The HORRORS of F6F “Hellcat” Pilots-ZZ

Hellcat pilots faced some of the worst horrors of the Pacific War.

But you’ve probably never heard what actually killed most of them.

And it wasn’t the infamous Japanese Zero the Hellcat was designed to destroy.

We’re going to tell you the whole story of this fighter and what life was really like for its pilots in one of the most brutal naval air wars in history.

So, let’s first set the stage for what was the problem that brought the Hellcat into the war as fast as humanly possible.

Before the United States even entered the war, the Japanese A6M0 had already proven itself a terrifying weapon in the skies over China.

It was first deployed in August 1940 against older Soviet-made fighters which stood no chance.

But here’s the thing.

The US military had almost no information about this new Japanese aircraft despite these engagements because reports coming out of China were mostly written off as exaggeration.

American officers assumed the victories were due to Chinese incompetency and outdated planes rather than realizing that the Japanese had arguably one of, if not the best fighter in the world at the time it appeared.

And that assumption was about to cost them dearly.

The US got its first real taste of the Zero during the attack on Pearl Harbor and they quickly realized their own aircraft were outclassed.

In the first three months of the Pacific War alone, Zeros claimed 470 of the 560 Allied aircraft destroyed.

The first encounters ended in disaster after disaster as the Japanese quickly established air superiority over most battlefields in the Pacific.

So, what made the Zero so deadly in a dog fight? Well, it came down to one thing above all else, maneuverability.

When Mitsubishi designed this aircraft, they emphasized speed and agility over everything, making every possible attempt to shed weight from the airframe.

The result was a light, nimble fighter that could outturn and outclimb anything the Allies had by a wide margin.

And it wasn’t just about agility either, because the Zero actually came quite heavily armed with two 20 mm cannons and two 7.

7 mm machine guns.

Now, this performance came at a cost.

The Zero had no self-sealing fuel tanks, no armor protecting the pilot, and basically a paper thin structure that was so fragile pilots could actually dent the fuselage just by climbing into the cockpit.

But the Japanese designers made this compromise consciously.

They figured that the agility the lightweight construction provided was the best protection their pilots needed.

And for a while, they were absolutely right.

At this point, the best carrier fighter the United States had to throw against the Zero was the F4F Wildcat.

It had some advantages, sure, but it was simply no match for the nimble Zero in a one-on-one fight.

Even after winning the Battle of Midway, American officers were not happy with their fighters and complained bitterly about how inferior they were.

Commander John Thatch put it bluntly in his afteraction report when he said that the Wildcat was pitifully inferior in climb, maneuverability, and speed.

That’s a damning assessment from a man who had just helped win one of the most important naval battles in history.

But thatch didn’t just complain about the problem.

He actually came up with a solution that probably saved hundreds of American pilots from being shot down.

He devised what became known as the Thatch weave, a technique where fighters flew in pairs and when a Zero attacked one of them, that pilot and his wingman would turn toward each other.

This maneuver would inevitably bring the pursuing zero directly into the guns of the wingman as he chased the first fighter.

It was clever, it worked, and it helped the Americans make use of their aging wildcats in a fight they otherwise couldn’t win.

But everyone knew this was just a stop gap.

Simply put, the United States needed a next generation fighter, and they needed it fast.

Now, Grumman had actually started work on the Hellcat design back in 1938.

But started is the key word here because the production version wouldn’t be ready until October 1942, almost 4 years later.

The aircraft was originally intended as a modest upgrade over the Wildcat.

Nothing revolutionary.

However, war has a way of speeding things up.

The XF6F-1 prototype made its first flight in late June 1942, just 22 days after Thatch filed that damning report about the Wildcat’s shortcomings.

And what made this timing so important was that in the final stages of development, Grumman was able to incorporate lessons learned from actual combat against the Japanese.

Then something happened that would change everything.

About 2 weeks after the Hellcat’s first flight, American forces recovered a crashed Japanese Zero that had gone down in soft mud in the Aleutian Islands.

