10 Victory

And the combat ceased for want of combatants.

Pierre Corneille

El Cid

The Okinawa Campaign officially ended in the first week of June when TF-38 struck Kyushu again. Strikes were flown on the second, third, and eighth to destroy Japanese aircraft posing a threat to the invasion, but little aerial opposition was encountered. Hellcats and Corsairs claimed “only” 77 planes destroyed, while total fast-carrier losses amounted to 14. Again, the main cause was AA fire.

During one of these strikes, VBF-12 was certain it had lost its skipper over an airdrome near Hiroshima. Lieutenant Rube Denoff rolled into a steep strafing run and was instantly under heavy, accurate AA fire. After a bright explosion, his Hellcat was seen diving headlong at the ground, and the remaining 11 pilots sadly set course back to the Randolph.

Near the briefed rendezvous point a familiar F6 joined formation. The pilots were incredulous. “Rube, is that you?” queried one. “Hell, yes,” came the reply, “where you been?”¹ Unknown to Denoff, the bursting flak had appeared to be a direct hit on his plane. But he had pressed his strafing attack on the airdrome, confident the squadron was following him down. Deprived of the element of surprise, VBF-12 abandoned its primary target and contented itself with shooting up about 20 suicide motor boats in Hiroshima Bay.

Back aboard the Randolph, Denoff speculated on the enemy gunners’ opinion of the crazy American in the lone Hellcat who tackled an entire airdrome single-handed.

The fast carriers arrived at Leyte for replenishment on 14 June and remained for two weeks. While there, Air Group 12 was knocked out of the war—by a U.S. Army pilot. A pair of P-38 Lightnings buzzed the carriers riding at anchor, but one pilot misjudged his altitude and crashed into the Randolph’s flight deck. Eleven men were killed, 14 injured, and nine planes destroyed. Most of Commander Ed Pawka’s airmen were ashore at the time, and commented on the strange plume of smoke rising out at sea. Not until their boats returned to the task group did they know it was their own unlucky “Randy.” Rube Denoff found one of the P-38’s Allison engines smouldering in his bunk. With no replacement carrier available, Air Group 12 ended its tour prematurely.

While the Navy fast-carrier Hellcats enjoyed a rest, the Marine escort-carrier F6Fs were hard at work. The first Marine carrier air group was composed of VMF-511 and VMTB-233, embarked aboard the second Block Island (CVE-106.) In combat since early May at Okinawa, the fighter squadron was led by Major Robert C. Maze with eight F4U-lDs, eight F6F-5Ns, and two F6F-5Ps.

Three other Marine CVEs got into combat, but VMF-511 was the only Leatherneck carrier squadron to fly Hellcats. Lieutenant Chester Leo Smith, a Californian, recalls the F6F’s joint operations with the F4Us: “I flew fourth man on three Corsairs quite a lot from the Block Island, as spares were necessary. I checked out on the night fighter gear, and we used it in daytime occasionally, particularly in heavy weather. The Corsair had several knots on the night fighter F6F, and picked up speed a little faster in a dive, so formation flying had its problems.”²

The Block Island shuttled between Okinawa and Formosa during May and June, flying more strike missions than the ground support sorties for which its pilots were trained. The CVE was then sent south to Borneo to help support the Australian landings at Balikpapan. During this operation VMF-511 scored its only aerial victory when Lieutenant Bruce J. Reuter’s F6F-5N dispatched a Jake floatplane shortly after midnight, 3 July.

Task Force 38 sailed to war for the last time on 1 July, again bound for Japanese waters. As the conflict entered its last 60 days, the Tokyo area became the target for only the second time. Not since the original strikes in mid-February had carrier pilots been briefed to strike the airfields of the Tokyo plain.

