Some SO3C-1s with a fixed wheeled undercarriage, were ordered by the Fleet Air Arm (the aeronautical branch of the Royal Navy) under the terms of the Lend-Lease. In the Fleet Air Arm it was known as the "Seamew", name that would later be reused for the Short Seamew, in the 1950s. However, in the field it was nicknamed as the "Sea Cow" by the crews.
According to Lettice Curtiss, in spite of the 300gl (1364L) fuel tank, it would only take off with the eighty gallons fixed as the maximum by the Air Transport Auxiliary Trips (the authority for auxiliary aircrafts during wartime). Furthermore, the tail needed to be raised to become airborne as it was possible to take-off in an attitude from which it was both impossible to recover and in which there was no aileron control. She stated also that it was hard to imagine how, in wartime, such aircraft was accepted from the factory and given valuable cargo flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
Initially, the first batch delivered to the Royal Navy, was going to feature a centreline bomb rack and arrestor gear, however, as later versions (known as the Seamew Mk.I) were based on the SO3C-2, no armed versions served with the Royal Navy. Two-hundred fifty of them were allocated for Lend-Lease and eventually on-hundred of them were delivered as the last batch was refused in favour of the Vought Kingfisher which was substantially better. The first batch was delivered in January 1944 and by September was already declared obsolete and completely removed from service by 1945. The target drone version, the SO3C-1K was going to serve in the Royal Navy, under the name of Queen Seamew, but the order of 30 was cancelled. The 100 that were delivered served with the 744 Naval Air Squadron and 745 Naval Air Squadron, both of them based at RCAF Yarmouth in Nova Scotia, Canada and some few of them with the 755 Naval Air Squadron, based in Hampshire, in the United Kingdom.
Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtiss_SO3C_Seamew
2. https://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=797
3. http://www.aviastar.org/air/usa/curtiss_model82.php
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