Many of the images are Grumman origin, and have been seen here before in 'Armyjunk's excellent,
long, stickied thread above: 'Grumman, the people that made the planes 12 SEPT 2010' - more importantly, they've been discussed before, there, so worth a look. But good to see them again!
WallyB wrote:
Peculiar representation of UK serials - A.M.997 should be AM997
Good point. Looks like a classic example of a foreign manufacturer misunderstanding painting instructions. It's worth noting, though, that it's common for even British military personnel to insert a space between the letters and numbers in W.W.II era serials, including on the aircraft. Officially, as you've said it should be expressed as one block, no punctuation.
Re- Martlet. That's the Royal Navy's name for the type, though it was replaced with Wildcat in due course. I was wondering how the French
Aéronavale examples acquired the name Martlet in this thread (as it was
not the French navy's name for the type) but I guess it's a classic hindsight thing; no G-36s were delivered to France before the German invasion, and most (all?) were diverted to the Royal Navy, where they were named Martlets in British service, so that's how the photos got labelled, I suspect.
I'm not sure what the French intended to call them; probably just 'Groomens'
Regards,