The Early Development of the
Mustang

As the war in Europe began to heat up in 1940, England found itself quickly alone, ringed on all sides by the emerging Festung Europa. Poland had fallen in a matter of weeks, soon followed by Scandinavia and the Low Countries. All too quickly France succumbed to the blitzkreig, leaving England to prepare for the imminent Nazi onslaught against the Home Islands. They did not have long to wait as the Battle of Britain soon pitted Goering’s massive Luftwaffe against the heroic, but undermanned and ill equipped Royal Air Force.

As portions of the Wehrmacht actually waited in their boats for the orders to invade England, the R.A.F.’s Spitfire pilots staved off invasion, however temporarily. Their action, of course, prompting Churchill’s immortal comment that "Never in the history of mankind have so many owed so much to so few." Unfortunately, the R.A.F. had suffered such losses that it had never before had so little in the way of aircraft. Another concerted effort by the Luftwaffe would surely break the R.A.F.

It was at this point that the Lend-Lease agreement with the United States would be relied upon to save Britain. Seeking to get more Spitfires and Curtiss P-40 Warhawks from all sources possible, both in the U.K. and the U.S., the Anglo-French Purchasing Commission sought to have North American Aviation build P-40s.

When the British government contacted North American in the summer of 1940, they wanted North American to simply build Warhawks. The president of North American, James Howard "Dutch" Kindleberger, was not very receptive to the proposal. He was convinced by one of his designers, Edgar Schmued, a German-born engineer, that North American could build a more capable fighter than the P-40 and that it could be done in the same basic time-frame.

The contract North American soon signed with the British government stipulated that North American would produce 320 aircraft, that they would be powered by an American Allison engine, that they would have at least eight machine guns, and that they would cost the British government no more than $40,000 each.

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