Curtiss P40E ‘Kittyhawk’

Kitty hawks were the RNZAF’s main fighter aircraft in the Pacific theatre during World War II. Of the 104 Japanese aircraft destroyed by New Zealand pilots during the war, 99 of those were shot down by pilots flying Kittyhawks.

RNZAF squadrons in the Pacific operated under the control of the United States and carried out specific tasks. Thirteen New Zealand fighter squadrons were rotated around bases in the Pacific and New Zealand, carrying out six week tours. In air battles eight or twelve New Zealand Kittyhawks flew in an Allied force of up to a hundred aircraft against forty or more Japanese aircraft. The Japanese aircraft the Kittyhawks were most often up against were Zeros, also known as Zekes.

A Curtiss Kittyhawk and maintenance crew at a Fighter Service Unit in Bougainville in 1944.

Whites Aviation photograph, courtesy of Alexander Turnbull Library.

Kittyhawk pilots were told not to dogfight against Zeros, as Zeros were faster and more manoeuvrable. This cartoon is from a booklet issued to American fighter pilots. The usual method used by the Allies against Zeros was a technique called ‘scissoring’ where a flight of four aircraft, divided into pairs, would fly in formation constantly crossing over each other, in order to cover each other from all quarters.

MOTAT's Kittyhawk is a rebuilt aircraft, using mainly parts from NZ3039. Mostly operating as a training aircraft during its career, NZ3039 was in the first batch of Kittyhawks received by the RNZAF, arriving in 1942. It spent the next three years at the Fighter Operational Training Unit at Ohakea, and was used to train pilots to fly Kittyhawks for the Pacific theatre.

Date: 1942

Manufacturer: Curtiss-Wright Corporation, Buffalo, New York

Type: Single-seat fighter and fighter-bomber

Wing span: 11.36 metres (37 ft 4 in)

Length: 9.68 metres (31 ft 2 in)

Engine: 1 x Allison V-1710 12-cylinder Vee liquid-cooled engine

Armament: 3 x .50 calibre machine guns in each wing, bomb rack under fuselage carrying 1 bomb 100-600 lbs

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