WW II Air War 17Dramatic Debut
It was like going from a Model T Ford to a
Cadillac. Consider the simple matter of taking
off: the F4F Wildcat was a real bear during
takeoffs and landings. The Hellcat was easy to
keep straight going down the runway.
The Hellcat was more stable and was a
beautiful gun platform. My practice gunnery
scores went up when we got the Hellcats. It
was very maneuverable. It probably had the
biggest wing area of any American fighter.
It would darn near land itself on the carrier
without any help from the pilot.
The Hellcat was a heavyweight. It had a
2,000-horsepower Pratt & Whitney R-2800-
10W Double Wasp 18-cylinder radial piston
engine driving a three-bladed, constant-speed
Hamilton Standard Hydromatic propeller. It
had a gross weight of 15,413 pounds, more
than twice as much as a Zero at just 6,
pounds. It had six .50-caliber M2s with 400
rounds per gun and the sturdiness to survive
against Japanese fighters armed with larger-
bore cannons. It had a better rate of climb and
higher speed.
The all-silver XF6F-1 prototype made its first
flight on June 26, 1942, piloted by Seldon A.
Converse. The initial production version, the
F6F-3, first flew on October 4, 1942.
We received our Hellcats so early that they
didn’t yet have a pilot’s operating manual. We
used mimeographed sheets.
The F6F entered combat in August 1943,
when Lt. Richard Loesch of VF-6 scored the
Hellcat’s first aerial victory. I was in that action,
but not much happened to my squadron.
Hellcats had successes in the Solomon,
Gilbert and Marshall Islands. Piloting the
Hellcat, Cdr. David McCampbell of Carrier Air
Group 15 became the Navy’s all-time ace of
aces, with 34 aerial victories, including nine
aircraft in a single mission, earning him the
Medal of Honor.The flight deck officer signals launch and a
F6F-3 of VF-5 is soon to be launched from
one of the USS Yorktown’s hydraulic cata-
pults. (Photo courtesy of Jack Cook)The F6F-3 cockpit photo
was taken at Bethpage
at the Grumman factory.
(Photo courtesy of Jack
Cook)