The task force numbered eight CVs, including the night carrier Bonhomme Richard, and six CVLs. Six of these 14 air groups were embarked upon their second or third tour, including the indefatigable Air Group 27 under Fred Bardshar. Orphaned from the Princeton at Leyte Gulf only eight months before, the unit was now aboard the Independence. It was one of the quickest turn-arounds of the war. Recalled Bardshar: “We recommissioned at Sanford, Maine, on 1 January 1945 in 18° F below zero. . . . About half the pilots in VF-27 from the Princeton cruise made the Independence cruise. I remember stating that we were going back out with division and section leaders who had shot down at least two Japanese aircraft each.”³ It was further reason why assistant operations officer John Fitzgerald called VF-27 “the biggest little squadron in the war.”⁴

The Tokyo strikes were launched shortly after dawn on 10 July, 170 miles offshore. The pilots assigned to fighter sweeps over Tokyo itself returned astonished and disappointed; there were no enemy aircraft. Low-flying fighter-bombers were completely unhindered from the air as they hunted for parked Japanese planes on the airdrome complexes around the capital. Few were found on the fields themselves. Instead, the enemy had reverted to their Philippine tactics of dispersing aircraft miles from any airfield. But it did little to prevent serious losses, as Hellcats and Corsairs destroyed 100 on the ground, all at least ten miles from their runways. The Japanese were hoarding their remaining planes in an effort to launch massive attacks against the anticipated invasion in the fall, but without airborne interceptors there was little to prevent the carrier pilots from having their way.

More unopposed strikes were flown on the 14th. and 15th, against northern Honshu and Hokkaido. This time the fast carriers operated only 80 miles at sea. A lone Betty snooper was the only hostile plane to approach the force, and it was unsuccessful.

Poor weather had already forced a one-day delay in these strikes, and it only lifted enough to make flight operations difficult. Fighting 88’s skipper, Lieutenant Commander Richard G. Crommelin, was leading a Hellcat squadron from the Yorktown, just as his older brother Charlie had done very nearly two years before. En route to his target on the 14th, flying formation in heavy clouds, Dick’s plane was hit by another and he was killed in a mid-air collision—as his brother had been at Okinawa. It was one of those eerie, macabre incidents which was all the more difficult to accept because Dick Crommelin had been a combat fighter pilot since early 1942.

Most planes got through to their targets, however, and did considerable damage to Japanese shipping. Carrier planes sank 26 merchantmen, a destroyer, and three frigates on the 14th, and five more ships the next day. It was an indication of things to come, as aerial opposition remained nonexistent while shipping strikes increased.

On 16 July four carriers of the British Pacific Fleet joined the American fast-carriers as Task Force 37. They contained 112 Seafire or Firefly fighters, 73 Corsairs, and 62 Avengers. But the HMS Formidable also embarked a detachment of Hellcats from the HMS Indomitable’s outstanding 1844 Squadron, Fleet Air Arm.

An 1839 Squadron Hellcat with rocket projectiles aboard the HMS Indomitable with the British Pacific Fleet. Photo: C. F. Shores

British use of Hellcats in the Pacific extended back to the fall of 1944. In a series of strikes on Sumatran oil fields in December and January, 1844 and 1839 Squadrons off the Indomitable had accounted for some 15 aerial victories with few losses. Then came the Okinawa Campaign where 1844 ran up the largest one-day score for British F6Fs by downing four Oscars, a Tony, and a Zeke over Formosa on 12 April. It was a mighty small bag by U.S. Navy standards, but proof the British could put the Hellcat to good use.

The Royal Navy put its F6Fs to a different use the night of 25 July. When a small Japanese formation was detected heading for the British task group, two of 1844’s Hellcats were scrambled from the Formidable under a full moon. These were conventional Hellcat II’s (F6F-5s) without radar, but their pilots had been trained in night flying and were vectored by the ship’s FDO to an intercept position.

Lieutenant W. H. Atkinson, a Canadian, led the element and made contact. He identified the bandits as big, single-engine Grace torpedo planes and took his New Zealand wingman, Sub-Lieutenant R. F. Mackie, into the attack. Atkinson latched on to a pair of Graces and shot them both into the water while Mackie dumped a third. Then, in routing the other bandits, a fourth Grace was damaged and the attack was completely broken up.

It was ironic that the British, who led the Allies in night flying experience, should find themselves without their own carrier-based single-seat night fighters. Two Hellcat NF-II squadrons, 891 and 892, were forming with F6F-5Ns but would not become operational in time to fly combat.

These three victories raised the Hellcat’s tally to 47½ under British colors in the Pacific. Not surprisingly, 1844 Squadron remained the most successful F6F unit in the Fleet Air Arm with 31½ of the Royal Navy total. It also produced the individual top scorer, Sub-Lieutenant E. T. Wilson, who claimed 4.83 victories flying from the Indomitable in the Sumatran and Okinawan operations.

