

The Typhoon entered RAF service on 11 September 1941, initially with No. 56 Squadron, and its early career bore out those concerns. Pilots reported carbon monoxide fumes leaking into the cockpit through the engine bay, a hazard serious enough that lengthened exhaust stubs were fitted from November 1941 and pilots were required to wear oxygen from engine start to shutdown for the rest of the aircraft’s service life. Far more dangerous were a series of crashes caused by structural failure of the rear fuselage, usually during high-speed dives. Investigations focused on the rear-fuselage structure and elevator control and mass-balance arrangements, where vibration and flutter could contribute to catastrophic failures. Strengthening plates, internal modifications and control-system improvements were introduced, but losses and concerns continued after the first remedies. The problem was reduced through successive changes rather than eliminated by a single straightforward fix.

A low-level interceptor born of necessity

The Typhoon’s future looked doubtful until the Luftwaffe gave it a role no other RAF fighter could fill. From 1941, German fighter-bombers based in northern France flew fast, low-level “tip-and-run” raids against targets along the English south coast, using the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, an aircraft that could outrun and outclimb the Spitfires of the day close to the ground. The Typhoon’s exceptional speed at low altitude made it the aircraft best placed to intercept these raiders. Squadrons including No. 486 (New Zealand) Squadron flew standing patrols along the coast through 1942 and into 1943, claiming more than twenty German fighter-bombers destroyed in that period, in an aircraft that was still, at the same time, being fitted with structural reinforcements to keep it flying safely at all.

The Typhoon’s rounded cowling and wing shape bore an unfortunate resemblance to the Fw 190 from some angles, and several were shot down in error by Allied pilots and anti-aircraft gunners who mistook them for the enemy. The RAF’s response included distinctive black-and-white recognition stripes painted under the wings, intended to reduce mistaken identification. These Typhoon recognition markings preceded the much wider use of invasion stripes on Allied aircraft for the Normandy landings. Both reflected the danger of friendly fire and misidentification during intense operations.

Becoming a fighter-bomber

Even as it proved itself against low-level raiders, the Typhoon’s rugged airframe, four 20 mm Hispano cannon and useful load-carrying capacity pointed towards a different future. From late 1942, Typhoons began carrying bomb racks under each wing, and the type earned the nickname “Bombphoon” in the press. Nos. 181 and 182 Squadrons became the first units to operate bomb-equipped Typhoons, that September, and by the middle of 1943 bomb racks were standard on all production aircraft, typically carrying two 500 lb bombs, later increased to 1,000 lb bombs. The change gave Fighter Command, and later the 2nd Tactical Air Force, an aircraft that could fly fast at low level, defend itself with heavy cannon fire if intercepted, and still strike a target with a useful bomb load, a combination few other Allied fighters of the period could match.

Bombs and RP-3 rockets

The Typhoon’s transformation into a dedicated ground-attack aircraft was completed by the addition of RP-3 rockets. The Typhoon typically carried eight unguided RP-3 rockets beneath the wings, with the 60 lb warhead becoming a standard choice for ground attack. Fired from rails and aimed by the pilot in a dive, the rockets delivered a heavy weight of fire but demanded careful judgement to achieve useful accuracy. Trials through 1943 proved the combination of speed, stability and firepower well suited to this kind of attack, and No. 181 Squadron made the type’s first operational rocket attack in October 1943, against a target on the French coast. From then on, Typhoon squadrons could be equipped with eight RP-3 rockets in place of bombs, alongside their four cannon, giving pilots a choice of weapons for each mission depending on the nature of the target.

Normandy, the 2nd Tactical Air Force and the cab rank

By June 1944, Typhoon squadrons formed a central part of the RAF’s 2nd Tactical Air Force, the organisation built to provide direct air support to the invading Allied armies. By D-Day the RAF had 26 Typhoon-equipped squadrons, although they did not all carry rockets or perform identical tasks. Eighteen rocket-equipped Typhoon squadrons deployed after D-Day, distinct from the 26 Typhoon-equipped squadrons recorded by D-Day. Typhoons struck roads, railways, bridges, troop concentrations, gun positions and armoured columns in support of ground forces below. In the days after the landings, that support extended to almost every part of the German defensive effort in Normandy, from reinforcements moving up to the front to the armoured counterattacks the German army launched against the expanding Allied beachhead.

