The plan for Operation Avalanche on 9 September 1943 put the Allied landings in the Gulf of Salerno about 200 miles from fighter bases in Sicily. Air cover for the first day was to come from Seafires: some 106 Seafire LF IICs in 11 squadrons on the escort carriers Attacker, Battler, Hunter and Stalker and the maintenance carrier Unicorn, under Rear-Admiral Philip Vian. Many pilots had little experience of the type, let alone of deck landing it, and the morning dawned almost windless. The escort carriers, flat out at about 17 knots, could not make enough wind over the deck, and haze hid the horizon.

The Seafires flew 265 sorties on the first day and 232 on the second, breaking up dozens of fighter-bomber attacks. But the landings were carnage. The airfield ashore took four days to secure, not one, and by the analysis that followed the Seafire force had flown 713 sorties, shot down two enemy aircraft and lost 42 aircraft in accidents, none to enemy action. Crews cut 2 in off the propeller tips to stop them hitting the deck. Vian blamed the aircraft; many pilots blamed Vian.

Seafires of 887 and 894 Squadrons went east aboard HMS Indefatigable and joined the British Pacific Fleet in late 1944. They had about an hour less endurance than the American-built Hellcats and Corsairs alongside them, so the fleet gave them the defensive job: combat air patrols over the carriers. Pilots adapted surplus P-40 Warhawk drop tanks to extend their patrols. The Seafires met the kamikazes during the Okinawa campaign and stayed in action off Japan until the very end; on 15 August 1945 they shot down eight attacking aircraft for one loss. Sub-Lieutenant R. H. Reynolds of 894 Squadron became the top-scoring Seafire pilot, credited with four and a half victories.

Five years later Seafire 47s of 800 Squadron flew from HMS Triumph off Korea, carrying out ground attack and patrols from July to September 1950. They flew 360 operational sorties; one was shot down in error by a B-29 gunner. The heavy landings took their toll, wrinkling rear fuselages, and when peacetime rules returned almost all of 800 Squadron’s Seafires were declared unserviceable. Sea Furies took their place.

• Mk Ib: converted Spitfire Vbs, the first 48 converted at Hamble in late 1941 and a further 118 with reinforced fuselages.
• Mk IIc: first built as a Seafire, based on the Spitfire Vc, with catapult spools; L Mk IIc had a low-altitude Merlin 32. Supermarine built 262, Westland 110.
• Mk III: folding wings and Merlin 55; 1,220 built by Westland and Cunliffe-Owen, the most numerous mark.
• Mk XV: Griffon VI, Spitfire VIII-style fuel tanks and tail; 390 built from late 1944, later aircraft with a sting hook.
• Mk XVII: reinforced undercarriage, extra fuel and bubble canopy; 232 built.
• Mk 45 / 46: navalised Spitfire 21 and 22 with two-stage Griffons and non-folding wings; 50 and 24 built.
• Mk 47: definitive version with contra-rotating propellers and hydraulically folding wings; 90 built at South Marston.

The Seafire’s real cost was attrition. At Salerno the force lost 42 aircraft to accidents in four days; 32 deck-landing crashes wrote off the machine, 17 were lost to undercarriage failures and 24 were found to have distorted rear fuselages. The Fleet Air Arm accepted those losses because the Seafire was available, fast and could be built on existing Spitfire lines, while the best purpose-built carrier fighters came from America. Post-war, wrinkled fuselages grounded much of 800 Squadron after Korea. For today’s owners the costs are those of any Spitfire, with the added rarity of naval parts.