The last week of July was devoted to heavy strikes on Kure, Kobe, and Nagoya. Many of the carrier pilots considered the big fleet base at Kure the most heavily defended. But Yokosuka was also loaded with heavy-caliber AA guns, and the air over both targets was frequently dotted with colored bursts as the Japanese gunners tried to get the range and altitude. Heavy strikes on the remaining capital ships at Kure were such that the concern with flak was overshadowed by fear of collision. The strikes were large and concentrated, but coordination was well executed, and they brought results. From the 24th to 28th, three battleships settled to Kure’s shallow bottom while three carriers were heavily damaged by bomb-toting Helldivers, Avengers, and Hellcats. There was little air combat, though VF-88 skipper Malcolm Cagle scored his squadron’s first victory by downing a Jack and damaging another over Kure on the 24th.

Mainly the fighters went after smaller vessels operating within the confines of the Inland Sea. Bombing, strafing, and rocketing, the F6Fs and F4Us pounced on anything that moved, smoking their HVARs into thin-hulled vessels as .50-caliber bullets churned up the water in tall geysers. Commander Porter W. Maxwell’s VBF-87 had already sunk a tanker, left a freighter burning dead in the water, and perforated the hulls of two flying boats, when he led his Ticonderoga Hellcats against airdromes of western Shikoku. In an extra low-level blitz at Niihama Airfield, Maxwell dived to 25 feet to get at a training plane. He set it afire where it sat, but the enemy gunners had his range. Unable to maintain control of his stricken F6F, Maxwell attempted to pull up over the water for enough altitude to bail out. His chute was seen to stream out just as the F6 went in, but it did not fully deploy. Another squadron commander gone.

The flak was just as intense elsewhere, and TF-38 lost 133 aircraft, mostly to AA fire, in the five days from 24 to 28 July. One of the few dogfights occurred near Nagoya on the 25th when VF-31 was jumped by a superior number of bandits while strafing on airfield. Flying his second combat tour was 24-year-old Lieutenant Commander Cornelius Nooy, who called a warning, turned into the attack, and promptly shot one Japanese off a Belleau Wood F6F. Nooy climbed to draw off the other hostiles, then rejoined his division and shot down two more with another claimed as a probable. It was a spectacular conclusion to an exceptional career. In only five combats during two tours with Fighting 31, Conny Nooy had scored 18 kills—never less than three in one engagement.

On 9 August, the same day the second atom bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, the fast carriers’ main target was Misawa Airbase in northern Honshu. Some 200 twin-engine bombers were known assembled there, preparing for a desperate mass suicide attack on B-29 bases in the Marianas. Fully armed F6Fs and F4Us worked over the field to such an extent that nearly all the would-be suiciders were destroyed in their revetments.

The end was now very near, but still seemed acutely far off. Rumors were traded back and forth on the carriers that the Japanese were about to give in. It was bound to happen any day, now that two A-bombs had been dropped. But when the still-troublesome weather allowed, more strikes were scheduled.

On 13 August another 250 enemy planes were destroyed on the ground near Tokyo, including 61 by Fighting Six. The Hancock pilots claimed 49 of their total on Nagano Airfield alone, but spread a wake of destruction well beyond the airdrome. With 28 500-pound GPs, four 1,000-pounders, and 113 rockets they also wrecked two locomotives, an oil storage tank, several hangars, and inflicted heavy damage on other facilities.

Meanwhile, airborne hostiles put in a rare appearance near the task force. Eight different Japanese aircraft types were seen, including many single Jills and Judys. The CAP fighters saved 22 of them the trouble of a return trip.

Two more strikes were planned near Tokyo on the 15th. Strike Able launched at 0415, scheduled to arrive over the capital at dawn. At about 0635 the 103 planes of this mission were attacking their targets and the 73 of Strike Baker were approaching the coast when one of the carriers suddenly came on the air:

“All Strike Able planes, this is Nitrate Base. All Strike Able planes return to base immediately. Do not attack target. The war is over.”⁵

The Japanese had agreed to unconditional surrender.

