At the end of 1937 France realizes the huge difference of its air force in comparison with the Luftwaffe’s. Even if plan V is calling for the manufacturing, theoretically, of about one thousand fighters between April 1938 and April 1939 (MS 406 and MB 150), the new Air Force minister takes office in January 38, Guy La Chambre, aware that the French aircraft industry (newly nationalized) will not be able to hold its commitments, decides to import 300 fighters from the only country able to provide, quickly, such equipments: the United States.

The U.S. Army Corps having recently chosen the Curtiss P-36, and evaluation of the plane being very good, in spite of a frank opposition of the French Treasury Ministry -  held by the price of a Curtiss is double of that of a MS 406 or a Bloch 150, a first contract for 100 planes is signed in May 38, the plane being adopted under the appellation Curtiss H75-A1. Curtiss provides cells and aircraft propellers, engines by Pratt and Whitney (R-1830 SC G with 1050 hp), the 7.5 mm machine guns by the company FN-Browning of Belgium (4 machine guns per plane, 2 on the hood and 2 on the wings). French manufacturers provide the instrument cluster, collimators and seat. All these elements are sent towards Bourges, where the Centre plant of SNCA has to put them together, starting in February 1939, with a remarkable turn around between receiving of all the elements in Bourges and delivery to the Air force.



 

Assembly line in Bourges (to the right: Potez 631)
 (picture from the book " Curtiss Hawk 75 " of Jean Cuny and Gérard Beauchamp. Docavia / Editions Larivière)
 

 

Since then the crisis of Munich in September 1938, showed the imminence of the German threat, so a second contract for an additional 100 Curtiss is signed in March 1939. The majority delivered will be H75-A2, which is different from the first model by the addition of 2 extra machine guns on the wings, a lightly more powerful engine and a reinforced rear airframe.

A third contract is concluded in September 1939 once the war is declared, for 530 H75-A3 and A-4, the new names is for the modifications of engine (as well as 100 H-81, appellation of the famous P-40), which only a little more than hundred will be delivered to the Air force before the armistice, of which less then a dozen H75-A4.

MODELES

H 75-A1

H 75-A2

H 75-A3

H 75-A4

Wingspan

11.36 m

11.36 m

11.36 m

11.36 m

Length

8.79 m

8.79 m

8.79 m

8.79 m

Height

2.70 m

2.70 m

2.70 m

2.70 m

Wing Surface

21.92 m

21.92 m

21.92 m

21.92 m

Weight Empty

2138 Kg

2138 Kg

2138 Kg

2061 Kg

Speed at 0 m

410 km/h

415 km/h

415 km/h

421 km/h

Speed at 4000m

490 km/h

500 km/h

500 km/h

520 km/h

Ascending Speed

650 m/mn

715 m/mn

715 m/mn

715 m/mn

Ceiling

9700 m

10000 m

10000 m

9980 m

Range

1470 km

1470 km

1470 km

1615 km

Engine

P&W SCG

P&W SC3G

P&W S1C3G

Wright R1820

Cooling

Air

Air

Air

Air

Nominal power

900 hp

900 hp

1050 hp

1200 hp

Power at lift off

1050 hp

1200 hp

1200 hp

1200 hp

Weaponry

4 x 7.5 mm

6 x 7.5 mm

6 x 7.5 mm

6 x 7.5 mm

- General notes on the Curtiss H75 A1: HERE

- Notes on manoeuvres on the Curtiss H75 A1 : HERE

GC I/4
Group 23
base: Wez-Tuizy
 

GC II/4
 Group 22
 base: Xaffévillers
 

GC I/5
 Group 23
 base: Suippes
 

GC II/5
 Group 22
 base: Toul-Croix- de- Metz
 

 Spa 95 "Le martinet"

 Spa 160 "Diable rouge"

 Spa 67 "Cigognes"

 Spa 124 "Lafayette"

 Spa 153 "Gypaête"

 Spa 155 "Petit poucet"

 Spa 75 "Faucon doré"

 Spa 167 "Cigogne"

Another unit, GC III / 2, equipped with MS 406 since the beginning of war, will be upgraded on the Curtiss on the June 1st, 1940, just a few days before the armistice.

Every Curtiss got a paint job in camouflaging in three tones, a grey-blue, a green kaki and a red-brown applied in an unpredictable way as any camouflaging. The underside of the plane was painted in sky-blue, like almost every planes of this era. color picture (Collection Taghon, Avions n° 67).

The plane’s ruder, as of on all the planes of the Air force, carried the three French colours in vertical bands. Revolutionary cockades were positioned top and bottom of the wings in near the extremity, as well as on both sides of the airframe behind the cockpit. 

 

On the ruder, the three main marking was:
- the name of the constructor: Curtiss
- the model: H75
- the plane’s manufacture number

Even with the interdiction to paint the squadron’s colors on the aircraft from February to April 1940, the Curtiss never ceased flying with it. The aircraft received the squadron’s logo, for some, on the forward fuselage just before the lower one-third of the cockpit such as Spa 155 Petits Poucets, others at the back of the fuselage between the cockade and the ailerons, such as the Diable Rouge Spa 160.
It should be noted that after the dissolution of the GCII/4, many pilots were transferred in other squadrons, and could preserve their old logo by respect for the dissolved group. Thus certain aircraft of the GCI/5, for example carried Tom Thumb to the front fuselage and the Stork to the back.
 

