Argentina Curtiss Hawk 75O Argentina bought a number of the simplified, fixed landing gear
Hawk 75Os, (intended for rough-field operations and ease of maintenance) and purchased a manufacturing license for the type; 30 were built and delivered by Curtiss, and 20 produced locally. These aircraft used the same engine, Wright Cyclone R-1820-G5 as the
Martin 139WAA's and
Northrop 8A-2s used by the
Argentine Army Aviation at the time. Usually armed with one Madsen machine gun heavily modified for aircraft use and three
Madsen light machine guns, there was provision for up to 10 bombs on underwing pylons. The last Argentinian Hawks remained in service until November 1954.
Brazil In March 1942, 10 USAAC P-36As were transferred to Brazil.
British Commonwealth The
Royal Air Force (RAF) also displayed interest in the aircraft. Comparison of a borrowed French
Hawk 75A-2 with a
Supermarine Spitfire Mk I revealed that the Hawk had several advantages over the early variant of the iconic British fighter. The Hawk was found to have lighter controls than the Spitfire at speeds over , especially in diving attacks, and was easier to maneuver in a dogfight (thanks to the less sensitive elevator). The Hawk also had better all-around visibility and was easier to control on takeoff and landing. Not surprisingly, the Spitfire's superior acceleration and top speed ultimately gave it the advantage of being able to engage and leave combat at will. Although the British decided not to purchase the aircraft, they soon came into possession of 229 Hawks by way of shipments diverted from occupied France and aircraft flown by escaping French pilots. The aircraft received the designations
Mohawk I through IV, mirroring French
Hawk 75A-1 through
A-4, and were fitted with 0.303-cal. machine guns and conventional throttles (forward to increase power). Although the Hawk was considered obsolete, a number saw service with the RAF and
Royal Indian Air Force (RIAF) in India and Burma. In April 1941, the government of British India ordered 48 Cyclone-powered Mohawk IVz (Hawk 75A) for the RIAF, to be built by
Hindustan Aircraft. The first such aircraft completed was test flown on 31 July 1942. Only four additional aircraft were completed before the project was abandoned. However, Chinese license production of the
Hawk 75A-5 was moved to India, and these aircraft were also absorbed into the RAF/RIAF as Mohawk IVs. They were supplemented by 10 Hawk 75A-9s that were captured in Iran, during the
Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran of August 1941. A further 74 Mohawk IVs that had originally been ordered by France were shipped to India from the United Kingdom. The
South African Air Force received 72 Mohawks. Its first Mohawks were delivered to East Africa in mid-1941, where they were used by
3 Squadron SAAF to support operations in the
East African Campaign, taking part in the
Battle of Gondar which ended the campaign, and helping to patrol the border with Vichy French held
Djibouti. These Mohawks were then sent to South Africa, where, supplemented by fresh deliveries, they were used for training and for home defense.
China The prototype of the
Hawk 75H—a simplified version with fixed landing gear, like the 75O—was eventually sold to the Chinese Nationalist government who presented it to
Claire L. Chennault for personal use. China also received two similar demonstrators, the
Hawk 75Q. They also used a number of simplified
Hawk 75Ms against the Japanese. On 11 January 1939, five Hawk 75Ms of the veteran
CAF 25th Fighter Squadron led by commander Liu Yijun (劉依鈞) were flown to the new wartime capital of
Chongqing in preparations for defense duties there; Liu Yijun and his four specially-trained Hawk 75 pilots all died in the crash of transport aircraft in the return flight. These Hawk 75Ms were intended for the newly established 16th and 18th Fighter Squadrons that were previously light attack-bomber squadrons, but did not supersede the increasingly obsolescent
Polikarpov I-15 and
I-16 that formed the backbone of most of China's fighter squadrons from 1938 to 1941. The
Hawk 75A-5 was built under license in China, but production was later moved to India, and these aircraft were absorbed into the RAF as the Mohawk IV.
