Hellcat, the F6F in World War II

Excellent service. Book was in excellent condition, and I received it in only a few days! Thank you!

I enjoyed Hellcat by Barrett Tillman but then I'm biased; the Grumman F6F Hellcat has always been one of my favorite planes. The first chapter of the book covers the Hellcat's history, from conception, to manufacturer, introduction to the fleet, and after the war. It's very well done. The remainder of the book covers the Hellcat's combat history in chronological order. The author apparently reviewed every combat report involving Hellcats. I must confirm what other reviewers have noted: that reading every combat engagement involving Hellcats can get tedious at times. Persevering through the material did reveal that Hellcats were frequently outnumbered in dogfights, and that they encountered skilled Japanese pilots, even late in the war. The book also addresses areas that don't get a lot of visibility: Hellcat night fighting and operations in the European theatre. I'd have like to see the book compare the Hellcat to the other great fighters of World War II. But all in all, the book effectively tells the story of the U.S. Navy's primary WWII fighter that performed superbly its assigned task. The Hellcat was not the most glamorous fighter of World War II. It wasn't the fastest, or the most maneuverable. Visibility wasn't the greatest. If you could choose any World War II fighter to go dogfight with, you would probably pick the Mustang, Spitfire or FW-190 over the Hellcat. That said, the F6F Hellcat was the perfect airplane for the U.S. Navy operating off aircraft carriers in World War II fighting the Japanese. The Hellcat had all the things carrier aviators like: long range, easy to land on the boat, rugged, a powerful, reliable engine, easy to maintain with a high availability rate and the ability to carry lots of ordnance. That its pilots loved it says it all. Performance-wise, the Hellcat was markedly superior to its primary opponent, the Zero. In aerial combat, speed is life, and the Hellcat was significantly faster than the Zero in both level flight and a dive, and could match it in a climb. The Hellcat had plenty of firepower - six 50 caliber machine guns -- more than enough to take apart the flimsy Japanese fighters and bombers. On the other hand, with armor plating for the pilot and self-sealing fuel tanks, the Hellcat could take punishment from a Zero and keep on flying or at least give its pilot a chance to bail out and live. Unlike the Zero, the Hellcat had a radio that worked - a huge advantage that rarely is mentioned. About the only thing the Zero had over the Hellcat was turn rate in the lower speed range. The Zero was not competitive against the Hellcat, given equal pilot skills. The above factors explain the great Hellcat air-to-air kill-ratio of 19 to 1: 5,163 downed Japanese aircraft verses 270 Hellcats shot down. In comparison, P-38s shot down 1,700 Japanese aircraft in the Pacific. Armed with Hellcats, U.S. Carrier Task Forces loitered off Japanese strongholds and destroyed all Japanese aircraft

It seems that everyplace I turn, Barrett Tillman is there. He contributes to The Hook magazine, The Blue Press, and is a fellow member of the Association of Naval Aviation, Flying Beaver squadron.This book is all about my favorite fighter aircraft of all time, Grumman's F6F "Hellcat." Of all the Japanese aircraft shot down in air-to-air combat during the Second World War, this airplane and its pilots accounted for nearly 8 out of 10 of them.Yet, it was a "generic" fighter, the big brother to the tubby, feisty little F4F "Wildcat" with which the U.S. Navy started the war, but which was outclassed by the A6M2 "Zero" of Mitsubishi, which could outclimb, outmaneuver and, worse--fly further on a tank of gas. So, they could strike our ships while they were still out of our range.Leroy Grumman and his "Iron Works" at Bethpage, Long Island, came up with the antidote. The "Hellcat" went from drawing board to test flight in only a year, making her first flight on June 26, 1942, almost exactly a year after the Navy had first requested the aircraft to replace the obsolescent "Wildcat". The first flight of a production F6F-3 was on October 3rd.The airplane had no bad habits. It was easy to fly, and had good visibility of the flight deck on final, unlike the long-nosed F4U Vought Sikorsky (later, Chance Vought) "Corsair," which was dubbed the "Ensign Eliminator."Tillman, whose father was a naval aviator in the Second World War, has demonstrated a devotion to naval aviation, and has written a number of books about the aircraft of that war and the men who flew them.His books bring back memories. You can almost hear the unmuffled roar of the Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp R2800, all 2,000 horsepower belching flame from the exhaust stacks as the airplane strains against her brakes and chocks preparing for takeoff from the carrier deck.No one writes it better than Barrett Tillman, and he is a fellow Oregonian, to boot!Joseph Pierre, Author: Handguns and Freedom...their care and maintenanceand other books

The Hellcat; my favorite of all 14 operational Naval aircraft I've flown, including others from "Grumman Iron Works". Mr. Tillman put this old flyer back in that F6F-5 cockpit again. I could smell it, hear it and almost touch that most wonderful of warbirds I've ever had the privilege to fly. I found people in there, who loved it as I did then and still do, that I can identify with; and even some I knew or knew of. The author is a master of drawing the reader into the accounts of those beautiful/horrible days of war in the air, where skill, luck and above all leadership and teamwork were the norms. Mr. Tillman is not new to the Hellcat. Other works of his about the Hellcat are equally satisfying, and his collaboration with one of Naval Aviation's primo photographers, Bob Lawson, gives incredible depth to his writings. I sincerely hope that Mr. Tillman will continue to bring this and other legendary Naval aircraft to their place in history they so richly deserve.

An authoritative look at the F6F (my favorite piece of American iron). Tillman covers the history of the Hellcat from inception to a list of F6Fs still flying. Richly documented containing specifications on all models and illustrated with combat reports. "Hellcat" is at the same time both readable adventure and invaluable reference tool. "WWII Aviation Booklist"(...)