I went to an excellent day long celebration of the Hurricane aeroplane at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford today.
Besides gathering together many of the few remaining airworthy Hurricanes in the country together (including the only Sea Hurricane) for a static display, there was talks on the aeroplane, how it came to be created, how it flew, the pilots who flew it and the theatres of war it was involved in.
Accounting for nearly two-thirds of the ‘kills’ in the Battle of Britain, it was dearly loved by those who flew the plane. The highlight of the day for me though was an excellent talk by a relative of James Nicolson, the only Battle of Britain pilot but, what is more, the only fighter command pilot to win a VC in the whole of WW2, an extraordinary thing given the number of fighter pilots that flew and the heroics many of them displayed. His was an incredible and poignant story, not just about him but the men he served with and his Yorkshire born wife, who he married in 1940 despite her being 14 years his senior, something that was far from usual in those days.
Besides gathering together many of the few remaining airworthy Hurricanes in the country together (including the only Sea Hurricane) for a static display, there was talks on the aeroplane, how it came to be created, how it flew, the pilots who flew it and the theatres of war it was involved in.
Accounting for nearly two-thirds of the ‘kills’ in the Battle of Britain, it was dearly loved by those who flew the plane. The highlight of the day for me though was an excellent talk by a relative of James Nicolson, the only Battle of Britain pilot but, what is more, the only fighter command pilot to win a VC in the whole of WW2, an extraordinary thing given the number of fighter pilots that flew and the heroics many of them displayed. His was an incredible and poignant story, not just about him but the men he served with and his Yorkshire born wife, who he married in 1940 despite her being 14 years his senior, something that was far from usual in those days.