Some aviators penetrating Japanese airspace could hardly believe it. To Lieutenant (jg) Richard L. Newhafer of VF-6, the message brought “all the hope and unreasoning happiness that salvation can bring. It brought tears and laughter and a numb sense of unbelief. It was old news to most of the world by that time, but to us it was wonderfully new.”⁶

For many airmen on both sides, however, the news came too late. Though the second strike jettisoned its ordnance and returned to the force, most of the first strike had already attacked. Probably the last bombs dropped in W.W. II were from 12 Hellcats of the Ticonderoga’s VBF-87, which had difficulty finding their briefed target on the Chiba Peninsula. Instead, Lieutenant Commander Charles W. Gunnels found a hole in the overcast which allowed his fighter-bombers to pounce on Choshi Airfield, a gunnery school, and a large industrial plant. Gunnels assigned one division to each target, and was just pulling out of his 60° dive when the cease-fire order came through. His other pilots were already committed to their dives, and made accurate drops on all three objectives. Lieutenant (jg) John McNabb, a 23-year-old Pennsylvanian, was the 12th man in the formation, and his 500-pounder was almost certainly the last one dropped on Japanese soil.

But the shooting was not yet over. Lieutenant Herschel Pahl’s VF-6 division was returning to the Hancock when jumped by seven enemy fighters over Sagami Wan. In the short hassle which resulted, the four F6Fs shot down at least one Zeke and two Jacks without a loss. Other squadrons had similar experiences, but not all had such an easy time of it.

A fighter-bomber sweep over Choshi Point was led by Lieutenant Howard M. Harrison with 12 Hellcats of VF-88 and two dozen Corsairs from the Shangri-La and Wasp. The formation was dispersed by divisions while penetrating a cloud front, and upon emerging only six Yorktown F6Fs were together. Harrison was over Tokurozama Airfield when the cease hostilities order went out, but 17 Japanese pilots either lacked or ignored similar information. A mixed batch of Jacks, Franks, Georges, and Zekes bounced the six Yorktown Hellcats from above and behind at 8,000 feet.

Harrison turned his flight into the attack and opened fire. In that first pass four bandits went down. Then the formations were shredded in the head-on lunge.

Lieutenant (jg) T. W. Hansen, flying wing on Lieutenant (jg) M. Proctor, had exploded a Frank in the first pass and then splashed a second while Proctor shot the wing off another. The section turned starboard and saw a Jack on Lieutenant (jg) J. G. Shaloff’s tail. Proctor fired at a range of 700 feet, and the Jack exploded. Shaloff’s damaged F6F was smoking now and Proctor told him to head for the coast. It was Proctor’s intention to escort Shaloff out of the area, but when tracers flashed past his wingtip, Proctor turned hard right and let Hansen shoot the troublesome Frank off his tail.

As Hanson weaved above Shaloff, Proctor reversed his turn and saw two more bandits in flames but did not know who was responsible. Then he was quickly boxed in by six of the enemy ahead and a Frank behind. Unaccountably, the front six pulled up, and Proctor got a good shot at the lone Frank, which split-essed burning. When the six enemy fighters turned towards him again, Proctor fled towards some clouds, slowly outrunning his pursuers. They put several holes in his Hellcat but failed to do any harm, and he remained in the clouds until out over the sea.

Once in the clear, Proctor tried to call the others but only Hansen responded. He had seen Shaloff clear the area, ducking in and out of clouds, but the smoking Hellcat apparently went out of control. It rolled twice and hit the water. Proctor and Hansen returned to base, reporting nine kills for the loss of four F6Fs and their pilots.

The last dogfight of W. W. II was over.

By mid-morning the last strike planes were back aboard, and confirmation of the cease-fire was obtained. The Navy was ordered to cease all offensive operations, but Admiral Halsey ordered his fighters to “investigate and shoot down all snoopers . . . in a friendly sort of way.”⁷ Dive bombers and torpedo planes were degassed, disarmed, and struck below to hangar decks while ForceCap was strengthened and additional fighters spotted for quick launch. There was no guarantee the Japanese would not attempt a final thrust against the carrier force.

During the rest of the morning and into early afternoon, eight lone hostiles were shot down near the task force. Still others were chased away by patrolling fighters. In the course of sweeps, strikes, and CAPs, Hellcats claimed two dozen kills during the last day of hostilities. But there was still excitement to come.

