Texas Star
US Veteran
Saw on yesterday's page of the vintage aircraft desk calendar that the F-6F Hellcat had a total of 5,223 victories, with 52 credited to the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm.
I know that some US Hellcats operated off of a carrier in support of the invasion of the south of France, some time after the Normandy landings on D-Day. And British carriers may have operated off Europe longer. I do know that a brace of RN Wildcats (originally called Martlets) downed an FW-190 off of Norway late in the war.
Does anyone know if any Hellcat ever scored against German aircraft? The plane was mainly a Pacific item, of course, where it broke the back of the Zero as the premier naval fighter of its day.
The one on the calendar is painted in D-Day stripes and has British insignia. I think these roundels, like those used in Europe by the RAF, weren't used in the Far East, where they used a different, blue insignia. RAF planes there also used a blue and gray insignia, lest Allied forces confuse the markings with the Jap Rising Sun at a glance.
(Didn't always work: New Zealand pilots got so tired of US Navy pilots shooting at them that they painted half of the fuselages of their P-40's white, and sailors STILL shot at them!
T-Star
I know that some US Hellcats operated off of a carrier in support of the invasion of the south of France, some time after the Normandy landings on D-Day. And British carriers may have operated off Europe longer. I do know that a brace of RN Wildcats (originally called Martlets) downed an FW-190 off of Norway late in the war.
Does anyone know if any Hellcat ever scored against German aircraft? The plane was mainly a Pacific item, of course, where it broke the back of the Zero as the premier naval fighter of its day.
The one on the calendar is painted in D-Day stripes and has British insignia. I think these roundels, like those used in Europe by the RAF, weren't used in the Far East, where they used a different, blue insignia. RAF planes there also used a blue and gray insignia, lest Allied forces confuse the markings with the Jap Rising Sun at a glance.
(Didn't always work: New Zealand pilots got so tired of US Navy pilots shooting at them that they painted half of the fuselages of their P-40's white, and sailors STILL shot at them!
T-Star
