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    F4F Wildcat and F6F Hellcat Aces of VF-2
    F4F Wildcat and F6F Hellcat Aces of VF-2
    F4F Wildcat and F6F Hellcat Aces of VF-2
    Ebook224 pages2 hours

    F4F Wildcat and F6F Hellcat Aces of VF-2

    By Thomas McKelvey Cleaver, Jim Laurier and Mark Postlethwaite

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    An illustrated history of the pilots of VF-2 who had a spectacular scoring rate and fought in many of the major aerial campaigns of the Pacific War.

    The first VF-2 was a prewar unit that had been dubbed the 'hottest outfit afloat' due to the skill of their non-commissioned pilots. This first unit only saw combat at the Battle of the Coral Sea, although VF-2 pilots flying Grumman F4F Wildcats were able to rack up 17 claims there during the bitter 48-hour period of fighting.

    The second 'Fighting Two' was armed with the new Grumman F6F-3 Hellcat fighter. Arriving in Hawaii in October 1943, the squadron so impressed Cdr Edward H 'Butch' O'Hare, the Medal of Honor-winning first US Navy ace of World War 2, that he requested the squadron replace VF-6 in his CAG-6 aboard USS Enterprise. No unit US Navy unit created more aces than VF-2, whose pilots went into action over the Carolines, Marianas, Guam, Iwo Jima and the Battle of the Philippine Sea.

    Using exquisite photographs and first-hand accounts from the elite fliers themselves, this volume tells the story of the ace pilots who comprised the original VF-2 and the second.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateFeb 20, 2015
    ISBN9781472805607
    F4F Wildcat and F6F Hellcat Aces of VF-2
    Author

    Thomas McKelvey Cleaver

    Thomas McKelvey Cleaver has been a published writer for the past 40 years, with his most recent work being the best-selling Osprey titles MiG Alley (2019), I Will Run Wild (2020), Under the Southern Cross (2021), The Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club (2021), Going Downtown (2022), The Cactus Air Force (2022) alongside the late Eric Hammel, and most recently Clean Sweep (2023). Tom served in the US Navy in Vietnam and currently lives in Encino, California.

    Read more from Thomas Mc Kelvey Cleaver

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      F4F Wildcat and F6F Hellcat Aces of VF-2 - Thomas McKelvey Cleaver

      COMMENTARY

      INTRODUCTION

      The four US Navy fighter squadrons that have carried the designation ‘Fighting Two’ (VF-2) over the years form a tradition that reaches back to the very beginning of American carrier aviation.

      The original ‘Fighting Two’ was the US Navy’s first carrier fighter squadron. The second, the famous ‘Flying Chiefs’, was instrumental in developing the pilots, aircraft, strategy and tactics that would lead to victory in the Pacific War, and participated in the Battle of the Coral Sea, history’s first naval battle in which the opposing fleets never came within sight of each other. The third ‘Fighting Two’ became the fourth highest-scoring US Navy fighter squadron of the war, seeing action in the Battle of the Philippine Sea – an engagement that effectively destroyed Japanese carrier-based aviation for the remainder of the war. No fewer than 28 pilots achieved ace status during their tour of combat with VF-2 in 1943-44 – an American record that remains unbroken, and will likely never be challenged in the future. Chronicling their story has been a privilege.

      The fourth ‘Fighting Two’, which is operational today flying F/A-18F Super Hornets as VFA-2, stands at the forefront of naval attack aviation. Indeed, it has participated in almost every American military action since the end of the Korean War.

      Thomas McKelvey Cleaver

      Los Angeles, California

      September 2014

      19 JUNE 1944

      19 June 1944 would be unlike any other day the pilots of the seven heavy and eight light carriers of Task Force (TF) 58 had yet experienced during the Pacific War. General Quarters sounded at 0300 hrs as crews bustled on flightdecks and hangar decks to prepare the F6F Hellcats, SB2C Helldivers and TBF Avengers for what lay ahead. Daylight broke to reveal an ominously placid sea as the morning reports carried forebodings of hectic hours ahead. Sleepy pilots shuffled into ready rooms to be met with the electrifying news that the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet and the Mobile Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) would meet in combat that day in the first carrier battle in the Pacific War since the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands some 20 months previously on 26 October 1942.

      The 54 carriers, battleships, heavy and light cruisers and destroyers of Fifth Fleet combined to form the largest American combat fleet to ply Pacific waters – a far cry from the beleaguered force of two carriers, a battleship and a handful of cruisers and destroyers that had gone up against four Japanese carriers in a desperate attempt to maintain the American presence on Guadalcanal in those dark days of October 1942. Now the boot was on the other foot.