The Hellcat’s final appearance in the Second World War came on the morning of 2 September, the day of the formal surrender ceremony. General Douglas MacArthur, standing on the deck of the battleship Missouri, had barely said “These proceedings are closed,” when 450 carrier planes flew overhead in Operation Airshow.

Looking down from their cockpits, the pilots could see Tokyo Harbor filled with the warships of many nations, both victors and vanquished. But they had little time for gawking. They were too busy keeping formation, jockeying the throttle, and watching for other aircraft.

Lieutenant Malcolm Cagle, leading Fighting 88, recalled the victory fly-over with ambivalence. It was a thrill and an honor to participate in such an historic moment, but there was also the constant threat of midair collision. Cagle remembered, “it was a full throttle-off throttle formation with no real order or organization.”⁸

That same day, back across the International Dateline, the Navy canceled an order for 1,677 more F6F-5s.

Hellcat production dropped off drastically after V-J Day. None were delivered in September, and only 32 in October. The last 30 were completed in November. Of these, the 12,275th and final Hellcat was F6F-5 BuNo 94521, delivered not quite three years after that cold January day when Fighting Nine collected its first F6F-3s.

Like many W.W. II aircraft, the Hellcat had a long postwar career which included service with the French and Uruguayan navies. The hardworking Grumman remained in limited use with the U.S. Navy for eight years. Composite Squadron Four was the last American unit to operate Hellcats when it turned in its F6F-5Ns during August of 1953.

But the Hellcat justified its entire existence during the two years it was engaged in combat. U.S. Navy and Marine F6Fs were credited with 5,156 Japanese planes downed in the Pacific: 4,948 by carrier-based and 208 by land-based Hellcats. The British F6F toll of 47 raises the Pacific figure to 5,203. In Europe, British and American Hellcats claimed 13 German planes in the air—a grand total of 5,216 Axis aircraft credited from August-1943 to August 1945. About 270 F6Fs were lost in air combat during those 24 months, for a kill-loss ratio of 19 to 1.

But the mere statistical record cannot show what the F6F meant to America’s war against Japan. The availability in large numbers of a rugged, versatile, easy-to-fly fighter-bomber had a tremendous impact in the Pacific. The F6F’s high serviceability rate (often 95 percent) meant that near-maximum utilization could be achieved. This, combined with an efficient supply and replacement system, resulted in the one thing that mattered: sufficient numbers of fighter-bombers over the target or on station, when needed.

Hellcats remained in postwar service among naval reserve squadrons. These are VF-695 aircraft of NAS Columbus, Ohio, in 1952. Photo: F. A. Bardshar

The Hellcat was not the fastest fighter in the Pacific. Nor did it attain the rate of climb many pilots desired. Other aircraft could perform specific missions somewhat better because they were built for those purposes. Only the Corsair matched the F6F in multi-mission versatility, but the F4U with its greater speed, ceiling, and payload was well over a year behind the Hellcat in operating from fast carriers. Nor did the F4U reach shipboard parity with the F6F. Even in the final weeks of the war, Corsairs represented less than half the embarked fighter-bombers in the Fast Carrier Task Force.

Perhaps the most impressive record the F6F left behind is not the number of enemy planes it shot down—for such figures are always subject to honest error—but its huge success in protecting U.S. Navy strike aircraft. The Hellcat proved to be a superb bomber escort—something more often attributed to the Army Air Force’s P-51 Mustang. But official Navy records show that from 1943 to 1945, only 42 U.S. carrier-based dive bombers or torpedo planes were known lost to Japanese aircraft. This was, of course, the same period in which the F6Fs saw all of their combat. The angular Grumman fighters so completely controlled the sky with their Corsair stablemates that in the last eight months of the war, a mere seven carrier-based bombers fell to enemy aircraft.

For obvious reasons, fighter pilots weren’t the only people who loved Hellcats.

Among the F6F’s postwar roles was qualifying naval aviators for carrier operations. Here Navy Reserve pilots practice carrier landings aboard the USS Monterey (CVL-26) in June 1953. Photo: R. L. Lawson

Fast Carrier Hellcat Squadrons in Combat: June to August 1945

British F6F Squadrons in Combat: Pacific and Indian Oceans October 1944 to August 1945