In the beginning of operations in the Pacific, the basic US deck fighter was the Grumman F4F-3 Wildcat. The fact is that carriers were still considered auxiliary ships, and the pilots were just getting used to the aircraft, which had replaced the Brewster F2A-3 in August of 1941. The F2A-3, known in Great Britain as the Buffalo, continued to remain on the arms of the Lexington carrier and with two US Marine Corps squadrons on Midway and Wake Islands as of December of 1941. Inexperienced Allied pilots had to face the Japanese, who possessed superior tactical knowledge and flight experience. For the first half-year of the war, the Buffalos and Wildcats suffered heavy losses both in the air and on the ground. Out of the twelve F4F-3 aircrafts quartered on Wake Island, seven were destroyed on the ground during the first strike, and the rest managed to sink the destroyer ship Kirashagi and down two bombers but were also lost before December 22. The lack of training in the US Marine Corps at the initial stage of war was most evident at the Battle of Midway. By June 4, 1941, the two air bases housed 118 planes, including 6 Wildcats and 21 Buffalos. The four Japanese carriers which had participated in the Pearl Harbor battle (Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu and Shoru) brought up the shocking wave of 72 bombers and fighters under the cover of 36 Zeroes. All base fighters, except for one damaged Buffalo and one Wildcat with a broken chassis, rushed out to intercept the intruders, but they stood no chance against the Zeroes. F. R. White, the lead commander of the Buffalos, managed to dive away from the Zeroes and down one Nakajima B5N2. Three more bombers and one fighter were destroyed by the Wildcats. The only survivors in that battle were a single F4F-3 and a F2A-3. The rest of the aircrafts were downed or suffered crashes upon landing. At the same time, the Wildcats of the carrier Yorktown, piloted by troops who had had battle experience in the Coral Sea hostilities of the previous month, downed more than half of the Japanese planes attacking the carrier and half of the support fighters (though they didn’t manage to save the ship). This success reflected the skill and experience of the pilots rather than the superiority of the F4F-3 over the F2A-3. It was not until the autumn of 1942 that the US achieved parity with the Japanese, as American pilots abandoned the traditional tactics of maneuverable fight and began to exploit the advantages of the F4F in speedy dives and ascents. They once again discovered the “hit-and-run” tactics which had proven so successful in the bloody European war theater.
A ‘Buffalo’ F2A-4 of the marines is being refueled on the airfield Eva, Hawaii islands, May 1942. [10]
A F3F-3 from the aircraft carrier Yorktown during a training flight, 1939-40. [10]
Both the Buffalo and the Wildcat were designed as part of a competition set up in 1935 by the Naval Department of the US Aeronautic Bureau (NAVAER). NAVAER wanted a carrier borne fighter capable of replacing the Grumman F3F-3 biplane. The Brewster XF2A-1 project won the contract, but the F3F-3-based Grumman monoplane was also approved. The XF4F-2 first took to the air on September 2, 1937. In comparative tests with competitors conducted in the spring of 1938, it made a good showing, but the engine overheated and rose, necessitating an early landing and resulting in the breakdown of the aircraft. However, NAVAER made a separate decision in favor of Leroy Grumman, awarding them the contract for the restoration of the prototype bearing the new index XF4F-3 and equipped with a more powerful and high-altitude engine, the Pratt - Whitney Twin Wasp XR-1830-76. The new plane resembled its predecessors, the F3F-3 and XF4F-2, in nothing more than the glider manufacturing techniques and the “trademark” design of the cockpit and chassis. Attached to multilever trapezers, the main wheels required manual placement in the fuselage manually (which took 29 revolts) and retracted under their own weight. Housing a large radial engine, the fuselage was short and thick (the Japanese called the F4F “a bottle of sake”), but even so, the width and height of the chassis could not be extended. Thus, the Wildcat always remained very difficult to land, and the small-diameter propeller limited the escalating capacity of the engine. Soon after its first flight on February 12, 1938, the XF4F-3 was taken through a full cycle of tests. On the supercharger second stage altitude (6100 m) it reached a top speed of 537 km/h, besting that of the F2A-2 by 25 km/h. The new aircraft plane’s fine rate of climb, good service ceiling, and high maneuverablity surpassed those of its predecessors. Still, problems with the propelling engine, stability, and handling necessitated a series of adjustments which lasted till August 1939, when Grumman was finally awarded the order for 54 F4F-3s.
