This is the last Heckman photo I will send but tomorrow we will address these "white tailed" P-40s from a different perspective.

About the image --

It is still the same place as the last time -- Morotai or New Guinea-proper, and it could have been taken any time from late 1943 until war's end.

Considering there are night-fighters and twin-engine, anti-shipping attack bombers there, I would assume that they still had targets within their cruising ranges.

I do not think this was exclusively a repair depot since there are several of each aircraft type in each photo and almost always with similar group markings. The maintenance seen appear to be routine field-type.

In the 1952, "Victory at Sea," 30-minute episode (#5 of 26), "Rings Around Rabaul" (adjacent to New Guinea), there is imagery of an identical P-40 to the one viewed here. It is taxiing near the camera and as it clears the camera's field-of-view, another such P-40 is on the take-off strip. There are also scenes of aircraft receiving some pretty involved maintenance on the ramp. According to the narration, it was on Bouganville (in the New Guinea area), however, the narration has a lot of enthusiastic verbiage that is not consistent with the images. (In "Victory at Sea" there are three things going on at one time, narration, imagery, and music; none related to the other.) Still, this P-40 group was in the immediate locations being discussed.

Sitting foreground-right of our image is an open tool box. I cropped out of this image the wing tip of a different aircraft type near this tool box. Maintenance was no doubt taking place on another aircraft .

Near left landing gear of the principal P-40 is another, similar tool box.

The tail number of nearest is 47578 -- certainly it is 4757?. I am sorry I do not have a Profile on this aircraft to tell you when and where it was produced and the exact model number, but it appears to be about the 7,578th of a production run in 1944.

This, however, conflicts with a statement that N's were the last produced and in the largest number (5,219) with the last being produced in 1944.

(I have very conflicting numbers of how many of which model were produced -- in one case it is said that 23,000 E-models were produced, which is hard to believe, yet I have that the N-models were produced in the largest number -- 5,219, and in another source, it is said that all told, 13,753 P-40s were built, which I can believe. I guess I really don't care enough to find out.)

I think the P-40s in the photo are N's. I cannot see enough of the canopy to be sure. There is a vent over the nose cowling so I know it is not a P-40F.

The number on the chin radiators are local numbers, most likely relating to the aircraft numbers within the squadron.

Still, there is so much information here, it would be easy to get a lot of data on this particular aircraft, pilot, etc.

About the aircraft in general, independently of what aviation buffs might think or remember about this aircraft, the Curtis-Wright P-40, in its several variants, had its share of vices and attributes.

In the early part of WWII, the P-40 Warhawk's contribution came not from the individual aircraft but from the large numbers of them in service in 1941 and 1943 -- it was THERE.

When war broke out, it was the only ground-based fighter that could be produced in large numbers -- that is what the US was "tooled" to produce. There was no great design-review or application study in this process. It was our only choice.

Yet, even after the appearance and rapid manufacture of the P-38, P-47, and P-51, the P-40 continued to be produced from 1939 until 1944 and the ten P-40 models flew throughout the war on all fronts.

The P-40 started life as an engine looking for an airframe.

The V-12, 1,200 hp liquid-cooled Allison was available. A good-enough engine but one which was rated for 12,000-foot altitude, making combat at 15,000 feet impractical and hazardous.

The airframe to use was Curtis' P-36C, an attractive, reliable airplane with a radial engine but was much out-classed by everything at the start of the war. Only 103 were sent into combat and these were flown by Chinese -- all others were converted for photo-recon.

(The Curtis P-36, with the [Seversky] Republic P-43, were the first two monoplane fighters we had. The P-36 was to become the P-40; the P-43, the P-47.)

During initial flight tests, the XP-40's characteristics didn't thrill aviation authorities, and the other competitors yelled 'foul' when Curtis-Wright received the contract in April, 1939. This contract got a lot of attention because it was the largest aviation contract since 1918; $12.9 million. Curtis got the contract mostly because it was ready to begin production immediately -- the first phase of the contract was for 524 aircraft.

(It would be interesting to see who the senator was from Curtis' home district, who chaired the Source Selection Committee, who was on the corporate board, and who sat on the Defense Department advisory board -- my! my! what a cynic I have become!)

The first flight tests of this series were in the spring of 1940. The first 20 were delivered to the Army Air Force in September, while at the same time, another 140 went to France via Britain.