Close support depended on the cab rank system. Typhoons flew standing patrols over the battlefield, orbiting until a forward air controller travelling with the army and equipped with VHF radio called up a strike against a target marked, usually with smoke shells, from the ground. The system let commanders bring air power onto German positions within minutes of a request, and it became one of the defining features of Allied tactical air support in north-west Europe. As the front moved beyond Normandy, Typhoons went on to support the advance through France and the Low Countries, including the effort to help the 1st Airborne Division at Arnhem during Operation Market Garden in September 1944, though poor autumn weather often limited how much air support could reach the battlefield that month. The aircraft flew again in the Ardennes once weather permitted during the German counteroffensive of December 1944 and January 1945, and continued operating in direct support of the advancing armies into Germany itself in the war’s final months.

Effectiveness and the tank-killing myth

No aspect of the Typhoon’s record has been argued over more than its success against German armour. Pilots and their commanders believed, and reported at the time, that rocket-firing Typhoons were destroying German tanks in large numbers, and both Allied troops and German soldiers came to regard the aircraft with something close to dread.

Postwar battlefield surveys told a more complicated story. The often-cited Mortain investigation attributed a minority of the German tank losses it examined to air attack, far fewer than the claims made during the fighting. Such surveys were retrospective assessments of identifiable wrecks and losses; they cannot measure every effect of air attack on movement, supply, crew decisions or abandoned equipment. Similar surveys of vehicles in the Falaise pocket reached comparable conclusions: many tanks credited to Typhoons in the heat of battle had in fact been abandoned undamaged, destroyed by ground fire, or claimed more than once by different pilots attacking the same target.

The Typhoon’s cannon fire remained highly effective against soft-skinned transport, fuel bowsers and ammunition trucks, and the psychological effect of a rocket and cannon attack, on troops as much as on vehicles, was considerable. German columns caught in the open often abandoned equipment and scattered under attack, whether or not the vehicles themselves were destroyed. The Typhoon’s real achievement at Mortain, Falaise and elsewhere lay less in the number of tanks it destroyed outright and more in the disruption it inflicted on German movement, resupply and morale, at a moment when the German army in Normandy could least afford any of them.

Cockpit, airframe and reconnaissance developments

Early production Typhoons had a framed, side-opening cockpit arrangement commonly described as the car-door canopy, with a relatively restricted rearward view. Later production aircraft received a clear sliding bubble canopy, improving visibility in combat and during low-level operations. Further changes included a four-blade propeller and enlarged tailplane on later aircraft, although modifications were introduced progressively rather than as one universal new standard. The Typhoon IA carried twelve .303-inch machine guns, while the Typhoon IB used four 20 mm Hispano cannon and became the dominant production version. Approximately 60 Typhoon IBs were converted for photographic reconnaissance as the FR.IB. Vibration impaired image quality, and the variant was withdrawn by January 1945. A single Typhoon, R7881, was experimentally converted into a radar-equipped NF.IB night fighter, without entering operational production. Five aircraft were also modified for tropical trials.

Final operations and legacy

Typhoon squadrons continued flying in direct support of the advancing Allied armies through the closing months of the war in Europe, operating over the Low Countries and into Germany itself, and remaining exposed throughout to the light flak that accounted for most Typhoon losses. RAF service ended in October 1945, by which time 3,317 Typhoons had been built, including two prototypes and 3,315 production aircraft, almost all produced by the Gloster Aircraft Company.

The Typhoon’s difficult early career shaped its successor directly. Lessons learned from its structural and aerodynamic problems fed into the Hawker Tempest, which addressed the Typhoon’s handling limitations with a new, thinner wing while keeping much of its firepower, and which took over front-line fighter duties as Typhoon squadrons concentrated on ground attack. Most Typhoons were scrapped quickly once the war ended, and today a single complete example survives, held by the Royal Air Force Museum. It stands as a reminder of an aircraft that overcame one of the most troubled introductions of any RAF fighter to become indispensable to the campaign that liberated north-west Europe.