      The air battles over the Pacific since the commencement of operations in the Central Pacific in October 1943 had continued the decimation of Japanese combat pilots that had begun in the Solomons on 7 August 1942 with the invasion of Guadalcanal. The invasions of Tarawa in November 1943 and Kwajalein in January 1944, coupled with the strike against Truk that February, had all but wiped out the few remaining veteran pilots and aircrews of the Imperial Japanese Naval Air Force (IJNAF). In this coming battle, their replacements would prove barely able to land and take off from an aircraft carrier, let alone engage in air combat. Their US Navy opponents would enter this action with a minimum of 600 hours’ flight experience, and most had been engaged in combat since the beginning of the year.

      So great was American power in the Pacific in the spring and summer of 1944 that the Japanese high command had mistaken the invasion of Biak, in the southwestern Pacific, on 27 May 1944 as the expected main American offensive. Japanese Combined Fleet commander-in-chief Adm Soemu Toyoda had decided on 10 June to oppose the invasion, sending the 1st Battleship Division under Adm Matome Ugaki to attack the Americans. The very next day Toyoda was stunned by reports of the arrival of Fifth Fleet off the crucially important Mariana Islands. The latter were the inner ring of defence of the Japanese Empire. With these islands under American control, air bases could be built that would put the new B-29 Superfortress in range of the Japanese homeland. The Japanese knew about the Boeing strategic bomber, and the threat it posed. There was no question that the invasion must be opposed.

      The 15 aircraft carriers of TF 58 were under the command of Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher, and they had been given the task of providing air support to an amphibious force of 535 ships and 127,000 assault troops led by Vice Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner. The Fifth Fleet commander, Vice Admiral Raymond Spruance, victor at Midway, was under orders from Adm Chester Nimitz, Commander in Chief, US Pacific Fleet, to make the protection of the invasion forces his priority.

      Ens Wilbur ‘Spider’ Webb smiles for the camera shortly after his ‘ace in a day’ exploits over Guam on 19 June 1944 (Wilbur Webb)

      After intensive training operations to make good the aircraft and personnel losses incurred at Rabaul and Truk, this was the strongest Japanese fleet to put to sea in the war to date. The IJN carriers held more aircraft than their American counterparts, although the quality of the aircrew flying them was well below that of the US Navy.

      By 19 June the Japanese were finally in range to launch their attacks. The day has gone down in history as ‘The Marianas Turkey Shoot’. Commencing at about 0715 hrs, Hellcats of the fleet’s combat air patrol began intercepting the first of what would be four major Japanese raids launched by the Mobile Fleet. By day’s end more than 350 IJNAF aircraft had been shot down – a body blow to Japanese carrier aviation from which it would never recover.

      Once the first wave of Japanese attackers had been shot down or beaten off, strikes were launched against the enemy airfields on Guam that the survivors and those arriving later would head for. Aboard USS Hornet (CV-12), CAG-2 was ordered to participate in the first of these strikes at 1030 hrs. F6F-3 Hellcats of ‘Fighting 2’ were assigned to escort SB2C-1C Helldiver dive-bombers of ‘Bombing 2’ and TBF-1C Avenger torpedo-bombers of ‘Torpedo 2’ in raids on Marpi Point.

      One of the Hellcat pilots participating in this mission was Ens Wilbur B ‘Spider’ Webb, a native of Ardmore, Oklahoma, who had enlisted in the US Navy in October 1938 shortly after his 18th birthday. Following service in the gunnery and radio divisions aboard the battleship USS Colorado (BB-45), he was eventually assigned to the aviation division as a radioman-gunner flying in OS2U-1 Kingfisher scout aeroplanes. Webb’s persistent requests for flight training finally resulted in him being ordered to Naval Air Station (NAS) Pensacola, Florida, in June 1942. Here, he earned his Wings of Gold as an enlisted Naval Aviation Pilot First Class in July 1943, being temporarily commissioned an ensign shortly thereafter. Webb joined VF-2 in Hawaii in December 1943 after its first combat cruise aboard USS Enterprise (CV-6), and he had participated in all the missions CAG-2 had flown since its arrival in the Western Pacific in late March 1944.

      No Japanese aircraft were spotted during this first strike on Guam, although the attack aeroplanes were successful in damaging the airfields. At 1300 hrs a call was put forward for volunteers to fly a mission against anti-aircraft (AA) positions on Guam. Although he had already flown two sorties that day, Webb was ready for more. As he recalled to aviation historian Eric Hammel in 1990, ‘I normally flew with Lt(jg) Tex Vineyard, who was the division leader for Ginger 12 (our radio call-sign). I asked Tex if he wanted to go, but he replied in the negative. I advised the squadron operations officer that I would go. We were assigned as fighter escort for the strike group. I was to fly wing for Lt(jg) Conrad Elliott, and was the escort flight’s tail-end Charlie’.