Problems with the underdeveloped engine slowed down production. Only seven aircrafts, all of them mere prototypes, were put out from January to November of 1940. The fourth and the fifth models were fitted with a reliable one-stage radial engine, the Wright R-1820-40 Cyclone, and bore the index XF4F-5. These aircrafts (with manufacturing indexes G-36A è G-36B) were ordered by France, Greece and the Great Britain but eventually all of them ended up in the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) under the new name of “Martlets” by the end of 1941. Despite the low altitude capacity of the Cyclone and Britain’s subsequent development of its own carrier-borne fighters (the Hawker Seahurricane and Supermarine Seafire), the Martlets (or Wildcats) remained with the FAA throughout the war.
In November of 1940 the seventh serial model (index XF4F-6), powered by a simplified Pratt-Whitney R-1830-90 engine with a one-stage supercharger, became the prototype for a small batch of F4F-3A aircrafts completed in the spring of 1941. In January 1941 the carriers Wasp and Ranger, both operating in the Atlantic, received 11 of F4F-3s apiece, and by next summer the F4F-3 was being outfitted with the reworked high altitude Pratt-Whitney R-1830-86 engine, which delivered the same 1200 hp at take-off. By December of 1941 the US Navy had procured 187 F4F-3s and 58 F4F-3As under the new official name “Wildcats.” The F4F-3A ultimately proved to be a failure – poor altitude capacity unfavorably affected its speed and other flight characteristics so that by the end of 1942 the aircraft was taken out of service.
The F4F-3 was a compact full metal cantilever middleplane. The round section fuselage consisted of two units: the front unit contained the engine, the fire prevention system, oil and fuel tanks, and chassis section, while the rear unit was given over to the armored cockpit with the armored back panel, the second fuel tank and radio equipment. The cockpit shield could be shifted on the fuselage spine faring which passed smoothly into the keel. The wing area was so small that the folding mechanism was completely abandoned. The aircraft was marginally slower than its principal opponent, the Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero, in addition to being less agile with a slower climb rate; however, it displayed advantages in dive speed and durability (overloads allowance and damage resistance). The Four 12,7-mm Colt-Browning wing guns had better grouping, rate of fire, and ammunition capacity than the Zero’s combination of two low caliber machine guns and two 20-mm cannons.
As early as December 1941, NAVAER, having received enough field reports on the Wildcat’s combat potential, ordered all aircrafts to be outfitted with fuel tank shields and cockpit armor. The telescopic sight installed on the second batch of the model was replaced by a reflector. The weight of the aircraft increased, thus lowering fuel tank capacity, combat range, climb rate and maneuverability. Nevertheless, the Wildcat became a difficult target for standard machine guns and a deadly opponent for the Japanese aircrafts. For instance, Lieutenant Henry “Butch” O’Hara downed 5 Mitsubishi G4M1 Betty double-engine bombers on a single raid to Rabaul on February 20, 1942. The problem of low combat range was gracefully resolved by equipping the wing suspension bracket with two 200 liter fuel tanks.
F4F-3A’s of 1st Lt. Thach and Lt. O’Hare, April 1942. [10]
The aim correction of an F4F-4’s weapons on the flight deck of Enterprise, april 1942; armament compartments and curved console cut off points are visible. [10]
The loss of the carriers in May and June of 1942 in the Coral Sea and near Midway once again proved the necessity of strengthening the “fleet shield.” The number of carrier borne fighters had to be increased, and to do so necessitated the use of folding wings in aircraft design. Furthermore, it was decided to improve fire potential by outfitting the aircraft with six machine guns instead of four. The prototype XF4F-4 with hydraulic drive folding mechanism was complete by winter of 1941, but it was not till May of 1942 that the F4F-4 started to be shipped out to the US carriers. The wing pods folded back along the fuselage and turned around the tip, a feature which enable five F4F-4s to occupy the same area as two F4F-3s. Replacement of the hydraulic drive mechanism with a manual mechanism resulted in considerable increase in weight, though the ammunition capacity fell from 1720 to 1420 rounds. The aircraft became inferior to the Zero F4F-4 by nearly all parameters, but by the end of the year each of the new carriers sported 36 F4F-4s instead of 18 F4F-3s! The Navy was in need of reconnaissance aircrafts, so the F4F-3P and F4F-4P were outfitted with photo equipment. The specialized reconnaissance aircraft F4F-7 first flew on December 30, 1941 and was delivered in a batch of 21 vehicles. The armament and the machine guns were replaced with autopilot and cameras. The 2953 liters of fuel in the one-piece pods provided for an enormous flight range of up to 6000 km.
