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100 Hawks for China

Curtiss-Wright gave a distinct factory model number to the China-bound Hawks: H81-A3. These planes were taken at random from a line assembling H81-A2 fighters for Britain and should have been indistinguishable from the RAF Tomahawk IIB. However, there is evidence that Curtiss-Wright may have fitted the China-bound fighters with parts intended for the Tomahawk IIA (equivalent to the U.S. Army P-40B). See Erik Shilling's comments on the Tomahawk manual posted on this website.

January allotment

Note: Engine from #47 (P-8127?) said to be on display at Torrence airport in California. Wreckage of P-8115 is on display at Chiang Mai Air Force Base, Thailand.

February allotment

Notes: P-8157 was the "hundredth" Tomahawk. Its wing assembly went to complete P-8194, whose own wings had been ruined by immersion in salt water while being off-loaded in Rangoon. The fuselage of 8157 was eventually trucked north to Loiwing and made whole by canibalizing wings from another plane.

One of the AVG Tomahawks may have been wrongly identified. One RAF source shows AM598 as serving in North Africa; another says that AM460 did. The plane that went to China in its stead may have been AM498 (Curtiss serial 15951).

March allotment

Notes: A photograph of Bob Neale with fuselage No. 7 seems to show a tail number of P-8194, though the 9 seems more roughly painted than the other numbers. Possibly a replacement for an earlier No. 7?

Tomahawks numbered 1-33 were assigned to lst Squadron, 34-66 to 2nd Squadron, 67-99 to 3rd Squadron. Some sources say that P-8119 carried fuselage number 71. In addition to aircraft identified above, the following fuselage numbers are known: #17 Croft, #19 Hoffman, #30 Moss, and #67 Prescott, but these numbers cannot be tied to a specific aircraft. Note, however, that pilots often flew any plane available.

Erik Shilling said that his photo plane was #53, probably meaning the tail number P-8153.

Compiled from Pentecost, Bowers, Christy, Clements, Rawlings, Chennault Papers, Tullis, Baisden, Losonsky, and AVG Archives (see the AVG bibliography). Additional input by Jim Settle, Craig Busby, and Paul McMillan.