It had a kill ratio of 11:1 and was one of the most feared fighters of the Second World War.
It was the whistling death, an angel of destruction that haunted the skies of the Pacific.
But to the young, inexperienced pilots trying to land it on the pitching deck of an aircraft carrier, it had another more sinister name, the Enen Eliminator.
This is the incredible story of how the VAT F4U Corsair, a plane so dangerous it was rejected by its own Navy, was transformed from a widowmaker into one of the greatest combat aircraft in history.
It’s the fall of 1942.
Aboard the escort carrier USS Sangaman steaming in the Chesapeake Bay, Lieutenant Commander Sam Porter straps himself into the cockpit of a brand new fighter.
It’s a monster of an airplane built around the most powerful engine the Navy has ever put in a singleseat aircraft.
This is the VA F4U Corsair and it’s supposed to be the future of naval aviation.
Porter is here to prove it can operate from a carrier.
His first landing, it’s terrifying.
The plane’s enormous nose stretching out nearly 3 feet farther than any other fighter completely blocks his view of the deck.
He’s flying blind, relying entirely on the landing signal officer.
As he touches down, the landing gear, instead of absorbing the impact, acts like a pair of giant pogo sticks, launching the multi-tonon fighter back into the air.
He bounces over the arresting wires, narrowly, avoiding a catastrophic crash.
Three more times, he wrestles the machine onto the deck.
Three more times he feels the aircraft fight him, stall without warning, and threaten to flip onto its back just above the waves.
After the fourth landing, the shaken pilot calls it quits.
His verdict is damning.
The Corsair, as it stands, is a death trap.
It is fundamentally unsuitable for carrier operations.
The Navy’s great hope has become its greatest failure, earning it a nickname whispered with a mix of gallows humor and genuine fear.
The Enen Eliminator.
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To understand the Corsair, you have to understand the man who created it and the problem he was trying to solve.
In 1938, the US Navy was staring at a grim future.
Across the Pacific, Japan was developing a new generation of carrier fighters epitomized by the Mitsubishi A6M0.
Fast, agile, and deadly.
America’s current fighters, like the stubby Grumman F4F Wildcat, were tough, but they were outclassed.
The Navy needed a quantum leap in performance.
Enter Rex Basil, the brilliant and single-minded chief engineer at VA aircraft.
Basil looked at the Navy’s request and boiled it down to one brutal principle.
Speed is king.
To get that speed, he would build his new fighter around the most powerful engine available in the Western world, the Prattton Whitney R2800 double Wasp.
This engine was an 18cylinder air cooled radial behemoth that could sure enough an incredible 2,000 horsepower.
Displacing 46 L.
It was a titan of engineering, producing more horsepower per cubic inch than any other air cooled engine of its day.
But it was also massive, weighing over 2300 lb.
Building a plane around this titan of metal and fire, forced a series of radical design choices, each with its own unforeseen and nearly fatal consequences.
The first was the propeller.
To translate the R2800’s power into thrust, the Corsair needed a massive Hamilton standard propeller, over 13 feet in diameter.
This created a big geometry problem.
A prop that huge would chew up the runway on takeoff and landing, unless the plane had exceptionally long landing gear.
But long, spinly landing gear was notoriously fragile, totally unsuitable for the controlled crashes that are carrier landings.
Basil’s solution was pure unorthodox genius.
He designed an inverted gull wing.
The wing bent down from the fuselage before straightening out, creating that distinctive W shape.
This design let the landing gear be mounted at the lowest point of the wing, keeping the struts short, strong, and compact, all while giving that colossal propeller the clearance it needed.
It was an elegant solution that gave the Corsair its iconic predatory look.
But the chain of consequences didn’t stop.
The Navy, learning lessons from the air war in Europe, updated its requirements, demanding 650 caliber machine guns in the wings.
This forced Basil to move the fuel tanks.
The only place to put a large 237gal self-sealing tank was in the fuselage, right between the engine and the cockpit.
This one decision would define the Corsair’s character and create its most lethal flaw.
The cockpit was shoved nearly 3 f feet aft, stranding the pilot behind the wing’s trailing edge.
On May 29th, 1940, the prototype, the XF4U-1, took to the sky for the first time, piloted by VA’s chief test pilot, Lyman Bullard Jr., the performance was breathtaking.
On October 1st, it became the first American single engine fighter to smash the 400 mileph barrier in level flight.
The Navy was ecstatic.
They had their World Beater.
VA was ordered to start production.
On paper, the Corsair was a triumph.
But as the first models rolled off the line in 1942 and got into the hands of young Navy pilots, a terrifying reality began to emerge.
The very things that made the Corsair so fast had also created a monster.
The first Navy squadron to get the F4U Corsair was Fighting Squadron 12, VF-12, established in October 1942.
These were young men, many of them newly minted Venson’s, thrilled to be flying America’s hottest new fighter.
That excitement quickly turned to dread.
The problem started the moment they climbed in.
The view forward was abysmal.
Peering over the Corsair’s massive hose nose was like looking over the hood of a semitr.
On the ground, pilots had to weave in S turns just to see where they were going.
