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America Accidentally Attacked the Soviet Union and Other Lesser Known History Moments

Khalid Elhassan February 27, 2020 34 min

Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star - Aircraft — American F-80s in action during the Korean War. Squdron

29. Enter the Hellcat

F6F Hellcats aboard the USS Yorktown in 1944 – not the folding wings, which allowed the storage of more planes. National Archives

Even before America joined WWII, Grumman had been working on a successor to the F4F. The company sped things up after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and took what became the F6F Hellcat from the experimental stage to operational employment in a mere 18 months. It featured folding wings for easier storage, thus allowing aircraft carriers to carry a greater number of fighters.

The Hellcat was faster, more powerful, more maneuverable, and longer-ranged than its predecessor. It outclassed the enemy’s Zeroes in every way except maneuverability at low speed. It saw its first combat in September of 1943, and proved so successful that, by 1944, it had become the Navy’s standard carrier-based fighter. 12,275 Hellcats were produced during the war, and they were the main platform that the US Navy used to clear the Pacific skies of enemy planes.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.