In conclusion, the aircraft received their assignment number within the unit, generally on the tailfin, and sometimes on the fuselage behind of the cockade, like Spa 155. These numbers allotted were theoretically in a fighter group in 2 squadron, the first from 1 to 20, and the second from 21 to 40, but the units had adopted a personal system enabling them to identify at first glance the aircraft of each squadron. Thus, for some the 1, 2 and 3 were the aircraft of the first patrol, 4, 5 and 6 for the second patrol and so on. The GCII/4 used, at the beginning, a similar system, and then to eliminate the potential risk from identification of its best pilots by the enemy used an internal system of unrelated numbers, without any relation between the pilot and the aircraft. During the French campaign, it was decided to take the last two figures of the serial number on the tailfin, thus the aircraft with the serial number 267 carried the identification number 67.

Once the Armistice signed, and the Air Force was to be reduced to the adequate size, the events of Mers-El-Kébir changed everything, and Vichy could constitute an air force out of the city limits, in order to prevent the allies from seizing the French possessions. To avoid any risk of miss-identification of planes, the aircrafts of Vichy received the order to paint a broad white strip, lengthwise on both sides of the fuselage, defined as follows: cockades on fuselage 60 cm in diameter surrounded of a white circle of 5 cm; posed on a horizontal white tape, 10 cm broad and 1m20 in length, in the center of the band.
Later the width was increased to 20 cm, while its length was increased, sometimes crossing the fuselage in its entirety.

The white band being insufficient for the identification, in the middle of 1941, after the campaign of Syria, yellow and red bands were painted horizontally on the engine cowlings, wings of almost all the aircraft of Vichy. The government then looked at removing the white band and the cockade from the fuselage, but at the time of the Allied’s arrival in North Africa, the GCI/5 was almost the only that made the required modifications.
 

The GCII/4, following orders from the HQ Staff, every available plane that could fly and which had a pilot, had crossed the Mediterranean before the date of the armistice. Thus at the time of a stock taking on all planes available to the date of July 20 1940, there remain 231 Curtiss fighter, 45 in town, and 186 in North Africa, including 137 in good flight status, the others needing repairs, some to be upgraded (ten).
Once the reorganization carried out, according to the orders of the armistice council, on the 5 fighter groups equipped with the Curtiss H75, only the GCI/4, I/5 and II/5 were maintained, the III/2 being dissolved on August 3 1940, and the II/4 on August 25. Their active pilots were transferred in the 3 units, in order to compensate for the demobilization of the reservists. The units stayed with the Curtiss until the Allies assault in North Africa in November 1942, except the GCII/5, which had undertaken its transformation and received its first D520 in August 1942. On this date only 110 Curtiss remained in good flight status in Africa. The Curtiss H75 head to head with the allies officially have 20 victories, 8 Martlet, 4 Swordfich, 4 Wellington, 2 Skua, 1 Sunderland and 1 Walrus.

With the conclusion of the Torch operation and rallying of the units of the Air Force to the allies, the groups gave up little by little the tired Curtiss, to replace it with the American modern planes. The GCII/5 will be equipped as of December 1942 with Curtiss P40 (after a short passage on D520); the GCI/4 will be equipped with P39 Airacobra and the GCI/5 with the P40 in July 43.
Every Curtiss H75 still in good status were assigned to the fighter schools (Meknes, Kasba-Tadla) to allow the fighter pilots to begin their training, before moving on to more modern planes like Hurricane or P40.

At the end of the war, the remaining "surviving" Curtiss H75 were all assigned to the School-Base of Cazeaux (the Gironde), where they were used for the formation of the monitors, shooting and bombardment.

On July first 1949, the Curtiss H75 were all retired from the service, and probably scrapped. No specimen remained neither in France, nor even as a static monument in front of a base or in a museum.

Every French Curtiss that did not crossed to North Africa bye May-June 1940, even if a small number were destroyed on the ground, voluntarily for lack of pilots to fly them, and others sabotaged, so they would not to be used by the enemy like the one below on the photograph. Only a small number remained intact.
 

Thus during the France campaign, the Germans seized about thirty Curtiss in in-good flight condition, ten of which were on the site of Bourges’s assembly factory.
These planes were repainted with German colors, and sent with the IIIJG77 (ex IITr.Gr.186)...

Following several incidents, they were replaced by the BF109, and the French Curtiss were sent in 1942 as trainer planes for new pilots, since these planes probably belonged to the JFS4(Jagdfliegerschule), based in Fürth, close to Nuremberg.
 
 

None of these Curtiss ex Air Force survived the war.

Sources:

 - The French Air Force Historical Services -
 - Curtiss H75, Jean Cuny and Gérard Beauchamp - Docavia - Editions Larivière -
 - Curtiss Hawk 75, Patrick Marchand and Junko Takamori, Les Ailes de la Gloire N°6 -
- L'aviation de Vichy au combat, Christian Ehrengardt and Christofer Shore - editions Lavauzelle -

Thanks:

Took part in the creation of these pages by typing the documents:
DR-Doudou - DR-Dahu - DR-Kpitalist - DR-Jrec - DR-LtMacFly - DR-Louison - DR-Enzo
DR-hill - DR-Ike69 - DR-Stakhanov - DR-Spharky - DR-Jep - DR-Ker - DR-Corse66.
and of course for his research: DR-Old Chap

Special thanks to DR-Jep for his translation in english of this pages.