The unsung plane that REALLY won the Battle of Britain. By. Leo Mckinstry for Mail. Online. Updated. 0. BST, 1. 0 July 2. The scene is still one of the most evocative in this island's history: dashing young pilots in their fighter planes, defying the odds as they speed across blue summer skies towards the intruder above southern England. Watch The Angels` Share Online Gorillavid.

A German aircraft goes into an uncontrollable spin, smoke pouring from its bullet- riddled engine as it plunges to earth. At an RAF station on the ground, the mellifluous voice of Vera Lynn wafts from a nearby wireless.

From the House of Commons chamber, Winston Churchill's whisky- soaked growl rouses a nation to resistance at its moment of darkest peril. Old reliable: This restored Hawker Hurricane shows the classic fighter plane in all its glory.

Seventy years on, the Battle of Britain continues to have such resonance because the campaign so magnificently fused an epic quality with a moral purpose. It represented the classic fight between good and evil; between freedom and tyranny. It was the ancient myth of St George slaying the Dragon made real. The Arthurian legend translated into the modern world, with the Knights of the Round Table cast as the selfless- RAF pilots and the sword of Excalibur as the fighter force. Yet, for all this heroic glory, a sad injustice hangs over the battle. For the summer of 1.

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Supermarine Spitfire, the single- engined RAF plane which became the most potent symbol of Britain's fight against German subjugation. The very name Spitfire is now synonymous with victory in the air. But this is a travesty of what really happened in the crucial months of 1. A dogfight for credit: The Supermarine Spitfire was faster in the skies, but much slower to produce in the factories, which meant there were less of them in the air. For the RAF aircraft which actually won the Battle of Britain was an older, larger, slower but still deadly fighter, the Hawker Hurricane. Without the Hurricane, the RAF would have probably lost the Battle of Britain, because there were simply not enough Spitfires emerging from the aircraft factories and into the squadrons. In the national struggle for survival, the Hurricane dominated the front line.

When Churchill made his famous tribute to the men of the RAF in August 1. Parliament that 'never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few', it was the Hurricane units that deserved the lion's share of the Prime Minister's accolade.

On the eve of the Battle of Britain in early July 1. Fighter Command's operational force throughout the United Kingdom was made up of 2. Hurricanes and 1. Spitfires, proportions that were to remain the same throughout the coming months. The overall distribution between the two fighters was largely reflected in German losses.

According to the Air Ministry's own figures, for every two Luftwaffe planes brought down by the Spitfires, three were shot down by Hurricanes. Watch The Family Man Putlocker. Enemy destroyer: Even though the Hurricane shot down three German planes for every two by Spitfire, Germans considered it a slight on their honour to be downed by a Hurricane'It was the aircraft for the right season. It came at a time when it literally saved the country and it performed magnificently,' said Eric 'Winkle' Brown, the renowned test pilot.

The Suez War Land Forces of Britain, the Empire, and Commonwealth. India Herge & Tintin Heraldry and Vexillology Page Military forces of Britain, the Empire, and. The unsung plane that REALLY won the Battle of Britain: The Hawker Hurricane gets its rightful place in history. By Leo Mckinstry for MailOnline.

Despite tributes such as this, the Hurricane never received the credit it deserved. A graphic indicator of this indifference could be seen in the mass flypast over London in September 1. Battle of Britain. Astonishingly, not a single Hurricane was included in the RAF's formation. Even during the war, the plane's record was ignored, its achievements belittled.

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After the defeat of the Luftwaffe, the air industry magazine Flight commented in September 1. Spitfire, the Hurricane was 'equally remarkable in its own particular way', but had received 'far less than its due attention from a somewhat fickle public'. Together: A Spitfire, in the foreground, flies with a Hurricane. This was partly a result of wartime propaganda, as the Government exploited the image of the Spitfire to boost morale. Tellingly, the official campaign of 1.

Spitfire Fund'. When a group of citizens in North London tried to set up a 'Hurricane Fund', they encountered only widespread indifference and even ignorance about the plane. Further lustre was added to the Spitfire's reputation by newsreels, articles and films such as The First Of The Few, the 1. Leslie Howard played the part of the plane's designer, Reginald Mitchell. Nor can it be denied that the Spitfire, with its intrinsic elegance, had greater aesthetic appeal than the more solid Hurricane, which had much thicker wings. Moreover, the Spitfire was a faster plane, enjoying a superiority of 3. Made of different stuff: This wrecked Hurricane shell shows the mix of materials that made its design so different to the Spitfire. It exuded sleek modernity, while the heavier Hurricane evoked the past, not least in the structure of its airframe which owed its origins to the Hawker biplanes of the late 1.

Throughout its life, in contrast to the all- metal Spitfire, the Hurricane's fuselage was built partly of wood and fabric. So strong was the bias against the Hurricane that a form of Spitfire snobbery arose during the Battle of Britain, where victories by the Hawker planes were falsely attributed to the more glamorous Spitfire fighters. Hurricane pilot Tom Neil of 2. Squadron recalled going to a cinema in Leeds to see a newsreel report of an encounter in which one of his sections had shot down a Junkers Ju. Yorkshire coast. 'The British Movietone News commentator credited the Spitfire with shooting down the German aircraft, producing whoops of disbelief and annoyance,' he said. The Spitfire snobbery even extended to German airmen, some of whom seemed to regard the idea of being shot down by a Hurricane as an insult to their honour.

Cultural icon: The Spitfire continues to inspire young people today but the Hurricane might have occupied an equal or even superior footing had its illustrious history not been airbrushed by the RAFOne Hurricane pilot, Eric Seabourne, ended up in a hospital in Portsmouth after he had been badly injured in a dogfight. In the bed next to him was a German pilot. He had been shot down by a Hurricane, which he thought much below his dignity. If it had been a Spitfire, it would have been OK - but not a Hurricane,' recalled Seabourne.

This complacent, dismissive judgment was one of the prime reasons that the Germans lost the Battle of Britain, for they badly underestimated the fighting qualities of the Hawker plane. The Hurricane might not have been as fast or as beautiful as the Spitfire, but it had a host of other virtues. It was highly manoeuvrable, with a turning circle even tighter than that of a Spitfire. Because of its traditional method of construction, it was easy for factories to produce in large quantities, a vital factor in early 1. Spitfires were still in short supply. Just as importantly, its airframe made it straightforward to repair.

No fewer than 6. 0 per cent of all Hurricanes that crashed on British soil ended up back in service with squadrons. Legend: Fighter pilot Douglas Bader, who lost both his legs in a flying accident, thought the Hurricane had 'a marvellous gun platform'With a wide undercarriage, lack of vices and intrinsic strength, the Hurricane was the ideal fighter for raw recruits, a priceless asset during the Battle of Britain when the demand from the operational squadrons for new pilots was so high. The plane's structure also made the plane astonishingly resilient in combat. The Hawker could absorb phenomenal amounts of punishment, with enemy bullets often passing right through the fuselage. Ben Bowring, of 1. Hurricane 'would keep flying almost after it was destroyed'.

On one occasion he was able to land after his wings had been all but wrecked in combat. That aircraft's a bloody miracle,' he said after jumping out.