Curtiss Tomahawk

The Tomahawk was the RAF’s name for the early Allison-engined marks of the Curtiss P-40, an American single-seat fighter that reached Britain in quantity from 1941. Its low-altitude Allison engine made it a disappointment as an interceptor over Europe, where it was used mainly for low-level tactical reconnaissance and army co-operation, but in the heat and dust of the Western Desert it came into its own. There the Tomahawk equipped Desert Air Force squadrons against the Italians and Germans, and it was on No. 112 Squadron’s Tomahawks that the RAF first adopted the famous shark’s-mouth nose marking, copied from the Luftwaffe’s Bf 110s.