      The mission took off from Hornet at 1430 hrs, with Webb for once flying ‘his’ F6F-3 ‘31’ – an event that almost never happened, since pilots were normally assigned aircraft for missions by their availability. ‘Takeoff and rendezvous were normal, and we proceeded to our assigned targets, climbing on course to 28,000 ft. On approaching the target, our division remained as high cover for the torpedo-planes and dive-bombers while they made their strikes, then we headed down to drop our 500-lb bombs and strafe our assigned targets around Agana. After the strike on our assigned targets, we proceeded to make a running rendezvous across Guam to just off Orote Peninsula, which was on the west side of the island. We completed our join-up at 3000-4000 ft, after which the entire strike group turned back toward the Hornet.’

      After landing back aboard USS Hornet (CV-12) following an uneventful morning mission on 19 June 1944, Ens Webb keeps a watchful eye on the flightdeck crew as they manually fold the wings of his F6F-3 Hellcat. Several hours later he took off in white 31, and duly made CAG-2 history (US Navy)

      Just west of Orote Point, Webb spotted an American pilot in a rubber life-raft in the act of spreading his dye marker. Webb radioed his discovery to his section leader, Elliott, who quickly obtained permission from the strike leader, Cdr Jackson Arnold (CO of CAG-2), for Webb to provide cover for the pilot while he, Elliott, rounded up one of the OS2U Kingfishers assigned for rescue duty. As Webb recalled;

      ‘I arrived over the life-raft and lowered my speed by throttling back and lowering my wheels and flaps so that I could fly a tight circle around the downed pilot. My first thought was to throw him some more dye markers in the event that he was not picked up before dark, and also to give him another life-raft. I opened my canopy, took my knife out, cut two of the dye markers loose from my Mae West and threw them to the pilot in the water. I was circling him at about 100 ft. After throwing out the dye markers, I proceeded to remove my life-raft from under my parachute.’

      As he did this, Webb glanced back at Guam, where he spotted a long line of aeroplanes wending their way through the mountains that ran down the island, apparently headed for the airfields at its northern end. ‘My first thought was why are our aeroplanes flying along there with their landing gear down?’ Webb quickly became aware of his mistaken identification of the aircraft. ‘The first aeroplanes were heading in my direction, and they got to within 100 yards of me before I realised that they were Japanese Val dive-bombers, with fixed landing gear, flying in divisions of three. There were aircraft above the Vals too – Zero-sens. When they reached the landing pattern for the field, they banked away, and I could see the large red meatballs on their sides. I estimated that there were 30 to 40 aeroplanes in all. I was not very concerned about my position at the time. I just thought, Boy, this is it. Make it good and get as many as you can before they know you’re here!’

      Webb radioed Elliott of his discovery and turned toward the enemy. ‘I had not been detected so far, so I decided not to gain altitude, but to just slide into their traffic pattern and get as many as I could before I was detected’. As he started to slide in, he picked up his microphone and made a blanket broadcast. ‘Any American fighter near Orote Peninsula. I have 40 Jap planes surrounded and need a little help. Hey Rube!’

      Dropping the microphone, Webb was less than 20 yards behind the first group of three Aichi D3A ‘Val’ dive-bombers. ‘All I did was enter the traffic circle at Orote field and slip in behind a division of three. When I started overrunning them I lowered my landing gear and flaps. I fired on the port aeroplane first from six o’clock level. It burned. Then I shifted to the centre one and did the same thing, and it burned. By the time I eased in behind the third aeroplane my speed had built up and I started overrunning it. The rear-seat gunner was firing directly at me, but he did not hit my aircraft. I was holding down the trigger, but this aeroplane did not seem to want to burn. I kept saying, Burn, you bastard, over and over until it finally did explode. If it had not exploded I would have collided with it, I guess. When the Val did explode, I flew through the explosion and sustained several holes in my F6F from pieces of it’.

      After downing the first three, Webb ‘whipped around over the airfield and got in behind another division of three Vals. The rear-seat gunner of this aircraft was firing directly at me from no farther than 30 yards. I could see the colours of his flightsuit, helmet and skin. Then he seemed to kind of give up. He put his hands up before his face – maybe he thought I was going to run into him – just before several 0.50-in slugs hit him in the chest and face. The aircraft started burning, and the pilot bailed out over the side. Although his ’chute opened, we were at no more than 200 ft, so I doubt if he made it.’

      The lead Val of this flight got away, but Webb managed to get behind the one on the right. ‘When I fired, it started shedding pieces and smoking badly. Then his tail disintegrated, and he just fell’.

      While the air battle was raging, considerable AA fire was coming up from around Orote Peninsula. ‘I could see tracers continually coming up in front of me’, Webb recalled. ‘I guess they had never seen an F6F Hellcat flying so slow. At the

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