Grumman fighter development started with the two seat Grumman FF biplane now using retractable landing gear (manually) into the fuselage. Two single seat biplane fighters followed up, the F2F and F3F. The general fuselage design would become the F4F Wildcat.
Grumman started work on it’s next biplane, the G-16, while still testing the F3F seen above.
The Navy favored a monoplane design which was the Brewster F2A-1 Buffalo but also placed an order for the G-16 as a backup. However, Grumman recognized the now designated XF4F-1 was inferior to the Brewster monoplane and designed a new monoplane the XF4F-2. Still the XF4F-2 was inferior to the Brewster as it was only marginally faster but less maneuverable. Brewster was judged superior by the Navy and so the Brewster was chosen for production. Grumman, after losing out to Brewster, moved onto the XF4F-3 with new wings, tail and a supercharged version of the Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp. Testing led to a production order for the F4F-3 model which was completed February 1940.
I’ll throw this to show what was going on on the other side of the world. In Japan, Mitsubishi started design work on the A6M Zero in late 1937 which is a few years before Grumman’s biplane fighter. The new design made improvements over the A5M based on real world experience in China. The Wildcat had no such experience to draw on.
The Navy adopted the F4F on October 1, 1940. By the end of 1940 the Navy was becoming disenchanted with the Brewster. Additional armor and machine guns were weighing down the plane while the factory was plagued with delays. So now the F4F is the go to fighter for the Navy armed with four 0.50 in. Browning machine guns. The A6M was armed with two 20mm cannons and two 7.7mm machine guns. So better weapons, speed, and maneuverability for the A6M but there were weak points as in all planes. The Wildcat had weak points but also had strong points and a comparison can be seen here.
In early war service the F4F was outperformed by the Zero but could hold it’s own with heavy armor and self-sealing fuel tanks. The air frame would survive considerable damage versus the Zero’s frame. One famous Japanese ace, Saburo Sakai, commented on shooting his entire load of rounds at a Wildcat with no result. Upon flying alongside the plane he saw the rudder and tail were torn to shreds but still flying.
Wildcats played major roles in the defense of Wake Island, Guadalcanal, and as the fleet’s primary air defense at the Battles of Coral Sea and Midway. It was at the Battle of Midway where the Thach Weave was first tested out in combat. Lt. Commander John Thach had heard reports concerning the A6M Zero in Spring 1941 and he began to devise tactics to give the Wildcats a chance. He called it the “Bean Defense Position” but it became know as the “Thach Weave”.
He had tested it out in San Diego using speed restricted Wildcats against non-speed restricted Wildcats. His newly selected wingman, Ens. Edward “Butch” O’Hare, was to lead the aggressor squadron. O’Hare was unable to complete an attack without having another Wildcat point right at him. . The two employed the maneuver flying off the USS Yorktown during the Battle of Midway. Thach led a six plane sortie escorting twelve TBD Devastators of VT-3 towards the Japanese carriers. They were jumped by 15-20 Japanese planes where he used the weave. Thach shot down three planes and his wingman one. After Midway all pilots were taught the Thach Weave. Sadly, later in the war while testing out experimental night fighter interceptions in a Hellcat, Butch O’Hare ,lost his life and is honored by by Chicago’s O’Hare International.
During the long battle for Guadalcanal the Japanese ace Lt. Commander Tadashi Nakajima encountered the maneuver. When he got back to Rabaul it was reported that he was in a rage about being forced to dive and run for safety. It was at Guadalcanal where the Wildcat, in very tough conditions, made it’s name for itself.
By 1943 Grumman now had enough real experience to employ when designing the F6F Hellcat. Grumman was tasked with building as many Hellcats as possible. In order to do so Grumman turned over the production of both the F4F-4 Wildcat (now FM-2 Wildcat) and the TBF Avenger (now the TBM Avenger) to Eastern Aircraft. After 1943 Wildcats were used aboard CVE carriers employed in the Atlantic as anti-submarine hunter killer groups. In the Pacific they operated off a CVE more as ground support however they were heroic flying off the CVEs of Taffy 1, 2, and 3 in defense of Taffy 3 at the Battle of Samar.
