As a result of a brilliant piece of improvisation, the Navy
had been presented with the Sea Hurricane which had proved
that a high-performance shore-based fighter could be oper-
ated with relative safety from a carrier, but the Hawker
fighter's chances of survival against a Bf 109G or Fw 190
were anything but good. Nevertheless, its successful adapta-
tion for the shipboard role had at least brought about some-
thing of a revolution in naval thinking, and logically enough,
in 1941, the Admiralty began to demand a similar adaptation
of what was then the highest performing fighter available -
the Spitfire...
....Prior to Torch, Seafire Mk IBs of No 801 Squadron flying from Fur-
fous and participating in Operation Train had failed to over-
haul Ju 88s shadowing the force in which the carrier was
included, and the German bomber had proved capable of
outdistancing the Seafire Mk IICs of No 807 Squadron with
some ease. These frustrating encounters were primarily responsible
for the decision to test the Merlin 32 in the Seafire, this
differing from the Merlin 45 or 46 in having a cropped
supercharger impeller, max boost being raised to +18 Ib and
max output rising by 430 hp at 3,000 ft (915 m) to 1,640 hp,
full advantage of the increase being taken by means of a
four-bladed propeller which replaced the standard three-
blader. With this engine change, the fighter became the
Seafire L Mk IIC and I was to become familiar with this
variant when it first arrived in November 1942 at the Service
Trials Unit at Arbroath, to where I had been posted on 12
September, after my brief sojourn aboard Biter.
The Seafire L Mk IIC was the most exciting aircraft that I
had flown to that time. Its initial climb rate and acceleration
were little short of magnificent, and at maximum boost it
could maintain 4,600 ft/min (23,36 m/sec) up to 6,000 ft
(1 830 m). The fully-supercharged Mk IIC took at least two
minutes longer to attain 20,000 ft (6 095 m) and was mar-
kedly slower at all altitudes up to 25,000 ft (7 620 m). Later,
some Seafire L Mk IICs were to have their wingtips clipped to
boost roll rate and incidentally, add another four knots (7,5
km/h) to maximum speed, although these advantages were to
be obtained at some cost in take-off run and service ceiling.
Another result of the installation of the Merlin 32 was a quite
dramatic reduction in take-off distance and, in fact, the L Mk
IIC without flaps could get airborne in a shorter distance than
the standard Mk IIC using full flap! My enthusiasm for this
new Seafire variant was such that, one afternoon, in sheer
exhilaration, I looped it around both spans of the Forth
Bridge in succession - court-martial stuff nowadays but
during a war nobody has the time to bother with such for-
malities...