The plane had flipped over and killed its pilot.

But the aircraft itself wasn’t badly damaged.

This was absolute gold for Allied intelligence.

They picked it up, repaired it, and then tested it every possible way to figure out how to beat it.

What they discovered was that the Zero’s weak structure and manual flight controls meant that at high speeds, the aircraft would start shaking violently and could even break itself apart if the speed increased.

The controls would become incredibly heavy and could actually lock up at those speeds because they weren’t hydraulically assisted.

On top of that, American engineers identified that the Zero performed poorly at higher altitudes where the thinner air hurt its engine performance.

So, all of this influenced the final design of the Hellcat.

But Grumman also made a crucial decision that would turn out to be just as important as raw performance, maybe even more so.

You see, war demanded a lot of pilots, and training them wasn’t fast or cheap.

Experienced pilots were difficult to replace when they were lost in combat.

So instead of squeezing every last bit of performance out of the Hellcat, they sacrificed a bit of speed and climb rate in exchange for reliability, simplified production, and ease of flying.

As you’re going to see, this decision would prove incredibly important and would play a huge part in winning the war in the Pacific.

They finally decided to put the more powerful Pratt and Whitney Double Wasp engine into the Hellcat, which now pushed out 2,000 horsepower.

This gave it about 60 mph, greater top speed, and better rate of climb compared to the Zero.

Now, the Zero’s turn capability at low speeds would never be matched by any fighter in the Second World War, and the Hellcat wasn’t even going to try.

American pilots would soon learn not to play to the zero strengths and instead use their advantages in speed and dive performance to dictate the terms of every fight.

You’ll see what I mean soon because it wasn’t long before these two would meet over the seas of the Pacific.

The Hellcat carried 212 lb of armor positioned around the cockpit while if you remember the Zero had none at all.

The windshield was bullet resistant and later variants improved cockpit visibility by replacing the plexiglass windscreen with a flat armored glass panel.

For armorament, it had six Browning 50 caliber machine guns, which for the time was serious firepower and more than enough to tear apart the fragile Zero.

Self-sealing fuel tanks significantly reduced the risk of fire or explosions when the aircraft took hits, which was again something zero pilots could only dream about.

The Hellcat also had the largest wings of any single engine fighter in the Second World War, and this gave it a lower stall speed that made it much easier to handle.

This was especially important for carrier operations, where young pilots had to land on a moving deck in all kinds of conditions.

The Corsair, which was actually a bit faster than the Hellcat, earned the nickname Enen Eliminator for all the pilots it killed during carrier landing attempts.

The Hellcat, by contrast, was far more forgiving.

Its wings used Grumman’s Stow-wing folding arrangement which allowed many aircraft to be packed onto a carrier’s deck and hanger.

In short, the whole aircraft was designed to be simple, easy to build, and easy to maintain.

The handling characteristics were exceptional for a fighter of this era.

The Hellcat had that low stall speed we mentioned, plus plenty of warning during an accelerated stall and an easy recovery if things went wrong.

Even if a pilot accidentally put the plane into a spin, recovery was straightforward and fast.

All of this meant that Hellcat pilots could push their aircraft right to the edge of its performance envelope when pilots of other fighters might not dare to do so.

And there was one more critical advantage that the Hellcat had over the Zero.

The supercharging system gave it much more power at higher altitudes, exactly where the Zero struggled.

So, American pilots could climb above their opponents, dive down with superior speed, take their shots, and then zoom back up to altitude where the Zero simply couldn’t follow effectively.

The stage was now set.

The Americans had a new fighter that was finally better than the aircraft that had been slaughtering them for the past year.

But having a good aircraft was only part of the solution.

What mattered now was what happened when young American pilots actually took Hellcats into combat and what it would cost them to turn the tide of the air war in the Pacific.

In January 1943, the first Hellcats were ready for combat operations, arriving just as the US Navy needed them most.

