A war that discovers another. An unexploded bomb was found earlier this year in a ravine in a Ukrainian forest near kyiv. The find caught the attention of a group of amateur metal detectorists who took the opportunity to search for more military artifacts in the nearby area.
After weeks of searching inch by inch, a buzz alerted the group. They dug up the ground and what they discovered was not at all what he had anticipated. Ahead of him were the rusting remains of eight British World War II Hawker Hurricane fighter planes.
As explained by the Oleg Antonov State Aviation Museum of Ukraine in a statement, the fighters were sent to the Soviet Union from Great Britain after Nazi Germany invaded the country in 1941 during the well-known Operation Barbarossa. The USSR lost a lot of fighter planes and desperately needed to get new ones.
Initially several RAF squadrons were sent to help. But soon the British pilots returned home, and the fighters were left in the hands of Soviet fliers. Soviet records indicate that many disliked the Hurricane, considering it underpowered, underarmed, and underprotected.
Those planes were part of an aid package, paid for by the United States under the Lend-Lease scheme (a legislation similar to what it is using today to send war material to Ukraine), that the allies sent to Stalin in support military. The Russians were required to pay for any donated equipment that remained intact after hostilities ended.
In total, around 3,000 Hurricanes were sent to the USSR between 1941 and 1944 to support the Soviet war effort. Most were destroyed in combat or dismantled later. But some of the planes were deliberately disassembled and buried after the war so they wouldn't have to pay money to the United States.
This seems to have been the fate of the eight single-seat fighters found south of Kiev, now the capital of independent Ukraine but which belonged to the USSR until 1991. They had been stripped of their instruments, radios, machine guns and any other useful junk.
They were then dragged from a nearby old airfield by tractors and dumped into a shallow ravine. Experts believe that they were then covered with earth by bulldozers. This is the first time the wreckage of so many Hurricanes has been found in Ukraine, aviation experts say.
The Hawker Hurricane played a major role during the Battle of Britain, the Royal Air Force (RAF) air campaign that in 1940 prevented German attempts to invade the United Kingdom. Although its role has often been overshadowed by the more modern and manoeuvrable Spitfire, the reality is that it was Hurricane pilots who shot down more enemy fighters than all other air and ground defenses.
The Hurricane was fast -capable of reaching 160 km/h-, cheap and with exceptional firepower thanks to its eight machine guns. In addition to the Battle of Britain, this model played a crucial role in the defense of Malta, the desert war in North Africa and the encounters with the Japanese in the Far East, according to the official RAF website.
The National Aviation Museum of Ukraine is now in the process of thoroughly excavating the site to identify as many of the aircraft as possible so that they can be reassembled and put on display. "The Hurricanes are a symbol of British aid during World War II, just as we highly appreciate British aid today," Valerii Romanenko, the museum's head of research, said in a statement.
The UK is currently one of the largest suppliers of military equipment to Ukraine in its conflict with Vladimir Putin's Russia. "In 1941, Britain was the first to supply the Soviet Union with combat aircraft on a large scale. Now the UK is the first country to supply Storm Shadow cruise missiles to our armed forces," adds Romanenko.
By the end of World War II, the Hawker Hurricane was considered obsolete and was used primarily for air defense work. The eight fighters found south of kyiv – whose existence had long been part of local legends – were used to protect major transportation hubs, especially stations and railway crossings.
