An interesting extract from Terence Kelly's book Spitfire and Hurricane Pilots at War:
These men no doubt came to accept the fable, which has long since taken root elsewhere, that the Hurricane, on which no doubt initially they pinned great hopes, was outclassed by the Zero. (Incidentally, much of the fighting believed to have been between Hurricane and Zero was in fact between Hurricane and Hayabusa. In many cases which follow where the name Zero is used, the aircraft could well have been an Oscar).
I have read book after book in which this nonsense about the superiority of the Japanese fighters is written. It simply was not so. The Hurricane was not outclassed by the Zero, or as we knew it, the Navy O or Navy Nought, nor by the Hayabusa. The Hurricane was at least the match of either machine and had the battles between them been fought on equal terms would have coped quite comfortably. Such was my opinion at the time and so it remains to the present day and although the majority of pundits appear to disagree I do at least have the support of the Commander of the 14th Army in Burma, Field Marshall Sir William Slim who in his splendid book Defeat into Victory states that: 'Speaking generally, all the Japanese fighters were inferior in performance to the Hurricane with the exception of the Navy O which was approximately equal to them.'
It is true that the Allied fighter squadrons in Singapore and the Dutch East Indies were largely eliminated by their Japanese opposite numbers but to discover why one has to look far beyond a comparison of the qualities of the aircraft involved. The Japanese won the air battle because they had a huge superiority in numbers (normally of the order of 8:1), because almost invariably they had the advantage of height and because most of their pilots were battle-hardened men - although admittedly against only negligible resistance from the Chinese. Over Singapore, the bomber formations were escorted by 50, 60, 70 or more Japanese fighters and, because of the ludicrous decisions of those who gave the orders, against these were pitted mere handfuls of Hurricanes as they became available for service. There were never 100 Hurricanes available for flying in Singapore, there were never 50 or even 20. There might perhaps, at best, be 12 at any juncture and usually there were less.
The first time 258 Sqn engaged the enemy, out of 48 Hurricanes which had flown off the Indomitable, exactly 8 were ready for combat. These 8, of whose pilots perhaps not more than two or three had ever fired their guns in anger before, had to climb up to attack a bomber force which was protected by a swarm of Japanese fighters just waiting for them. 2 Hurricanes were shot down and three of the remainder so badly mauled as to be, for the time being at least, unserviceable. In the course of a single hour, 8 had become 3. This was to become the pattern: Hurricanes taking off in petty numbers, often in the teeth of strafing fighters to engage swarms of the enemy comfortably ready to receive and deal with them.
As to the qualities of the two aircraft, the Zero certainly had advantages. It was manoeuvrable, it was marginally faster up to heights of about 15,000ft and it had a far longer range. Its mixed armament of machine guns and cannons roughly matched the 12 (but later 8 when 4 were removed to improve manoeuvrability and speed) machine guns of the Hurricane and while there are arguments about relative rates of climb, I have it on good authority that pilots from my own squadron escaped from Zeros by climbing away from them. The Hurricane for its part had several very distinct advantages. It had a better ceiling, the aircraft could take punishment which would have made the lightly-built Zero disintegrate, it was faster at higher altitudes and the pilot had the protection of resealing fuel tanks and an armour plate shield behind his back.
Thus it will be seen that tactics were the vital thing, that pilots must avoid giving battle in conditions where the advantages lay with the enemy. The Hurricane pilot must not start mixing it in dogfights at lower altitudes, the Zero pilot must avoid finding himself outmanoeuvred in terms of height. Early on this was little if at all appreciated by the Allies and possibly not by the Japanese. When my own squadron's 8 Hurricanes took off to challenge that first Japanese air armada not only were they force majeure choosing a battle ground which was the Navy O's ideal, but they were doing so on the assumption that should a dogfight ensue, the Hurricane being (as they had not been disabused) the world's most manoeuvrable modern fighter, the advantage would be theirs - for no one had briefed us on the Zero or even heard of the Hayabusa. When we flew off the Indomitable, it was to clear the Japanese wooden biplanes from the skies. I beg the reader not to believe this to be exaggeration.
On Indomitable, we knew nothing of either aircraft and the first intimation the Zero even existed was gleaned amongst the gloomy, defeatist attitude which hung like a pall over Singapore on that evening when we landed at Seletar a mere 36 hours before we were to be in action.
So we were dribbled away piecemeal. Hurricanes would be ferried up in batches from Java only for some to be damaged landing across the deep ruts left by Flying Fortresses at the midway refuelling airfield known as P2 near Palembang or jumped by waiting Navy O's or Hayabusas whilst taking off or landing. Strength could never be built up sufficiently for properly planned defence. And tactics were hardly a matter for discussion when the one thought hammering at the mind of each of perhaps half a dozen scrambled pilots racing with thudding hearts to their Hurricanes was that with a horde of Japanese mere minutes away from Singapore he must somehow gain height before they came down en masse and clobbered him.
The alternative to this useless waste of valuable men and machines to no real purpose, was, to my knowledge at the time, put forward by only one senior RAF officer, Wing Cdr Harold Maguire, who, as previously mentioned had been my CO at 56 OTU at Sutton Bridge and was now in command of the proposed 266 Wing to be formed from 232, 242, 258 and 605 Sqns. His plan was that the entire force of Hurricanes should be withheld until all aircraft were operational, all pilots locally knowledgeable and a coherent tactical scheme had been formulated. Had his wise counsel been accepted, his plan adopted, quite different pages would have been written in the Operational Record Books.