In the air, during the critical landing phase, the pilot’s view of the carrier and the landing signal officer was almost completely blocked.
Worse yet was the aircraft’s vicious stall.
At low speeds, the Corsair had a terrifying habit of stalling without warning.
And it wasn’t a gentle stall, it was asymmetric.
The left wing would lose lift first, snapping the plane violently into a roll.
This happened because the immense torque from the huge propeller created a corkcrew like air flow over the wings, causing the left wing to reach its critical angle of attack before the right.
An inexperienced pilot’s instinct would be to slam the throttle forward to regain speed.
But with the R2800, that was a fatal mistake.
The sudden, immense torque would amplify the roll, flipping the Corsair onto its back just feet above the water.
an unreoverable situation.
Then there was the landing gear.
The olio struts were too stiff and didn’t have enough stroke or travel to absorb the energy of a hard carrier landing.
Instead of compressing, they’d rebound with tremendous force.
The Corsair would hit the deck and bounce back into the air like a pogo stick, often clearing all the arresting wires and slamming into the crash barrier.
To make things even worse, the engine’s cowl flaps often leaked oil that would coat the windscreen, further blinding the pilot.
The Corsair punished every mistake with lethal force.
The accidents were relentless.
At NAS San Diego, VF-12 suffered numerous pilot losses and aircraft write-offs.
The dark humor of pilots soon gave the plane its name for its habit of killing the Navy’s youngest aviators.
The F4U became the Enen Eliminator.
After the disastrous carrier trials aboard the USS Sangaman, the US Navy made its decision.
The Corsair was simply too dangerous for carrier operations.
They rejected it, turning instead to Grumman’s new F6H Hellcat.
While the Hellcat went to the Navy’s carriers, the rejected Corsair was shuffled off to the US Marine Corps, who were fighting from primitive island airfields and in no position to be picky.
It was the Corsair’s second chance.
In early 1943, the Corsair went to war.
The first squadron to fly it in combat was Marine Fighter Squadron 124 or VMF124.
Operating from the crude airfields of Guadal Canal.
Here in the mud and the jungle, the Corsair’s worst vices became manageable.
The long stable runways were far more forgiving than a pitching carrier deck.
The squadron arrived on Guadal Canal on February 12th, 1943 and flew its first mission that very day.
However, their first major combat engagement 2 days later on February 14th was a disaster known as the St.
Valentine’s Day Massacre where two Corsaires and four other American fighters were lost while escorting bombers against the Japanese raid.
Despite this rocky start, the Marines quickly learned to exploit the Corsair’s strengths.
They avoided turning dog fights where the Nimble Zero excelled and instead used the Corsair’s superior power for high-speed boom and zoom attacks.
They would strike from above, unleash a torrent of fire from six 50 caliber machine guns, and then use the immense horsepower to climb away, leaving the enemy shattered.
And it wasn’t just a fighter.
The Corsair could carry up to 4,000 lbs of bombs or eight 5-in rockets, becoming a feared ground attack aircraft for Marines fighting their way up the Pacific Island chains.
Japanese soldiers on the ground gave the Corsair a new nickname.
The airflow into the oil coolers located in the wingroots created a distinct high-pitched sound during a dive.
To the men on the receiving end, it was an eerie, terrifying sound, a harbinger of destruction.
They called it the whistling death.
From Enson eliminator to whistling death, the Corsair now had two identities.
On land, it was a killer, but its original sin remained.
It was still a failed carrier plane.
Even as Marine pilots were racking up kills, a quiet revolution was beginning.
a series of ingenious fixes to tame the beast.
The Corsair’s transformation from death trap to legend wasn’t one single breakthrough.
It was a painstaking process of clever tweaks and bold techniques developed by the people who flew and maintained it.
One of the most critical fixes addressed the violent asymmetric stall.
engineers realized that to stop the left wing from dropping, they just needed to make the right wing stall at the same time.
The solution was remarkably simple.
They riveted a small 6-in metal strip to the leading edge of the right wing, just outboard of the gunports.
This stall strip disrupted the airflow just enough to spoil the lift, matching the performance of the left wing.
Now, when the Corsair stalled, it was a predictable nose down mush instead of a deadly snap roll.
That tiny piece of metal saved countless lives.
The infamous bounce was tackled next.
Redesigned Olio struts in the landing gear with better hydraulic damping did a much better job of absorbing the energy of landing.
This dramatically reduced the pogo stick effect and helped the Corsair stick to the deck.
To improve the dreadful visibility, the pilot seat was raised by 7 in.
Later models also got a bulged frameless canopy similar to the British Malcolm hood that gave pilots a much better all-around view, especially of the carrier deck below.
But the single biggest innovation came from Great Britain.
Desperate for a high performance fighter, the British Royal Navy’s fleet airarm had adopted the Corsair.
They faced the same landing problems, but unlike the US Navy, they had to make it work.
Their pilots were already used to flying long-nosed fighters like the Supermarine Sea Fire and had developed a different landing technique.
Instead of a long straight approach taught by the US Navy, the British pioneered a continuous curving approach.
The pilot would fly a constant left-hand turn, keeping the carrier’s deck in view over the side of the cockpit, only straightening out at the last second.