Projections of F4F-4 / FM-1. The NAVAER report dated 1 July 1943. [4] (the secrecy stamp is erased)
The cockpit of a F4F-4.
Faced with the Wildcat’s evident shortcomings, Grumman decided to speed up development of a faster, larger fighter with improved power and maneuverability, capable of challenging the Zero. The company lacked manufacturing capacities, so five of the General Motors automobile factories were converted into aviation plants, giving birth to the Eastern Aircraft Company, responsible for the manufacture of Grumman torpedo carriers and fighters. The GM Wildcats FM-1 were the exact copy of F4F-4 in everything but their four-barrel guns with large ammunition capacity as in F4F-3, in response to pilot demand.
The first “screwdriver technology” FM-1 flew on September 1, 1942. By 1943 Grumman had already developed the XF4F-8, prototype of the most popular Wildcat index - FM-2; the company devoted itself wholeheartedly to the new F6F project. By May of 1945 GM had manufactured 4777 FM-2 aircrafts. With its short start and run, the light FM-2 proved invaluable for dozens of lesser escort carriers charged with the protection of cargo convoys and US Marine Corps troop shipments.
Even with the two additional bomb holders and six non-guided air-surface missiles the aircraft achieved 300 m/min growth of climb rate and an increase in low altitude speed. These advantages were not enough to rank the FM-2 among the best of the fighters of 1943, but they made it quite a respectable model, nonetheless: by the end of the war, the FM-2 had accounted for 432 enemy aircrafts (the last of which was downed in Japan on August 5, 1945). They proved most successful as the supporting air force for the large-scale US Marine Corps operations in Normandy (June of 1944), the Philippines (October of 1944), and Okinawa (April of 1945). One of the most spectacular victories of World War II was achieved by GM Avengers and Wildcats on October 25, 1944 in the course of the Marine Corps operation on Philippines. The aircrafts of 18 escort carriers readily demolished the Japanese fleet, sinking three out of four battleships, one heavy carrier, three light carriers, ten cruisers, and eleven destroyers. Apart from escorting FM-2 TBM torpedo carriers and downing Japanese aircrafts, including the latest A6M5 Zero, the FM-2 also stormed battleship bridges with light bombs, rockets and machine gun fire!
Nevertheless, it was not the Wildcat, but the F6F Hellcat that became the lord of the sky. The Hellcat made its debut under favorable conditions, as most of the Japanese carriers along with the blossom of Japanese naval aviation had been taken out of action by that time. But apart from the considerable numerical advantage and experience of the US pilots, extraordinary planes were required to achieve a 19-1 rate of victories to losses. According to official US records, carrier-borne Hellcats accounted for 4947 downed aircrafts in WWII. Another 209 enemy aircrafts were destroyed by the US Marine Corps air force. Meanwhile, US combat losses amounted to 270 vehicles. It was not until the spring of 1945 that Japan developed a worthy opponent for the F6F-5. In August of 1945, Japanese Ace Tesujo Ivamoto, flying a Kavanishi N1K2-J Shiden-kan, engaged six Hellcats, downing four and leaving the battle undamaged. By that time the US carriers had long been equipped with the most powerful carrier-borne fighter of the Second World War - the F4U-4 Corsair.
A FM-2 from aircraft carrier Charger, May 1944.
An FM-2 in the Marianas operation, June 1944. [10]
