This is good news, Draco!
I hope you will consider producing one of your Sea Otters as JM960 (“Neptune’s Daughter”), which was the search and rescue bird of HMS Triumph while the ship was conducting combat operations in the early months of the Korean War (July to October 1950).
At the start of the Korean war on 25 June 1950, HMS
Triumph embarked No. 13 Carrier Air Group (Tail Code "P"), consisting of 12 Seafire F.R.47s of No. 800 Naval Air Squadron (NAS); 12 Firefly FR/NF Mk Is of No. 627 NAS, and Supermarine Sea Otter II JM960 ("Neptune's Daughter").
The problem is finding documentation on what Neptune’s Daughter looked like. Based on the serial (JM960), is was one of a batch of Sea Otters build by Saudners-Roe (“250 Sea Otter ABR.I ordered under Contract No Ctts/Acft/1806 from Saunders-Roe Ltd, Cowes. Serial Numbers JM740-JN257.” Source: “Supermarine Sea Otter,” Fleet Air Arm Archive, previously available at
Fleetairarmarchive.net -, accessed 8 July 2012, but not currently available) The color image at that site shows what Neptune’s Daughter probably looked like.
This image shows a Supermarine Sea Otter (P 951) of HMS
Triumph around 1948, but I am not sure if it is Neptune’s Daughter (the serial is not visible):
Sea Otter 2 | A Sea Otter with TAG aboard ready to hook onto… | Flickr
The Imperial War Museum has an image of what has to be Neptune’s Daughter, but it is not visible to me from my computer. I am in the process of trying to purchase a copy of the image. The caption is, “THE ROYAL NAVY RESCUES A UNITED STATES FLIER OFF KOREA IN 1950: A successful rescue operation was carried out recently by a Supermarine Sea Otter from the aircraft carrier HMS TRIUMPH off the Korean coast. After a strike at Communist targets on land, the pilot of a US Air Force plane was forced to ditch his damaged machine in the sea 80 miles away from the British Fleet. The Supermarine Sea Otter took off from the TRIUMPH and was guided to the wreckage by other US aircraft circling over the spot. The British pilot, Lieutenant P Cane, of St Albans, and his observer, Aircrewman First Class J C O'Nion, of Christchurch, landed the Supermarine Sea Otter alongside the American afloat in a dinghy and took him aboard. This photograph shows the rescued US pilot smiling happily as the Supermarine Sea Otter lands on the TRIUMPH's flight deck after the successful rescue operation.”
THE ROYAL NAVY RESCUES A UNITED STATES FLIER OFF KOREA IN 1950 | Imperial War Museums
Other images of a different
Triumph Sea Otter (901) are available but the serial does not appear to be JM960.
Sea Otter 1 | A Sea Otter Being hooked on to be lifted inboa… | Flickr
Sea Otter | Sea Otter taxiing off Cyprus | Rick Willmore | Flickr
Don
Sources:
Fleet Air Arm Officers’ Association History, available at
http://www.fleetairarmoa.org/pages/f.../history.shtml, accessed 5 July 2012.
“Supermarine Sea Otter,” Fleet Air Arm Archive, previously available at
Fleetairarmarchive.net -, accessed 8 July 2012, no longer available on 7 September 2023.
Davis Hobbs, “British Commonwealth Carrier Operations in the Korean War,”
Air & Space Power Journal, Volume XVIII, No. 4, Winter 2004.
“HMS Triumph,” Naval Warfare November 2010, available from
http://navalwarfare.blogspot.com/201...s-triumph.html, accessed 5 July 2012.
“The Royal Navy Rescues a United States Flier off Korea in 1950,” Imperial War Museum web site, available at
THE ROYAL NAVY RESCUES A UNITED STATES FLIER OFF KOREA IN 1950 | Imperial War Museums, accessed 5 July 2012.
Tony O'Toole articles on the Triumph air group and on building plastic models of FR.1 (Mk.I) and AS.5 (Mk.V) Korean War era Fireflys in the September 2007 issue of
Model Aircraft Monthly.
Tony O’Toole, “The Forgotten Cruise,” previously available at
http://www.royalnavyresearcharchive....ten_Cruise.htm accessed 5 July 2012, no longer available on 7 September 2023.
Owen G. Thetford, “Supermarine Sea Otter,”
Royal Naval Aircraft Since 1912, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1991, pp. 328-329, available at
http://books.google.com/books?id=28e...riumph&f=false
“HMS Triumph,” available at HMS Triumph accessed 5 July 2012.
Images of
Triumph Sea Otter (901):
Sea Otter 1 | A Sea Otter Being hooked on to be lifted inboa… | Flickr
Sea Otter | Sea Otter taxiing off Cyprus | Rick Willmore | Flickr