US Fighters of WWII (Aeroplane Special Aviation Archive)

The fighter is often seen as the most glamorous of all combat aircraft during the Second World War; flown by a single pilot, armed with a battery of machine guns and/or cannon or, very often, bombs and rockets. Many who wanted to join an air force to fly and fight would initially set their sights on being a fighter pilot. Those who were successful were given a unique opportunity to fly a machine in combat in many theatres against a variety of opponents of varying experience. The many young men who volunteered to serve with the USAAC were no exception and there was no shortage of recruits following the United States' abrupt entry into the Second World War following the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Unlike the European Air Forces, the USAAC was not given an opportunity to build up its forces and the developmental race was slow to start for American aircraft manufacturers. Most were more occupied with supplying to European Air Forces and proposals for new aircraft designs were stemming from either British or French sources. Curtiss, in particular, supplied large numbers of Hawks to France before that country's fall in June 1940 and Bell were despatching their P-39 to the Soviets many months before the US entered the war. However, the USAAC (USAAF from June 20, 1941) was not entirely unprepared for war and the Curtiss production lines were already tooled up for mass P-40 production which would continue much longer than expected, considering that the aircraft was not the cutting edge of technology. Regardless, the P-40 was one of the big four American fighters of the Second World War, the other three being the P-38 Lightning, P-47 Thunderbolt and the P-51 Mustang; the P-47 always playing second fiddle to the latter, despite being one of the greatest combat aircraft ever built.