Curtiss H-75 ‘Foreign Pilots’

The Curtiss H-75 was the export version of the American P-36 Hawk (Curtiss Model 75) fighter of the mid-1930s. The French took delivery of some 330 aircraft, designated the H-75A-1, A-2 and A-3, with the first planes entering service in the spring of 1939. They were modified for French Air Force usage and fitted with different equipment and armament.

The H-75 was a single-seat, all-metal low-wing monoplane with fabric-covered control surfaces. It had a retractable undercarriage with the main landing gear rotated 90° to fold flat into the wing. Powered by a Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp two-row radial engine, it was fitted with Curtiss Electric propeller. The H-75’s armament consisted of two machine guns in the nose, and another one (all H-75A-1s and 40 early H-75A-2s) or two guns in each wing (H-75A-3). A small bomb carrier was also mounted under each outer part of the wing.

The Curtiss H-75 was used most extensively by the French Armée de l’Air during the Battle of France and continued in service with the Vichy French after the Armistice.

A number of ex-French aircraft were seized by Germans, some of them were used by the Luftwaffe for pilot training and eventually many sold to Finland, which extensively used them against Soviet forces.