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The Grumman F6F Hellcat is an American carrier-based fighter aircraft of World War II. Designed to replace the earlier F4F Wildcat and to counter the Japanese Mitsubishi A6M Zero , it was the United States Navy 's dominant fighter in the second half of the Pacific War .
Grumman's Wildcat production ceased in early 1943 to make way for the newer F6F Hellcat, but General Motors continued producing Wildcats for both U.S. Navy and Fleet Air Arm use. Late in the war, the Wildcat was obsolescent as a front line fighter compared to the faster (380 mph/610 km/h) F6F Hellcat or much faster (446 mph/718 km/h) F4U Corsair.
VF-1 F6F-3 launches from the hangar deck catapult of USS Yorktown in June 1943 VF-1 F6F-3 aboard USS Yorktown, June 1944. VF-1 operating the Grumman F6F Hellcat was embarked on the USS Yorktown (CV-10) on its shakedown cruise in the Caribbean in June 1943. VF-1 was transferred to Kaneohe Naval Air Station in August 1943. [2]
VF-80 equipped with the F6F-5 Hellcat was assigned to Carrier Air Group 80 (CVG-80) on the USS Ticonderoga.From 5–14 November 1944, VF-80 attacked Japanese targets around the Philippines in support of the invasion of Leyte and conducted combat air patrols to protect the task group.
VF-33, equipped with F6F Hellcats, was first deployed to Munda where they supported the New Georgia Campaign. [2]While deployed in the Solomons, VF-33 was credited with 60 Japanese aircraft shot down, [2]: 19 and produced three aces: Lt.(jg) Frank E. Schnieder with seven kills, Lt. C. K. Hildebrandt with five kills, and Lt.(jg) James J. Kinsella also with five kills, three with VF-33 and two ...
VF-2 Grumman F6F-3 Hellcat crash-lands aboard USS Enterprise, 10 November 1943. VF-2 was established on 1 June 1943, at Naval Air Station Atlantic City. VF-2, known now as the "Rippers," became the first World War II fighting squadron to bear the same designation as a previous unit in the war. Several pilots came from VF-6 and VF-10.
This influenced the development of the Hellcat which was an improvement over the Grumman F4F Wildcat. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] Duncan, then an Ensign, [ 1 ] scored his first and second aerial victories in the Hellcat on 5 October 1943, the second being Japanese flying ace Warrant Officer Toshiyuki Sueda, who previously had downed nine American aircraft ...
Although VF-84 was reformed in July 1945 as an F6F Hellcat squadron, the war ended while it was still in training. While in the Pacific, VF-84 was credited with 92 kills for a loss of four aircraft and nine of the squadron's pilots became aces .