But it would take several more months before they saw actual combat against the enemy they were designed to destroy.

The first dog fight between Zeros and Hellcats occurred over Wake Island on October 5th, 1943.

It was a one-sided massacre, but not in the direction the Japanese expected.

48 Hellcats jumped on 23 Japanese fighters and shot down 16 of them without losing a single aircraft.

Now, here’s what makes this even more impressive.

The entire dog fight took place below 12,000 ft, which was exactly where the Zero performed at its best.

Even in these favorable conditions, the Hellcat still wildly outclassed the A6M.

The message was clear.

The Zero’s dominance was over, but Hellcat pilots were still warned not to get overconfident and never to try and dogfight the Zero in close quarters where it still had superior turning ability.

Even though the Zero was now obsolete compared to the Hellcat, it remained a dangerous opponent in the hands of an experienced pilot.

At high speeds, the Hellcat was actually more maneuverable than its Japanese counterpart.

Above 275 mph, the Zero’s manual controls got so heavy that it started losing its advantage.

Above 300 mph, it was close to helpless.

At those speeds, the Zero couldn’t outturn the Hellcat unless speeds dropped below 200 mph.

Now, speeds in a dog fight do drop off over time.

So, if the fight lasted long enough, things would eventually slow into the range where the Zero had the edge.

But the Hellcat pilot simply wouldn’t play that game.

He’d watch his air speed, and when he saw it dropping, he’d scoot away from the fight.

If the zero followed, it was likely to get destroyed by another Hellcat waiting nearby.

If it didn’t follow, the extending Hellcat would get enough distance to turn around and come back in for another firing pass.

There just wasn’t a good way for the Zero Pilot to counter this.

Zero pilots had grown accustomed to escaping Wildcats and other American fighters by climbing away.

But that trick wouldn’t work anymore.

Meanwhile, the Japanese were struggling to respond.

Their next generation of fighters was already in development, but Japan simply didn’t have the industrial capacity to produce them in significant numbers.

The decision was made to extend the lifespan of the Zero for as long as possible.

Mitsubishi introduced improved engines and increased the muzzle velocity of the 20 mm cannons to give their pilots a better chance.

But none of it really mattered.

The Zero’s fragility and lack of protective features meant that a short burst from a Hellcat’s guns was usually enough to seal its fate.

The Japanese fighter would catch fire or simply come apart.

While the Hellcat could absorb a tremendous beating and still somehow make it back to the carrier.

And if a Hellcat did go down, its rugged construction often helped save the pilot even in a crash landing.

Something that couldn’t be said for the poor Japanese pilot in his fragile Zero.

Japanese pilots soon discovered that even when they managed to get the jump on a Hellcat and fire everything they had, it often wasn’t enough to bring it down effectively.

Now, here’s where the story takes a darker turn.

Because despite the Hellcat’s dominance in air combat, being a Hellcat pilot was still an incredibly dangerous job.

And the statistics reveal something surprising about where the real danger actually lay.

During the course of the war, about 2,460 Hellcats were lost to all causes.

However, when you break down those numbers, only about 270 were lost in aerial combat against enemy fighters.

Anti-aircraft fire from ground positions and ships claimed around 550.

Operational causes accounted for another 340 or so.

But the biggest number is the one that really stands out.

About 1,300 Hellcats were destroyed together with their pilots in training and ferry operations.

Normally far outside any combat zone.

That’s more than half of all Hellcats lost.

about 53% destroyed not in battle but during training flights and while simply moving aircraft from one place to another.

Training to be a carrier pilot was extremely dangerous work.

It was a single seat fighter so there was no instructor behind you to take over if you made a mistake.

New pilots had to prove they could land on a moving deck at speed and catch the arresting wire all by themselves.

Many of them, as you’ve heard, didn’t make it through this process.

And for those who did survive training, the dangers were far from over.

