<p>It was not a one-way street. One very important by-product of the Allied contracts for American aircraft was the development and production of some of the better warplanes. The Douglas A-20 series, one of the best light bombers ever operational, started from French interest. The Douglas Model 7H, which had crashed and injured a French officer in early 1939, was ordered in production quantities by the French. Their initial contract called for 100 of the swift attackers.
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<p>The best-known example is, of course, that paragon of pursuits, the speedy North American Mustang series. The British, who eventually bought the Mustang first, really wanted to buy more Curtiss Model 87A-1 pursuits, the export equal of the P-40D. They were concerned that Curtiss did not have enough production capacity to meet British and American needs, and so they approached North American's J. H. Kindelberger in April 1940. The British came to the point: they wanted North American to build the Curtiss plane.
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<p>"Hell," said Kindelberger, "We can build you a better airplane than that!"
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<p>The British, desperate for any military planes, agreed but made Kindelberger guarantee delivery of the prototype within 120 days after the date of the contract, which was 4 May 1940. The US government had no objection to the deal, but stipulated that two early production aircraft had to be delivered to the AAC for testing.
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<p>The NA-73 prototype was finished 117 days later, although engineless because its Allison V-1710-39 engine hadn't arrived. The plane first flew on 26 October 1940, and the rest—as the cliché goes—is history.
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<p>After the fall of France, some of that country's contracted aircraft went to the British. Between July 1940 and December 1941, the US aircraft industry produced more than 22,000 military planes of all types. The Air Corps took delivery of fewer than half and the British got 6,756, or about 31 per cent of the total.
