Seafire landing losses nearly exhaust Force V

Flat calm, 17-knot carriers, short decks, and fragile naval Spitfires made recovery more dangerous than air combat over Salerno. Roughly forty Seafires were lost or damaged in landings, compared with about ten lost to enemy action. The aircraft tended to pitch forward when the arrestor wire tightened, striking their propellers. Hunter's captain Henry McWilliam proposed cutting nine inches from each propeller blade, an improvised modification that reduced damage without an obvious loss of flying performance. Force V stayed beyond its planned two days until American engineers completed a strip at Paestum and twenty-six surviving fighters could move ashore. The episode shows that sortie generation depends as much on deck compatibility and recovery losses as on performance in combat.