Besides, dog fights, ground attack missions, particularly strafing runs against Japanese airfields and shipping, proved exceptionally deadly, even with the Hellcat’s armor.

When strafing, pilots had to dive toward the target, hold steady aim while approaching and firing, then pull out at extremely low altitude where they were in range of all weapons, and then climb away through a curtain of ground fire that was aimed right at them.

Life for Hellcat pilots revolved entirely around the carrier.

They lived in cramped quarters below deck when they weren’t flying, but they were always prepared to scramble at a moment’s notice.

Lifeguard destroyers were always some distance behind the aircraft carrier, specifically to rescue pilots whose planes went into the water during the anything but safe takeoff and landing.

And landing on a carrier is perhaps one of the toughest things a pilot can do in all of aviation.

During the Second World War, it was significantly harder than it is today.

There were no angled flight decks, no modern landing aids, and pilots relied almost entirely on the landing signal officer standing at the edge of the deck using paddles and hand gestures to guide them in.

If a pilot missed the arresting wire or something went wrong with his aircraft, there was nowhere to go.

You either slammed into the parked aircraft or you went over the side into the ocean.

Now, try all this but in darkness.

Pilots were actually more anxious about night carrier landings than they were about combat itself.

And it was described as absolutely the most difficult thing you needed to do as a pilot in World War II.

Early Hellcat models suffered from a high rate of tire failures during carrier landings, either from poor quality tires or from exhausted pilots who came in too hard.

When a tire blew on landing, the aircraft would skid or crash on the deck.

And it wasn’t rare for someone to die.

Look at this legendary photo for example.

Lieutenant Walter Lewis Tuning was photographed rescuing Enen Byron Milton Johnson from a burning Hellcat on the deck of the USS Enterprise.

Johnson’s aircraft had suffered engine problems during a routine training exercise.

He made an emergency approach, caught the arresting wire on his third attempt, but slammed into the deck so hard that his port landing gear ended up in the catwalk at the edge of the deck.

The airframe came to rest on its belly tank, which immediately began leaking fuel.

The propeller was still spinning against the deck edge, throwing sparks which ignited the leaking fuel.

To make things worse, the hard impact had jammed Johnson’s canopy shut.

He was trapped inside a burning aircraft with no way to get out.

Tuning stepped directly onto the burning fuel tank to reach the cockpit and pulled Johnson out of the flames.

As a result of this incident, the famous fighter ace Butch O’Hare recommended that all pilots should drop their external fuel tanks before attempting to land to prevent exactly this kind of accident from happening again.

Pilots who went over the side of the carrier faced either the danger of being run over by the carrier itself or being sucked underneath its massive hull by the churning water.

Even if you avoided that, you had to escape the plane that wasn’t designed to swim.

If a Hellcat was damaged or ran out of fuel over open water, the pilot had to bail out or try to ditch the plane.

Fighter aircraft were notoriously bad at surviving ditching attempts because of the noseheavy weight distribution and the lows slung air intake on most of them usually meant the plane would flip or break apart when it hit the water.

Because of this, fighter pilots almost always chose to bail out when they went down over the ocean, taking their chances with the parachute rather than trying to land on water.

By late 1944, a new threat emerged that made life even more terrifying for Hellcat pilots and everyone else serving on American carriers.

The Japanese had adopted kamicazi tactics on a large scale, and Hellcat pilots became the primary defense against these attacks, responsible for intercepting and shooting them down before they could reach the fleet.

But the attacks could come at any moment or slip under the radar.

There was no safe zone anywhere where you could let your guard down completely.

The Hellcat quickly established a reputation as a zero killer, and the combat results backed that up.

Against Japan’s premier fighter, the Hellcat achieved a kill ratio of about 13 to1.

Some sources put the overall kill ratio even higher at 19 to1, which would make it the best of any fighter during the entire war.

And here’s a number that really puts things in perspective.

Carrier-based US Navy Hellcats shot down more Japanese aircraft than the P38 Lightnings and F4U Corsair’s combined, and that includes both land-based and carrierbased Corsair.

