Supermarine Walrus Aircraft
The Walrus was a small lightweight catapult-launched biplane
amphibian warplane designed to be used from large warships.
It was used for sea search and rescue, reconnaissance, spotting
fall of shot in a sea battle and for enemy submarine attack..
It had a 635 hp pusher prop engine. and 740 were built between
1935 and 1945. Its specs were - wingspan 45.8 ft, length 37.2
ft; weight empty 4,900 lbs, loaded 7,220 lbs; speed 135 mph,
ceiling 17, 090 ft, range 600 mi; armament, 2 Vickers K guns
in nose and dorsal area. It could carry 760 lbs of bombs or
depth charges under its wings with a crew of three - pilot and
a navigator and radioman who also operated the guns.
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RCN Walrus on runway at RCN airfield at Dartmouth, Nova
Scotia, 1945
Courtesy Shearwater Aviation Museum, Dartmouth |
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Walrus aircraft taking off from airbase Dartmouth, NS
Courtesy Shearwater Aviation Museum, Dartmouth |
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They were was used throughout the world during WW2, being carried
in eleven RN battleships, two battlescruisers and 36 cruisers.
Also in three Australian cruisers and in two New Zealand cruisers,
totalling 42 small squadrons. In May 1945, three were given
to Canada along with 22 Swordfish when HMS Seaborn, the RN Aircraft
Repair Depot in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia ,was decommissioned .
As an aside, in the fifties a number of these Swordfish, which
were such legendary aircraft, were transported, maybe flewn
to the fifteen Reserve Naval Division across Canada. None of
them are now left and cannot be found. Some were also given
to Egypt and also some shipped to Northern Russia.
This aircraft, like the Swordfish, was really overtaken by
aircraft designby the time the war started ,yet proved to be
successful; saving many downed air crews, taking part in five
enemy submarine sinkings and in other sea operations. In one
operation, it flew over a 100 miles out over the South Atlantic
from Freetown, Sierra Leone, to go to the assistance of the
survivors of sunken merchant ship. It was not used in the Battle
of the River Plate.
The battleship HMS Queen Elizabeth, in which I served, carried
two, kept in hangers on either side of the funnel. Prewar in
the Far East station, three aircraft each were carried on the
cruisers HMS Suffolk and Cumberland and one or two were always
kept airborne every day when the fleet was at sea. After they
landed, their base ships would make sharp turns to create a
calm pool for them taxi up alongside to be lifted back aboard.
There are only three now are in existence, one in the FAA Museum
in the UK, one in the RAF Museum in the UK and one in the RAAF
Museum, Australia. See http://www.fleetairarmarchive.net.
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