The F6F Hellcat Japan Underestimated: A 19-to-1 Kill Ratio
WWII American Heroes
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The F6F Hellcat Japan underestimated could not out-turn a Zero, could not out-climb one at low altitude, and weighed twice as much. It still ended the Imperial Japanese Navy's carrier air arm, with 5,223 enemy aircraft credited against 270 Hellcats lost in air combat. Nineteen to one. Japan would never again put a full carrier air group over open water.
This documentary follows the Grumman F6F Hellcat from its June 1941 contract at Bethpage, Long Island, through the captured Akutan Zero, the first combat over Marcus Island and Wake, the Rabaul raids, the Truk fighter sweep of 17 February 1944, and the Battle of the Philippine Sea on 19 and 20 June 1944, the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot. It covers the A6M Zero's specifications, the R-2800 Double Wasp, the Combat Information Center aboard Task Force 58, the collapse of Japanese carrier aviation at Leyte Gulf, and the kamikaze programme that followed.
Sources include after-action reports, Navy loss tables, squadron records and production figures, with the limits of wartime kill claims stated openly. The goal is the record as written, not the legend as retold.
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#WW2 #WorldWarII #PacificWar #USNavy #WWIIHistory #F6FHellcat #PhilippineSea #TaskForce58 #MilitaryHistory #USAInWW2
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The F6F Hellcat Japan Underestimated: A 19-to-1 Kill Ratio
WWII American Heroes
2,715 views
The F6F Hellcat Japan underestimated could not out-turn a Zero, could not out-climb one at low altitude, and weighed twice as much. It still ended the Imperial Japanese Navy's carrier air arm, with 5,223 enemy aircraft credited against 270 Hellcats lost in air combat. Nineteen to one. Japan would never again put a full carrier air group over open water.
This documentary follows the Grumman F6F Hellcat from its June 1941 contract at Bethpage, Long Island, through the captured Akutan Zero, the first combat over Marcus Island and Wake, the Rabaul raids, the Truk fighter sweep of 17 February 1944, and the Battle of the Philippine Sea on 19 and 20 June 1944, the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot. It covers the A6M Zero's specifications, the R-2800 Double Wasp, the Combat Information Center aboard Task Force 58, the collapse of Japanese carrier aviation at Leyte Gulf, and the kamikaze programme that followed.
Sources include after-action reports, Navy loss tables, squadron records and production figures, with the limits of wartime kill claims stated openly. The goal is the record as written, not the legend as retold.
Subscribe for the definitive history of the United States in the Second World War — new documentaries every few days.
#WW2 #WorldWarII #PacificWar #USNavy #WWIIHistory #F6FHellcat #PhilippineSea #TaskForce58 #MilitaryHistory #USAInWW2