This technique completely neutralized the Corsair’s worst visibility problem.
The British proved it could be done, successfully operating corsairs from their carriers long before the Americans.
Seeing their success and armed with the new stall strip and landing gear, the US Navy finally began to reconsider.
It was time for the beast to come home.
In late 1944, a fully tamed F4U Corsair finally returned to the US Navy fleet with VMF124 and VMF213 becoming the first Marine squadrons to be based on an aircraft carrier, the USS Essex.
Combining its raw power with newfound civility, the Bentwing Bird was now arguably the finest carrier fighter in the world.
Its impact was overwhelming.
For the rest of the war, the F4U Corsair achieved an overall killto- loss ratio of 11:1 against Japanese aircraft, flying over 64,000 sorties.
Corsair pilots claimed 2140 enemy aircraft shot down for the loss of only 189 Corsaires in air-to-air combat.
The plane became a platform for America’s greatest aces.
Marine Lieutenant Kenneth Walsh earned the Medal of Honor and finished the war with 21 victories.
Robert Hansen, another Marine, shot down an astonishing 20 enemy aircraft in just 6 days of February 1944.
And then there was Major Gregory Papy Boyington and his legendary Marine Fighter Squadron 214, the Black Sheep.
Boyington, a hard-rinking, brawling older pilot, was given command of a squadron of misfits and replacement pilots nobody else wanted.
Flying their corsaires, Boyington’s ragtag squadron carved a swath of destruction across the skies.
In their first 12 weeks of combat, the Black Sheep shot down or destroyed over 200 Japanese planes.
Boyington himself became a national hero.
His official tally reaching 26 victories, tying the American record before he was shot down and spent the rest of the war as a P.
The story of Papy Boyington and his black sheep became a symbol of the Corsair’s tenacious spirit.
The Corsair was no longer the inson eliminator.
It was a war winner.
It had been born from a philosophy of absolute power, nearly destroyed by its own flaws and rescued by the ingenuity of the men who flew it.
By 1945, the whistling death was attacking the very heart of the Japanese Empire.
But its story wasn’t over yet.
When World War II ended, most piston engine fighters were sent to the scrapyard as the jet age dawned.
But the Corsair was different.
Its ruggedness and versatility gave it a new lease on life.
When North Korea invaded the South in 1950, the Corsair went back to war.
By now, sleek jets like the F86 Saber and Mig 15 were dueling in Mig Alley.
The Corsair was outclassed in a pure air-to-air fight, but it proved to be one of the most valuable assets of the entire conflict.
Its role shifted to fighter bomber.
It could fly from small escort carriers or frontline dirt strips, loiter over the battlefield for extended periods, and deliver a massive payload of bombs, rockets, and napom with pinpoint accuracy.
In the first 10 months of the war, Corsair’s flew 82% of all close air support missions for the Navy and Marines.
It became the premier closeair support aircraft of the Korean War with ground troops able to call in strikes as close as 50 yards from their own positions.
But the old bird still had some fight in it.
On September 10th, 1952, Marine Captain Jesse Fulmar, a World War II veteran flying with VMA 312, was leading a flight of Corsaires when they were jumped by eight MiG 15 jets.
In the dog fight that followed, Fulmar used his experience and the Corsair’s superior low-speed maneuverability to get on the tail of one of the swept wing jets.
He fired a burst from his 20 mm cannons and the MiG erupted into flames.
Fulmar became the only Corsair pilot with a confirmed MiG 15 kill.
He was shot down moments later by the other MiGs, but was rescued from the sea.
It was a stunning final testament to the Corsair’s prowess.
Propeller versus jet, and the old master had won.
The Corsair’s production line finally closed in 1953, making it the longest produced piston engine fighter in American history with over 12,500 built.
But its service continued.
It flew with the French Navy in Indo-China, including the pivotal siege of DNBN Fu and later during the Suez crisis.
Incredibly, the Corsair saw its final aerial combat in 1969 during the football war between Honduras and El Salvador.
Both sides flew surplus F4U Corsaires.
On July 17th, a Honduran pilot, Captain Fernando Sto, engaged and shot down three Salvadoran aircraft.
one P-51 Mustang and two other Corsaires.
It was the last dog fight in history fought exclusively between piston engine aircraft.
A final strange chapter in the long life of the F4U Corsair.
From a machine so dangerous it earned the nickname Enen Eliminator, the F4U Corsair became a symbol of victory.
It’s a testament to the idea that true greatness is often forged in the crucible of failure.
It was the engineers who added a simple strip of metal, the British pilots who reimagined the art of the carrier landing, and the marine aviators who refused to back down that collectively transformed the Corsair into a legend.
It was the bent wing bird, the hosense, and the whistling death.
It was a death trap that became a war winner, a flawed masterpiece that fought its way from disgrace to immortality.
Its story is a powerful reminder that sometimes the most challenging machines in the hands of the most determined people can change the course of history.
The Corsair’s story is one of incredible transformation.
But what do you think was the single most important fix that tamed the beast? Was it the ingenious stall strip, the redesigned landing gear, or the revolutionary curved landing approach pioneered by the Royal Navy? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