France was in the war just long enough to surrender so the P-40s stayed in Britain where they were named the Tomahawk Mk I.

It was then evaluated against the air-combat knowledge they had gained in the skies over Britain. Subsequent mods produced the Mk. Ia and IB.

The British aircraft carried a little different caliber gun in the wings, but kept the two 50 caliber guns over the nose cowling. They determined that the P-40 was slightly better than the Hurricane but not the Spitfire nor the Bf.109E -- the German fighter that the P-40 would be facing.

So the first P-40's to arrive for combat were out-classed by its competition.

The second P-40 to get to Britain was the P-40B (Mk II Tomahawk). It was better armed, had armor plating, and self-sealing fuel tanks.

The best way to identify the P-40B is by the 50 caliber gun mounts over the top of the engine -- there is a single air-intake between the guns.

These aircraft went into action with the RAF in North Africa and in American hands at Pearl Harbor and in China.

The most memorable P-40s were, of course, the P-40B's serving with the mercenary American Volunteer Group (AVG) in China between December of 1941 and July 1942. Ninety P-40B's were delivered to the AVG. After 6 months of combat, the Flying Tiger P-40Bs claimed 286 Japanese downed to a loss of 23 aircraft (8 pilots killed in action, with 4 pilots missing.)

In March of 1942, the B-models in China and the Middle East with the RAF were replaced with the P-40Es. The AVG was down to 20 B-models by the time the 30 P-40Es had been ferried from Africa. (AVG pilots carried 30-pound bombs in their B-model flare chutes!)

(Many US pilots flew as volunteers in Britain, Russia, and China before the US entered the war.)

After the P-40Bs and a few C-models, which had inferior performance, the D-series arrived in combat with a different Allison engine. Almost all of the 582 P-40Ds went to the RAF, where they were called the Kittyhawk Mk. I.

The P-40E was next and produced in large numbers. It was more powerful and had heavier armament and the first to serve with the USAAF in the European and Mediterranean theatres.

The best way to spot the P-40E is to note that it did not have the guns over the engine but it retained the air-intake, now made a little wider with the absence of the guns.

Still in 1941, the P-40F followed with 1,311 aircraft produced. In this version the problem of mediocre engine performance above 12,000 feet was solved -- the Allison was dumped and the Packard-built Merlins were installed. High-altitude performance improved noticeably, yet Curtis had difficulty getting this engine for the F-models because North American Aviation had priority for the P-51 production, as did some of the Spitfire groups.

(Interestingly, it was not until the P-40F was produced that the name "Warhawk" was given to the aircraft by the USAAF.)

Further improvements led to the K, L, and M models, in which, effort was made to lighten an air-frame made for a radial engine. (It was about time!)

In an effort to keep the aircraft in combat by increasing its speed and operating altitude when there were no more available powerful engines, the K-model had it's characteristic radiator removed from the chin and incorporated into two wing positions and then a P-40L had the aft fuselage cut down and a bubble canopy fitted. Finally, the wings were clipped, a four-blade prop fitted, as was water-injection. This XP-40Q was lighter and faster at 422 mph, but this sole unit was still not fast enough at this stage of the war -- so it went no where.

The last model, P-40N was produced until the end of 1944. This light-weight version used a more powerful Allison engine so it was a faster aircraft with good operation at 15,000 feet altitude and had a 30,000-foot ceiling. These were the last used by the USAAF. (We exported more of these than we used -- to Britain, Soviet, South Africa, Australia, and China.)

The P-40N appeared the same as the P-40E but with a squared-off rear, fixed, side canopy window and there was no fuselage showing through the canopy behind the pilots armor plate. All the other P-40s had a distinctive half-rounded rear-side canopy window with aircraft skin showing when canopy was closed.

The P-40 survived in combat against better aircraft throughout the war because of two things -- it was a strong aircraft that could take abuse (self-sealing fuel tanks) and the tactics were optimized for its use -- starting as early as its first combat week.

By comparison, some German aircraft's rules of engagement were not changed throughout the war, even when demonstrated to be deadly wrong.

One P-40 group remained operational through July 1945. This is interesting for an airplane that remained outclassed from the time it was first produced in 1939. Yet, it was not only in service this whole period but was in combat, as well.

Ken Cashion