As an aside, two years ago, I had the distinct pleasure of meeting an 92 year old fellow in a nursing home on one of my regular exam visits. He wore a cap that read DE-339 John C Butler. I said you were at the Battle of Samar and he asked how I knew. Told him I know your all the ships involved. I could see a tear come to his eyes and with that the two started to talk about it. Rather than make everyone else wait I finished up with him. At the end of the day I located him in his room and we spent more time talking.
Now back on track the FM-2 as built now had a more powerful engine, a taller tail for the extra torque and back to four machine guns which some pilots seemed to prefer given the fixed amount of ammunition carried.
This brings us to the FM-2 Wildcat aboard the USS Hornet. That is the plane the week it arrived years ago. The plane is on loan from the Pensacola Naval Air Museum and was pulled out of Lake Michigan were many a Wildcat and Avenger ended up during training accidents. For those who don’t know the Navy stationed their two training carriers, converted Great Lakes excursion ships, called the Sable and Wolverine at Chicago’s Navy Pier.
According to the Navy 140 planes were lost due to these accidents some of which were immediately recovered and others not. The loan agreement states that the museum will undertake the effort to restore the plane and the plane remains Navy property. The USS Hornet Air Group spent several years on this restoration which is beyond belief. I don’t say that lightly as it takes much to impress me having dealt with a TBM Avenger myself. Given the detail of their work this story will be continued tomorrow in order to give the plane justice.
It’s obvious by the picture above that the prop on that Wildcat was spinning when it hit the water or whatever it hit when it went down.
I love these reports TBM3FAN. Keep ’em coming!
What a wonderful CC Day! The Wildcat is my favorite WWII Navy fighter, having “held the line” at the beginning of the war and continuing its service, as the FM-2, right through to the end on the escort carriers. Thank you for your succinct introduction to the story and, especially, for not making the usual mistake of stating that the Hellcat was designed in response to Naval experience against the Zero. Its design began as a natural follow-up, with a bigger engine, to the Wildcat.
I think the Wildcat’s greatest service was given at Guadalcanal, where it participated in the two carrier battles (Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz Islands) and in the defense of the Cactus Air Field on Guadalcanal. The Japanese commanders on Rabaul were continuously perplexed and alarmed by the continued pattern in which, for every two planes they would send to attack Guadalcanal, only one would return. How could that stumpy little Navy fighter do that? But, in the right hands, it did, partly in the way you describe, contributing to the attrition of the the elite Japanese naval aviation corps that had attacked Pearl Harbor. After Gaudalcanal, the Japanese Navy was in continued retreat, and one machine that contributed greatly to this (along with that other slow, unassuming-looking Navy plane, the SBD) was the Wildcat.
Very cool write up, I’m a total WW2 aircraft nut so it’s unexpected but most appreciated to see this content on CC.
The Grumman fighters remind me of bulldogs: ungainly squat proportions but tough and tenacious as all get out. And while many focus on the more successful Hellcats and Corsairs that tore through the Japanese later in the war, I appreciate the underdog Wildcat that shouldered the heavy load and held the line earlier in the war, much like the Hawker Hurricane in the Battle of Britain.
An excellent read, one that reminds me how much catching-up the US planes had to do with those of Japan and Germany early in the war.
Thank you for this article. I have long been a fan of military history, in all of its aspects, men, equipment, logistics, etc. The pilots who flew Grumman Wildcats against the Japanese Zeros deserve and have my utmost respect. Not only were they flying planes that were outperformed by those of their opponents, they were also facing what was arguably the best trained pilot force then in existence. One of the many things that Japan did wrong during WWII was keeping their experienced pilots in combat until they got killed. The U.S., on the other hand, rotated their experienced men out of combat and used their experience to train the new pilots. By the end of the war Japanese pilot training had deteriorated to the point where pilots who could barely coax a plane into the air were being sent to operational units.
The reputation for robust quality of Grumman aircraft is exemplified by the nickname of the factory: “Grumman Iron Works”.
Uncle Zoltan built wings for Grumman during the war at what was the Fisher Body plant at North Tarrytown .
The Wildcat is the Rodney Dangerfield of aircraft, it just gets no respect. The real advantage the A6M had over any American or British aircraft of the time was the pilot. Every one had significant combat experience in China.
The A6M had zero armour or, most vitally, self-sealing fuel tanks. Even a .303 bullet could cause a fuel fire. It was heavily armed, but with only 60 rounds per gun for the cannons.
Once an A6M was captured and flown, USN morale improved a lot.
