Foreword
It is a distinct honor and pleasure for me to have been asked to write the foreword to such an outstanding, well-organized, and expertly written book. I must admit, however, that it is difficult to do when one is personally mentioned in the manuscript.
This book is much more than just an account of actions and recorded events in which the Hellcat participated. It is also a dedicated memorial, not only to the combat pilots who flew the F6F so gallantly, but also to the designers, draftsmen, and test pilots who brought this plane on when our country was in desperate need of it to counter the opposition. And it is also a memorial to the thousands of people who kept these planes flying, often under the most adverse conditions of war.
No aircraft company can be more proud of the products produced, developed, and delivered than Grumman Aircraft of Bethpage, Long Island, and Pratt and Whitney Engines of Hartford, Connecticut. Their executives, many of whom I knew personally, were without doubt the best in the field. But a special vote of thanks is also due the American public, without whose funds the Hellcat would not have been available when needed.
It would be a serious omission not to mention that Barrett Tillman has spent countless hours and much effort putting together this book. He has carefully and diligently researched the historical files for combat action reports of the various fighter squadrons, and interviewed numerous people who were involved with or flew the F6F in combat.
I can truly recommend this book, both for the accuracy of what is recorded and for the enjoyment that a reader will reap by being able to identify with the persons and events described.
David McCampbell
Captain, U.S. Navy (Retired)
The Grumman F6F Hellcat was the U.S. Navy’s air superiority fighter of the Second World War, just as its lineal descendant, the F-14 Tomcat, performs that role today. And though it may seem anachronistic to refer to the F6F as an air superiority fighter, it is nevertheless appropriate. For in spite of the fact that terminology as well as technology have changed in three decades, the nature of the mission has not.
Fighter-versus-fighter combat is what air superiority is all about. The combatant best employing his fighters will ultimately control the sky, allowing his own strike aircraft to do their work while denying such use to the enemy. Therefore, when two hostile fighters engage one another, the strategic implications transcend the tactical solution as to which opponent finally flies home.
According to the official record, 19 out of 20 times it was the Hellcat which flew home. The F6F made its combat debut in the early fall of 1943, at the beginning of the long Pacific offensive. But the Hellcat was not only in the spearhead of the thrust which led to Tokyo Bay; it was the tip of the lance. In 24 months of combat the angular fighters from Long Island were credited with over 5,000 Japanese aircraft destroyed in aerial combat, gaining outright air supremacy over invasion beaches. This success helped make possible the imaginative series of amphibious conquests which marked the Central Pacific campaigns.
The Pacific War was fought by identifiable stages, and each stage saw one aircraft which was instrumental during that period. The first, as described in my previous book, was the Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bomber which in 1942 may not have actually won the war, but most certainly shaped its course and prevented defeat at Midway and Guadalcanal. In 1945 the most influential aircraft was the Boeing B-29 strategic bomber, which literally burned out the heart of Japanese industry. Combined with the U.S. Navy’s submarine campaign against Japan’s merchant marine, Superfortresses crippled the enemy’s ability to sustain aggressive war and helped render a bloody invasion unnecessary.
In between was the Hellcat, which was largely responsible for subduing Japanese air power wherever the Fast Carrier Force sailed. As a result, I believe the F6F was the most important Allied aircraft in the Pacific during 1943–44. After all, the B-29s flew from bases in the Marianas where the Hellcat’s greatest victory took place.
Despite the passage of three decades, the F6F story may hold lessons for today. The argument is made that the aircraft carrier is obsolete, that no other major power builds fixed-wing aircraft carriers, and that the flattop is vulnerable to the cruise missile. This line of thought ignores the fact that the Soviet Navy has commissioned its own aircraft-carrying warships—the VTOL-equipped Kiev class. Nor does it consider the logic which insists that all surface vessels are potentially vulnerable to the new missile threat. And it completely overlooks an historical parallel from the Hellcat’s career. The U.S. Navy has already dealt with the cruise missile in its most gruesome form—the Kamikaze suicide aircraft. Hellcats were instrumental in defeating this threat, the most serious ever directed against carriers. It is a fact which should not lead us into complacency, but neither should it warp our perspective or our confidence.
This volume makes wide use of nautical and aviation terminology. Distances are in nautical miles, though in most cases where airspeeds are given in knots, statute miles per hour are included. The jargon and acronymns of W. W. II naval aviation have hopefully been minimized, but to eliminate them entirely would detract both from the purpose and character of the story.
Each chapter has a list of Hellcat squadrons in combat for the particular period covered in that chapter. There are two exceptions, however. Since one chapter is devoted exclusively to night fighters, the F6F night fighter squadrons have been grouped at the end of Chapter 8. And the Hellcat squadrons which flew from escort carriers are listed in a separate compilation. Since space considerations precluded a full chapter on these unheralded but valuable support squadrons, I must invoke the charity and understanding of their former personnel.
In the course of researching Hellcat, I contacted dozens of naval aviators who flew the F6F in combat or who had other direct association with the type. They have been generous with their time and resources, enthusiastic in their assistance, and encouraging in their support. Hellcat is their story. It deals with the most memorable period of their lives, when they were part of the greatest armed conflict in all history. It was a time of youthful friendship and its attendant sorrow in loss, a time of fear in mortal danger and of exultation in victory. It was a time, now long gone, when wars were meant to be won, and the sooner the better.
Because I was born 25 years too late to live the F6F story, I must be content with merely writing it. But I will be happy if, after reading these pages, some former Hellcat pilot can lean back, close his eyes and say softly to himself, “Yes, that’s the way it was.”
Barrett Tillman
Athena, Oregon
July, 1978
Hellcat
