Hi Edgar, thanks very much for that input.
Yes, I’d already got the 126 sqn Appendices to the ORB which did provide some snippets but nothing about the names. It was very useful for other things e.g. detailing aircraft loadouts for specific dates, such as on D-Day, all the aircraft were fitted with the 45 gallon jettisonable tanks.
I found a copy of ‘Gifts of War’ myself last week and did find that there were several Persian Gulf Aircraft which had previously been allocated to other squadrons. It listed ‘Bahrain III’ as a MkIXt (tropical?) and as you say, with the timings it doesn’t look like the same aircraft that was in the December IWM photo called ‘Bahrain III’. It also mentioned that aircraft were sometimes renamed or re-allocated and that regarding the Persian Fund names:- ‘There appears to have been no request that any of these names be applied to aircraft of No 126 (Persian Gulf) Sqn, equipped with Spitfires and later Mustangs’.
So I was starting to come to a similar sort of conclusion that perhaps the association with 126 Sqn and the aircraft might have only begun that December (unless a photograph showing a named aircraft is found).