Very interesting. Looks quite similar to the Russian I-16 fighter, which came out a couple of years earlier.
Great read TBM3Fan. Aircraft are my second love next to cars, although I am much less well versed in aircraft in comparison. My favorite stuff has always been the WWII aircraft. I am more well versed in Air force stuff, and one thing I have always found confusing about the Navy aircraft was the nomenclature. It is much complex than what the USAAF and Royal Air Force used.
To keep this car related, didn’t General Motors manufacture the later iterations of the Wildcats too? (I am not talking about the Buick’s either 😉 )
Obviously the Navy needed a plane that would land at low speed on a carrier, and didn’t take up too much space, but I always thought the Wildcat looked like it would be less than wonderful once it was up in the air. Now I do realise that the Royal Navy was still using the primitive Fairy Swordfish biplane, but that was flying against enemy ships rather that enemy fighters.
There is a restored FM-2 that flies from the airfield in Madras,OR. I shot some pictures of it during the Airshow of the Cascades in 2016.
The Wildcat and it’s bigger brother, the Hellcat are my two favorite Navy fighters from the war.
Nice writeup, I’ve seen the Wildcat at O’Hare airport and it struck me how small it is compared to the Avenger and Hellcat.
Aircraft design sure did advance rapidly in the late 30’s
Actually, the first GM built Wildcats were the FM versions, which were very similar to the Grumman F4F-4. The FM-2 was the improved version with the Wright 1820-56 supplementing the Pratt and Whitney R-1830 and the larger tail to compensate for the increase in power. The FM-2 was based on the Grumman XF4F-8. As stated, these were specifically designed for the small ‘Jeep’ aircraft carriers, whose primary mission was to support USMC beach landings, and as such the FM-2 was supposed to be a ground attack aircraft. Of course it didn’t always work out that way, and the FM-2’s gave very good account of themselves in aerial combat. I can’t find the information at the moment, but I remember if you broke out the FM-2’s combat record out of the rest of the Wildcat variants it’s kill ratio approached that of the Hellcat and Corsair. FM-2’s were often referred to as ‘Maytag Messerschmitts’ due to there noise level on take-off. There was a plan for GM to take over F6F Hellcat production as Grumman phased the F8F Bearcat, but the war ended before that became necessary.
Great article!
Bearcat, did someone mention Bearcat?
Yup. Former GM car plants on the east coast were designated “Eastern Automotive” and put to work building the Wildcat when Grumman moved on to start building the Hellcat. If I remember right, Grumman built a Wildcat with sheet metal screws so that the Eastern car guys could take it apart and learn how to put one together. They started with F4F’s, then transitioned to FM-2’s as that design was finalized. The FM-2 was the “Wilder Wildcat,” as it had 10% more power and was 10% lighter (much of this due to removing two of the wing guns and going back to four. Navy pilots never liked having six guns in the Wildcat, as it added weight in the wings and cut down the number of bullets per gun to a ridiculously short firing period. They figured, if you can’t hit a Zero with four guns, you aren’t going to with six. And the Japanese planes had no armor or self-sealing fuel tanks, so it didn’t take as many hits to bring one down as was required with German planes). Its big performance advantage came in the way it could climb to altitude much more quickly, and it could turn a little tighter, too. I do not know that it had a higher kill ratio, as by the time it was sent out in force the Hellcats and Corsairs were doing most of the hunting and killing, but it did acquit itself quite well on the escort carriers, first as support for the invasion troops, and then when they served picket duty against kamikazes near the end of the war. That’s what I think is most cool about the Wildcat: never quite the best, but always finding a way to make itself useful.
Good point, I think it’s safe to say the FM-2 had it a little easier later in the war than the F4F did at the beginning. Not only did the Japanese not field many fighters more advanced than the A6M Zero and Ki-43 Oscar as the war progressed the quality of their pilots severely deteriorated.
The old man across the street was career navy. Joined in ’36, he was underage. Ended up a chief petty officer. Mechanic, aircraft mostly. Let me read his diary he kept during his whole career.
Served on the Langley pre-war. Did burial duty at Pearl Harbor after the attack. Was on Guadalcanal, wounded twice. Sub duty in the Pacific. At the Marianas Turkey Shoot. Post-war on various carriers during the transition to jets. Korean war service. Mustered out after 20 years. Then he worked for what became Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for another 20 years. Retired to here, bought land and farmed grapes.