By June 1944, the Hellcat had clearly established itself as the dominant aircraft in the Pacific theater.

But its greatest moment was still to come.

The Battle of the Philippine Sea was the largest aircraft carrier battle in history, and it turned into an absolute disaster for the Japanese.

On June 19th alone, the Japanese Navy lost 275 aircraft, the vast majority of them to Hellcats.

In return, the Americans lost only 15 Hellcats in air-to-air combat against the Zero that day.

The fighting was so one-sided that American pilots started calling it the great Mariana’s Turkey shoot.

But why did the Hellcat win so decisively? Well, it wasn’t because it was the best performing fighter of the war, and it actually wasn’t.

Overall, the Hellcat was slightly inferior to its stablemate, the Corsair.

It was slower, had a lower climb rate, and a slower roll rate.

The Hellcat did dive faster and had slightly better turn performance, but in terms of raw capability, the Corsair came out a bit ahead on paper.

But here’s the thing, the Hellcat was much easier to build and fly than most other American fighters of similar capability.

And that combination turned out to be far more important than having the absolute best numbers in any single category.

Grumman was building over 500 Hellcats every single month for 2 years straight.

And all 12,275 Hellcats that were ever made came out of a single factory.

That’s a remarkable achievement.

And no other American fighter was built in greater numbers from one factory during such a short production run.

This meant that the United States could replace losses almost as fast as they occurred and still have plenty of aircraft left over to expand operations.

The Japanese, meanwhile, found themselves trapped in a death spiral that they couldn’t escape from.

The Zero couldn’t match the Hellcat in combat.

Upgraded Japanese fighters existed on paper and in prototypes, but Japan’s industrial limitations meant they couldn’t be produced in anywhere near sufficient numbers.

Experienced pilots were being killed faster than they could be replaced.

New pilots coming into service had far less training than their American counterparts.

and quality control problems meant that even the aircraft Japan did manage to produce weren’t always performing to their original specifications.

You see, before Pearl Harbor, Japanese aviation doctrine had always emphasized pilot quality over quantity.

The Imperial Japanese Navy went to war with about 3,000 trained pilots and only managed to add another 5,000 over the next 2 years combined.

In comparison, the US Navy alone trained 17,000 pilots in that same period.

And that number doesn’t even include the Army Air Forces.

The impact of this gap started becoming painfully obvious throughout 1942 and 1943.

Even though attrition rates were roughly equal during the Solomon Islands campaign, the United States could easily replace pilots who had completed full training programs while Japan struggled to do the same.

And the two nations handled their experienced pilots very differently.

The US Navy rotated pilots and entire units out of combat after a certain period to rest and recover.

Japanese naval aviation had no such policy.

Their units remained in constant combat until pilots were killed, wounded, or simply collapsed from physical exhaustion.

This created a vicious cycle among Japan’s veteran pilot corps, who bore the full weight of the war of attrition with no relief in sight.

Pilots who flew too many missions without rest sometimes became careless, probably because the prolonged stress had worn down their ability to stay fully aware in combat.

By 1944, the gap had become enormous.

US Navy Hellcat pilots were joining their units with 500 or more hours of flying time under their belts.

Their Japanese counterparts were lucky to have 300 hours and more often not even close to that, which showed in every engagement.

As conventional air combat became increasingly hopeless for Japan, they turned to kamicazi tactics out of desperation, which became the only way they could somewhat reliably hit American ships.

By the time the war ended, the Hellcat was actually starting to fall behind the latest generation of fighters.

If the war had continued much longer, this might have become a real problem.

But it didn’t matter because the war had already been won.

And to a large extent, the air war over the Pacific was won by the Hellcat.

Grin had already designed a successor, the F8F Bearcat, which incorporated all the lessons learned from the Hellcat and offered significantly improved performance.

But the war ended before the bearcat could see any real combat.