Finland Hawk 75s captured by German forces in Norway and France were on-sold to Finland. Curtiss had sold 13 aircraft to Norway, and 31 more were captured around the time of the
fall of France. These were sold to Finland in October 1940. In total, 44 captured aircraft of five subtypes were transferred to Finland, in three tranches, between 23 June 1941 and 5 January 1944. The aircraft were given serial codes CU-501 to CU-507 (A-4 submodel with Cyclone) and CU-551 to CU-587 (all other submodels with Twin Wasp). In Finnish service, the Hawk was well-liked, affectionately called
Sussu ("Sweetheart"). The Finnish Air Force enjoyed success with the type, credited with kills by 58 pilots, between 16 July 1941 and 27 July 1944, for the loss of 15 of their own. The Finnish Hawks were initially armed with either four or six 7.5mm machine guns. While sufficient during the early phase of the
Continuation War, the increasing speeds and armor of Soviet aircraft soon showed this armament was not powerful enough. From 1942, the
State Aircraft Factory replaced the fuselage machine guns with either one or two Colt or
Browning FN machine guns and installed two or four Browning machine guns in each wing. The 12.7mm
Berezin UB or LKk/42 heavy machine guns were also used.
France Even before the P-36A entered production, the French Air Force entered negotiations with Curtiss for delivery of 300 aircraft. The negotiating process ended up being very drawn-out because the cost of the Curtiss fighters was double that of the French
Morane-Saulnier M.S.406 and
Bloch MB.150, and the delivery schedule was deemed too slow. Since the USAAC was unhappy with the rate of domestic deliveries and believed that export aircraft would slow things down even more, it actively opposed the sale. Eventually, it took direct intervention from U.S. President
Franklin Roosevelt to give the French test pilot
Michel Detroyat a chance to fly the Y1P-36. Detroyat's enthusiasm, problems with the MB.150, and the pressure of continuing German rearmament finally forced France to purchase 100 aircraft and 173 engines. The first
Hawk 75A-1 (or
H75A-1 n°1) arrived in France in December 1938 and began entering service in March 1939. A few months later, this aircraft was part of "Groupe de Chasse II/5 La Fayette" (heir of the
Escadrille Lafayette that fought in France during World War I), wearing the famous Sioux Head on its fuselage side. After the first few examples, aircraft were delivered in pieces and assembled in France by the
Société Nationale de Constructions Aéronautiques du Centre. Officially designated as the
Curtiss H75-C1 (the "Hawk" name was not used in France), the aircraft were powered by Pratt & Whitney R-1830-SC-G engines of 900 hp and had instruments calibrated for the metric system, a seat for French dorsal parachutes, a French-style throttle which operated in reverse from U.S. and British aircraft (full throttle was to the rear rather than to the front) and armament of four (later models had six with two firing through the prop and four in the wings)
7.5 mm FN-Browning machine guns, aimed with a French-supplied Baille-Lemaire gun sight. The aircraft evolved through several modifications, the most significant being the installation of the Wright R-1820 Cyclone engine. The H75-C1 variant saw little operational use due to its late delivery and reliability problems with the Wright radial engine. A total of 316 H75s were delivered to France before the German occupation. On 20 September, Sergeant
André-Armand Legrand, pilot of the H75A-1 n°1 in the
Groupe de Chasse II/5 La Fayette was credited of the first Allied air victory of
World War II on the Western front with shooting down a
Messerschmitt Bf 109E of the
Luftwaffe 3/JG 53, over
Überherrn. During 1939–1940, French H75 pilots claimed 230 air-to-air kills (of a total of 1,009 air-to-air kills by the French Air Force during 1939–1940) and 81 probable victories in H75s against only 29 aircraft lost in aerial combat. While making up only 12.6 per cent of the French Air Force single-seater fighter force, the H75 accounted for almost a third of the air-to-air kills during the 1940 Battle of France.
Nazi Germany In mid-1940, the Luftwaffe experienced a shortage of replacement Bf 109s, following losses in the French campaign and the early stages of the Battle of Britain. Curtiss H75s, captured from French stocks, were used as a stopgap; between August and October 1940, one
staffel,
7/JG 77, stationed in Brittany, reportedly flew a total of 12 H75s. Some of these aircraft were apparently used subsequently as advanced fighter trainers, by
Jagdfliegerschule 4, near Nuremberg.
Iran The
Hawk 75A-9 variant was also ordered by the
Imperial State of Iran (previously Persia). In or before mid-1941, 10 of these aircraft arrived in Iran, partly-assembled and in crates. They had not been assembled by the time of the
Allied invasion of Iran. Seized by Commonwealth forces, these Hawk 75s were shipped to India, where they were assembled and used by the RAF/
RIAF, as the
Mohawk Mk. IV.
