Somewhere up above the Philippines on October 26, 1944, in the largest and maybe the biggest battle of modern record, a thing of unprecedented audacity had occurred. U.S. Navy Capt. David McCampbell and Ens. Roy Rushing had taken their Grumman F6F Hellcats into a swirling mass of 60 Japanese fighters. Against unthinkably overwhelming numbers of the enemy, the two United States pilots took on the foe with unrelenting determination.
Powered by their 2,000-horsepower engines, Hellcats exploded upward to gain the advantage. McCampbell would later describe the tactic during an interview for the U.S. Naval Institute’s oral history project: “We’d make an attack, keep our altitude advantage and speed, and go down again.”. “We did it time after time until we wore the enemy out, and our air groups destroyed 15 enemy planes, an all-time combat record to this day in all the world’s air forces. McCampbell got six single handily with A6M Zeros and three with Ki-43 Oscars”.
The Hellcat F6F was very resilient and resourceful. According to Thomas Paone, curator at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, the aircraft excelled: “The Grumman Hellcat was pretty much superior to the Zero in every important category. Although it wasn’t the fastest of aircraft, it was certainly faster than the Zero. The F6F could also go higher and deliver more firepower than the Japanese plane, making it the superior of the two in the Pacific.
The Hellcat made its first appearance, and with that, a very pilot-friendly philosophy of simplicity and ruggedness in design, making it an instant favorite; its development took from prototype to operational form in a mere 18 months. The first production F6F-3 flew in October 1942, and by 1944, the Hellcat became the Navy’s standard carrier-based fighter. More than 12,000 were made by Grumman; in fact, 12,275 Hellcats in all completely confirmed its importance during the critical period of the Pacific theater.
Its combat record was unparalleled, with a 19:1 kill ratio and responsible for 75 percent of the Navy’s air-to-air kills. Much of this success was due to its rugged airframe and the powerful Pratt & Whitney R-2800 engine. The aircraft’s ability to absorb damage and keep on flying was legendary among pilots.
The same actions that won McCampbell the Medal of Honor on that day in October also won Rushing the Navy Cross. He remains the U.S. Navy’s most successful fighter ace of all time with 34 aerial victories and also gained the Navy Cross, Silver Star, Legion of Merit, and three Distinguished Flying Crosses. His accomplishments grounded in the Hellcat set him clearly to be one of the premier fighter pilots of all time.
Hellcat’s legacy would go beyond its combat achievements, which to this day owe much to the design and performance norms for follow-on generations of carrier-based fighters. The story of the Hellcat is proof of the ingenuity and spirit of the engineers and pilots who conceived life in it and its place in the aviation history of the military.