History of AM 274

In late 1938 as World War II loomed over Europe, Great Britain was concerned
over the safety of their aircraft factories.

The Hurricane was regarded as such an important weapon to the British,
that in early 1939 the British Air Ministry contracted with
the Canadian Car and Foundry Co., Ltd. (CC&F) of Montreal, Canada to build
what would amount to a total of 1,451 Hurricanes and Sea Hurricanes.

On 2 March 1939 the British Air Ministry released a manufacturing pattern
aircraft (L1848) to be shipped to Canada along with a
batch of 20- Hurricane I’s.
The Canadian-built Hurricanes were manufactured at the CC&F factory in Fort
William, (now called Thunder Bay) Ontario.

The first Canadian-built Hurricane I flew its maiden flight on 9 January 1940.

The 40 initial Canadian-built Hurricanes were built with materials provided by
Great Britain and used Rolls-Royce Merlin III engines, three-bladed de Havilland
Hamilton Hydromatic propellers and were simply referred to as
Canadian Mark I’s.

The later, main production Canadian-built Hurricanes, were built with Canadian
materials and had their own variant designations.

The Mark X, was basically a Mark IIB with an American Packard-built Merlin
28 engine, fitted with the American Hamilton Hydromatic three-bladed propeller
and eight-gun wings.

AM 274 was fifth in a batch of one hundred Hurricane Mark X's built with
serial numbers AM 270 to AM 369 in the third production block that were built
by Canadian Car & Foundry during 1941.

The aircraft in this batch were allotted the serial numbers
BJ284 to BJ323, BJ332 to BJ351 and BJ369 to BJ408.
Later, they were re-allotted to fall in line with allocations to the British
Purchasing Commission in the United Kingdom.

These 100 Hurricane Mark X’s were shipped to Britain where AM 274 was
taken on charge by 13 Maintenance Unit on the 6th April 1942.

There, AM 274 was re-engined with a Merlin XX and fitted with Mark IIB
wings which carried twelve 7.7 mm. Browings and had stores pylons below the
wings to carry either two-250 lb. or two-500 lb. bombs. They could also carry
two-45 gallon or two-90 gallon auxiliary fuel tanks (known as ‘drop’ tanks)
instead of the bombs, if needed.

Great Britain’s Air Ministry records show AM 274 was in 13 MU
(maintenance unit) until 5 December 1942 when it was taken on charge by 10
MU for only five days.
On the 10th of December 1942 it was then taken on charge by 76 MU.

On 12 January 1943, AM 274 departed Great Britain as part of the lend/lease
program with Russia.

click on photo to enlarge image

AM 274 was carried on board the merchant ship Dan-Y-Bryn, one of
15-merchant ships that comprised the North Cape Convoy “JW 52”;
escorted by 7-naval destroyers.

Dan-Y-Bryn departed Loch Ewe, Scotland on 12 January 1943 and joined the
rest of the convoy for the Murmansk run at Gourock, Scotland on 17 January.

On 24 January, the convoy was in the Barents Sea
between Iceland and Norway when they became the target of an aerial attack by
three Heinkel-115 torpedo bombers.

Dan-Y-Bryn was in the lead row, second ship in from port. All three ships in the
port column were active in the battle, and managed to shoot down one of these
Heinkels, and disable another. The third Heinkel was shot at, but it was not
known if they damaged it as severely as they had the other two. More air raids
followed over the next three days, but the Dan-Y-Bryn arrived safely in
Murmansk, Russia on 27 January 1943.

As with many of the Hurricanes supplied to Russia during the War,
shortly after arriving in Murmansk, AM 274 was refitted with Soviet-built
armament, including
2-ShVAK 20 mm. Cannon and 2-UBT 12.7 mm. (0.50 caliber) machine guns.

Re-arming the Russian Hurricane was partly due to the lack of Western
ammunition supplies. Nevertheless, the high rate of fire of Soviet automatic
weapons … about half again as great as their Western counterparts … gave the
Russian re-armed Hurricanes a fairly nasty bite!

On the 25th of February 1943, AM 274 was placed into service in
the 78th Fighter Air Regiment of the Russian North Fleet.

Just three and a half months later, on 13 June 1943,
AM 274 was engaged in aerial combat over the Ekkeroy area of northern
Norway against German Messerschmitts and Junkers that had attacked another
convoy of ships in Norway Territory.

The pilot, Jr. Lieutenant A.K. Nikolaev was wounded and AM 274 was
severely damaged in this fight. The propeller was hit, The starboard fuel tank
was penetrated and the tank exploded.

Jr. Lieutenant A.F. Nikolaev, was either very skilled, or very lucky as he was
able to crash land AM 274 on the Rybachiy Peninsula.
The landing gear was still retracted, but the flaps were fully down,
and the propeller still rotating as she crashed.

If we could have seen AM 274 on the way down, we would have seen
black oil-smoke billowing from the port side of the engine cowling.
This was caused by a bullet entering the crankcase just aft of the generator.

There would also have been a Glycol cloud of steam escaping just aft of the pilot
seat on the starboard side. This was from the bullet that penetrated the
glycol thermostat.

Jr. Lieutenant Nikolaev survived the combat and the crash landing on the
Rybachiy Peninsula, and was eventually rescued by infantry troops.

click on either photograph to enlarge image

AM 274 remained where she crashed that day, exposed to the elements in the cold north of the
Arctic Circle for 48 more years. She was re-discovered and finally salvaged in 1991.

It wasn't until 1995 that AM 274 arrived in the United States, along with several other
crash 'victims' of World War II that had been recovered in Russia.

In 2003, John Norman purchased the remains of three Hawker Hurricanes that were stored in
shipping containers in the far northwest corner of mainland Washington State. Once the parts
were removed from the containers, and laid out at JNE Aircraft Restoration Services,
the identification number AM 274 was discovered on the wreckage.

That began the next chapter in the life of AM 274. We hope you will enjoy following along as we
attempt to document our progress in the restoration of AM 274 on this website.

The Canadian Built Hawker Hurricane
and the History of AM 274