Dutch East Indies In October 1939, the Netherlands ordered 24 Hawk 75A-7s for their colonies of the
Dutch East Indies (
Oost Indië). These planes were powered by 1,200 hp Cyclones. Factory armament was one .50 inch and one .303 inch machine gun in the cowl with two .303 machine guns in the wings. After delivery, the .50 weapons were replaced to standardize parts and ammunition. The plane could carry six bombs. The fighters were shipped in 1940 and almost rerouted to the Netherlands when Germany invaded. But as the mainland surrendered, the aircraft continued to the colonies where they were used extensively against the Japanese attack on the Far Eastern part of the kingdom. By that time, the aircraft had flown so many hours that the engines were showing serious wear and tear. Most Dutch Hawks were assigned to the
1ste JachtVliegAfdeling - VliegtuigGroep IV (1ste JaVA - 1-VlG IV; "1st Fighter Squadron - Flying Group IV") of the
Royal Netherlands East Indies Army Air Force (ML-KNIL), although some flew with 1-VlG V. These aircraft saw action over Malacca, Sumatra and Java, successfully bombing the railroad and intercepting bombers and participated in the extensive dogfights over Soerabaja, where USAAF, RAF and ML aircraft fought Japanese bombers and fighters together.
Norway Norway ordered 24 Twin Wasp-powered
Hawk 75A-6s, of which 19 were delivered and seven assembled at the time of the German invasion. None of the aircraft were combat-ready. The disassembled aircraft were disabled by a single customs employee who smashed the instruments and cut all the wires he could reach. Thirteen Norwegian Hawks captured by the Germans were part of the first batch of 29 P-36s sent to Finland. Still later, they were resold to the U.S. and redesignated the P-36G model.
Peru In 1943, the U.S. sent 28 Hawks to Peru under the
Lend-Lease agreement. These were ex-Norwegian P-36Gs that had served in Canada.
Portugal Portugal was officially neutral during World War II, although the Allies were allowed to use or establish ports and airfields on various Portuguese territories. One result of these friendly relations was the transfer by the British government of 12 Hawk 75A variants to the
Portuguese Air Force, or
Força Aérea Portuguesa (FAP), which assigned them to air defense duties in the
Azores.
Thailand A few Hawk 75Ns were used by Thailand during the
French-Thai War. They also fought at the
Battle of Prachuab Khirikhan against Japanese forces during the
Japanese Invasion of Thailand. On 28 January 1941, the
Royal Thai Air Force (RTAF) dispatched nine Ki-30 Nagoyas, escorted by three Hawk 75s, to bomb Pailin and Sisophon in French Indochina. Thailand was perhaps the only country operating both Japanese and American aircraft just before World War II.
United States The first production P-36As were delivered to the
20th Pursuit Group at
Barksdale Field in
Louisiana in April 1938. The aircraft's service history was marred by numerous teething problems with the engine exhaust, skin buckling over landing gear, and weak points in the airframe, severely restricting the performance envelope. By the time these issues were resolved, the P-36 was considered obsolete and was relegated to training units and overseas detachments at
Albrook Field in the
Panama Canal Zone,
Elmendorf Field in
Alaska, and
Wheeler Field in
Hawaii. The P-36s had been delivered to Hawaii in February 1941 by being loaded on the aircraft carrier USS
Enterprise in California, then in a first for the USAAC, flown off the carrier's deck by the P-36's U.S. Army Air Corps pilots when the
Enterprise neared the coast of Hawaii. This saved considerable time over the traditional shipping method of having the fighters first disassembled, crated and then loaded by crane in the hold of a freighter, then unloaded and reassembled in Hawaii. The only combat by U.S.-operated P-36s took place during the Japanese attack on
Pearl Harbor. Five of the 39 P-36A Hawks at Pearl Harbor, delivered previously by the USS
Enterprise, were able to take off during the attack and were credited with shooting down two Japanese
Mitsubishi A6M2 Zeros for the loss of one P-36, thereby scoring U.S. aerial victories that were among the first of the Second World War. ==Variants==