SUPERMARINE WALRUS

The Supermarine Walrus first entered service with the British Royal Navy and Coastal Command in 1935.

Designed by the legendary Spitfire designer, R.J Mitchell it was a single-engine amphibious biplane with a large ‘pusher’ propeller mounted high above its cockpit.

Originally called the Supermarine Seagull V, it was the British squadron operated flying boat to incorporate a fully retractable undercarriage, enclosed crew quarters and an all metal fuselage.

Designed as a maritime spotter aircraft smaller enough to be launched by catapult off small cruisers and battleships, it first entered service with Australia’s RAAF and was subsequently adopted by the British Fleet Air Arm, the RAF as well as New Zealand navy and airforce.

Initially operating in the tropical conditions with the RAAF and the RNZF, the Walrus’s all- metal hull was constructed from an anodised alloy with stainless Steel forgings for its major joints, catapult mountings and lifting points. 

The anodised alloy hull resisted the usual degradation of wooden construction methods caused by the humid, tropical operating environments but when the aircraft was later adopted for the British Navy and the RAF for service in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic and the English Channel, the later Supermarine Walrus II was built with a wooden hull to conserve the use of Britains light alloys - desperately needed for Spitfire production.   

The Walrus carried a crew of three with a pilot up front and a small cabin to the rear for the navigator and radio operator and was lightly armed with a nose and a tail-mounted .303 Vickers machine gun.  

Its fabric covered wings featured Stainless Steel spars with wooden ribs and could be folded back for easier storage back aboard ship.

Just below the upper wing structure, the aircraft’s single Bristol Pegasus radial engine was mounted on braced struts above and below and drove a four-bladder wooden pusher propeller.

The ‘Pusher’ configuration had the advantage of shielding the engine and propeller from much of the sea spray when operating on water and also significantly reduced the noise level inside the aircraft. Even so, its original test pilot, Alex Henshaw declared it was ’ The noisiest, coldest and most uncomfortable aircraft he had ever flown’.   

Having the propeller at the rear also kept it safely away from any crew member standing on the front deck whilst hooking on the hoisting gear.

With heavily reinforced lifting brackets, retrieval of the Walrus in calm waters was relatively simple,  as the aircraft would simply land close to the ships hull and its crew would attach the lowered hooks attached to their lifting cables and the aircraft hoisted aboard by the ship’s crane.

In rough weather however it became a nightmare with the ship having to turn 20o off the prevailing swell to create a ’slick’ on the lee side of the vessel. The Walrus would then quickly taxi up to the hull with its crew climbing onto the upper wing to attach the lifting cables.

By the start of WWII, the Walrus was already run wide use being deployed on the Royal Navies Townclass cruisers with some battleships such as the Queen-Elizabeth class HMS Warspite and Nelson class HMS Rodney.

Its main task was scouting ahead of the fleet looking for Axis submarines and surface raiders and by March 1941, this task was made much easy with the installation of the new ASV radar systems.

The Walrus was also used by the RAF and Coastal command on air-sea rescue missions recovering downed aircrew. With other rescue spotter aircraft such as the Boulton Paul Defiant and Avro Ansons locating and dropping supplies to the aircrew, it was the Walrus which was tasked with landing and retrieving them.

RAF Air-sea rescue squadrons were deployed to cover waters around the British Isles  the Mediterranean and the Bay of Bengal with over 1000 aircrew being successfully rescued during these operations over the course of the war.

After the end of the War, the Walruses continued in a limited role with the RAF and foreign navies but with the introduction of shipboard helicopters, they were quickly retired although eight aircraft continued operating with the Argentine Navy until 1958. 

The Typhoon did not come into its own until the end of 1942 when its heavier armament, speed and maneuvrability decimated Luftwaffe attacks and with the introduction of the faster Spitfire MkIX, the Typhoon’s ability to carry up to two 450 kg bombs or four rockets under each wing soon saw it switched to a ground attack role. By 1944 the RAF boasted 18 operational Squadrons of rocket-equipped Typhoons.

All Supermarine Walrus Instruments listed below come complete with a detailed, custom-built Scale Model of the Walrus on its Magnetic Display Arm; Mango Wood Display Stand & Plaque, plus Printed Fact Sheet featuring photo of instrument in aircraft cockpit - as shown in this Corsair example opposite:

Supermarine Walrus with folded wings aboard HMS York photo: Bill Larkins, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29358459

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  SUPERMARINE WALRUS AIR MINISTRY ALL METAL 5C/374 MORSE CODE SENDER KEY

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