World War II AircraftThe Hurricane; alongside the Spitfire; was the right fighter in the right place at the right time to destroy Hitler's ambition of defeating Britain; largely thanks to the Hawker company's commitment to tooling up for its mass production before the Air Ministry had even placed an order. A 'Fury biplane made monoplane' design; it fought on land and at sea and in every theatre of the Second World War; and its pilots downed more Luftwaffe aircraft during the Battle of Britain than all other defences combined including the Spitfire; so it can rightly be described as a war-winner. Many of those pilots had earlier fought in France; including No.242 Squadron RAF; whose new CO in his first Squadron command more than 'knocked my Canadians into shape' and went on to become a legend - Douglas Bader. He advocated the 'Big Wing' tactic that led to 'the best shambles I was ever in' when he led the Duxford Wing of 12 Group into action over London on 15 September 1940; but which was criticised by 11 Group commander Keith Park; who had to deploy single squadrons in order to preserve forces sufficient to ensure that the Luftwaffe could not attain air superiority until the year was advanced enough to make invasion unfeasible. One of Bader's Canadian pilots of 242 who contributed greatly to the unit's success was Flying Officer William 'Willie' McKnight DFC and bar; whose Hurricane Mk.I is illustrated here. He was credited with destroying 17 German aircraft; shared in the destruction of two more and had two unconfirmed victories before he was shot down and killed on a fighter sweep over Calais on 12 January 1941. His skeleton personal emblem was painted on both sides of his aircraft P2961 LE-A.Illustration (Tim Brown); 2019.