After my recent D Day Mosquito skin I wondered if there were any applicable aircraft that had not yet got a D Day scheme skin and the only one I could find was the Seafire. (Technically the Mk 8 Spit skin we have was a Mk 7 with half sized stripes, so if anyone knows of a better Mk 8 D Day scheme....)
Four Seafire squadrons, two RAF Mustang squadrons and VCS-7, a USN squadron flying borrowed RAF Spitfire Mk Vs were all incorporated into the 3rd Naval Air Spotter Wing for the D Day invasion. The job of the 3rd NASW was to provide gunnery correction to the Allied battleships and cruisers lying off the Normandy beaches. For the sake of serviceability it was decided to pool all the Seafires and Spitfires into one group, so often US pilots would fly Seafires and vice versa.
3rd NASW aircraft flew in pairs just below the clouds with one pilot radioing corrections to a ship offshore while the other kept an eye out for enemy fighters. This was a real danger as the naval gunfire could be so devastating German forward air controllers would often vector Luftwaffe fighters in to intercept the spotters. Friendly fire from Allied ships, troops and aircraft was also a problem but the biggest danger was enemy flak. The low cloud base during the campaign meant the aircraft often had to stay uncomfortably low to the ground to do their job. In all some 30 aircraft were lost in 6,000 sorties flown before the front line moved beyond the range of the ships' guns.
The Seafires used were L Mk IIIs. These had low altitude Merlins with cropped impellers driving four bladed props which gave the aircraft a 4,700 fpm climb rate at low altitude. 3rd NASW pilots soon learned that nothing, Allied or Axis, could keep up with a Seafire III in a climbing turn. To improve the roll rate clipped wingtips were installed and the outer 303 guns removed. A gyro gunsight was fitted as well as a Canadian designed G suit to ease the pilots' workload during the constant turning over the target.
NF 547 was a Seafire L Mk III built in the Westland factory and assigned to 885 NAS before joining the 3rd NASW pool. Like many Westland-built Seafires it appears to have been painted in RAF rather than FAA colours. On June 8th Sub Lt R.C. Chamen shot down a Bf 109 over Caen while flying this aircraft and on the 16th Sub Lt R. Hales damaged two more 109s with it.
