Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Prior to being allocated to night intruder duties, night-flying Hurricanes tended to have a hybrid day and night colour scheme: upper and side surfaces in dark green and dark grey (day fighter) camouflage with lower surfaces including fuel tanks all black and no underwing roundels (night fighter). However, many intruder Hurricanes were painted matt black all over (except for the red spinner). It was appreciated that the matt finish on the aircraft could increase 'drag' and therefore reduce top speed, but the intruder - unlike the inceptor - did not depend on speed but on concealment.

In spite of the black colour scheme, the aircraft could still give itself away in the darkness because the exhaust manifolds used to glow red hot, so part of the maintenance routine was to apply very thick red lead paint to the manifolds. As 43 Squadron pilot Jack Torrance comments: "Even with the flame shields over the exhaust, I found the flickering blue flames strangely comforting over the water but, once over the French coast, one felt very conspicuous in the night sky". His squadron colleague Morrie Smith makes the same point: "I felt that everyone for miles around could see the exhaust stubs glowing in the night, but the anti-glare cowlings protected the pilot's night vision from this glow".

Godfrey Ball, another 43 intruder, remembers a disturbing occasion on the return from an operation:

"As I descended deeper into the cloud, I experienced a frightening phenomenon: the whole inside of the cockpit was lit up by a red glow. My immediate reaction was: 'Fire!' But there was no heat and all my instruments showed everything to be in order, so I ventured to look outside. My two exhaust manifolds were belching out the usual flame, made perhaps a trifle more red and less blue from being throttled back, and this source had illuminated the surrounding very dense cloud. It was an eerie sensation but, once I knew what it was all about, it ceased to trouble me".

“Night Hawk”
published by William Kimber in 1985