In the spring of 1936, the Brown Sauce Crisis erupted over access to guar gum, a key ingredient in this cupboard staple.
Shortages of this classic condiment became the norm, as did street protests all over Great Britain.
Things reached a boiling point by the fall. Then Uruguay nationalized the guar gum plantations and the Brown Sauce began flowing again. In gratitude, the British granted a production license for the Hawker Hurricane. Unfortunately, the British would not grant a license for the famous Merlin engine that powered it.
Luckily, the Uruguayans thought outside the box and decided to power their license-built Hurricanes with a suped-up version of the Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp 14-cylinder radial engine, also produced under license. Upon the prototype's first start-up test, a bystander remarked it sounded like a roaring
torbellino (or whirlwind) and the name stuck. Thus the Uruguayan Torbellino fighter was born.
The Torbellino first took flight in late 1937 and had performance that completely outclassed anything then in service. The Uruguayan Air Force ordered it into production. By mid-1939 Torbellinos equipped all front-line Uruguayan fighter squadrons, and not a moment too soon.
In December, 1939, after the Battle of the River Plate, the German pocket-battleship
Graf Spee put in at Motevideo to see to their wounded and make repairs. This would precipitate another crisis for Uruguay.
The Uruguayans were determined to keep a close eye on the
Graf Spee and trailed it from altitude all the way from their border with Argentina with flights of Torbellinos. When the
Graf Spee finally put in at Montevideo, the German sailors' worst fears of British air attack seemed manifest when what they thought was a Hurricane buzzed the hapless Kriegsmarine warship.
Luckily for the crew of the
Graf Spee it was only a lone Uruguayan Air Force pilot who simply couldn't resist the urge to get down low for a closer look. The photo snapped by a UPI man became one of the iconic images of early W.W. II. The Germans, for their part, didn't realize the British Hurricane wasn't a British Hurricane until it was too late and the decision to scuttle the ship had been made.
This would be the closest the Torbellino would get to seeing enemy action. As W.W. II heated up, the sprightly fighter was replaced by more modern types and no examples exist today.
Brian da Basher