Gave my son his first job back in 2007. For a whole days hard and sweaty labor he’d pay him the royal sum of two dollars.
We laughed and laughed when the boy came home with his crisp Washingtons, filthy and dirty, feeling proud but dismayed. Builds character.
The old man’s only child, a son, was killed in a car accident when he was 17. He’d also outlived his wife by 20 years. We had him over for holidays every so often, he’d regale the young ones with tales of Guadalcanal, Japanese shelling the field hospital he was recovering in, and nuclear lab secrets from Livermore in the 60’s.
Fell off his porch one day in 2010, broke his hip. Mailman saw it, called an ambulance, took him to the VA in Fresno. We visited a few days later, he was his usual ornery self, joking. We visited a week later, he had bad pneumonia, didn’t know who we were. Nurses seemed sheepish. Died a couple days later.
His only living family, a couple of nephews, went through his house, took a few things. The house was auctioned. Every single thing went into a giant dumpster.
“Gave my son his first job back in 2007. For a whole days hard and sweaty labor he’d pay him the royal sum of two dollars.”
“We laughed and laughed when the boy came home with his crisp Washingtons, filthy and dirty, feeling proud but dismayed. Builds character.”
That actually sounds really crappy and frankly disrespectful. It’d be one thing if your son just wanted to help the old vet out as an act of charity. But good hard work deserves to be respected and rewarded. I’ve done by share of yard work at below-minimum wage in around the same early 2000s timeframe. If someone paid me $2 for all day’s work I’d be livid, perhaps motivated enough to mow over some flowerbeds and such.
Oh we could go on and on about this.
Who, exactly, is justly compensated for their good hard work? Truck drivers? Teachers? Cops? Field workers? Uber drivers?
We live in a world that is utterly and deeply unfair on every single level. Every human attempt to address this fails. Millions work hard and are exploited, used and abused and will never see justice.
For my son to learn this lesson in a gentle manner was priceless education. That he did not retaliate by mowing over some flowers made me proud, nor did he utter any cross words about the old man. That he continued to do occasional work for the old man knowing full well the consequences and pay rate was his choice, and showed me character.
And again, who is being paid fairly? Pro ball players? Movie stars? The gal picking your lettuce?
It resonated with me because I was in a somewhat similar position, doing yardwork for an old retired Russian-Jewish college professor, was kind of funneled into it by fellow Russian emigre friends. Pay was I’d guesstimate at the $3-4/hr range. Nice old guy, his wife lived through the siege of Leningrad and worked as a nurse then. My dad was watching from the side, and ultimately helped me realize just how much I was undervaluing my labor. Moved up from there. I’d go back and help the old timer out with my brother occasionally, free of charge, just some tea and sweets that his wife would make us.
I’d never “laugh and laugh” together with the person underpaying my own son in such a situation, but that’s just me, maybe it’s just your phrasing that set me off. If my son mowed someone’s flowerbed over after only getting $2 for a good day’s work, I wouldn’t have much sympathy for the guy with the trimmed flowers. Teaching someone to just take it on the chin, what sort of lesson is that? Getting your flowerbed mowed for screwing someone over, now that’s character building if I’ve ever seen it.
What are the options for the little man whose been denied justice? Mowing over the flowers I guess. Because there really aren’t any options. Justice is for the right people. A lesson my son, raised rather well to do, needed to learn.
I laugh at the darndest things.
The air museum in Kalamazoo used to host an air show every summer. One of their featured events was the “cat flight” of the museum’s Wildcat, Hellcat, Tigercat, Bearcat, a local, privately owned Panther, and a Navy F-14 Tomcat.
One year, the cat flight pilots posed in front of this Wildcat, which had been salvaged from Lake Michigan, for a promotional pic, so I sneaked my own shot.
Love this – as a big WWII and general military history buff!
The F4F doesn’t get as much respect as does its successor, the F6F, it seems.
Seems that the successful tactical approach vs. the Zero is pretty similar to what the Flying Tigers did early in the war with their P40s – get to a higher altitude, attack with a dive and pass. One on one dogfights are no-nos – so the team concept is very key.
silverkris yes similar in that both tactics were developed as a way to avoid 1-1 turning dogfights with the more agile Japanese fighters, but Claire Chennault’s “Boom and Zoom” is very different than a Thach Weave. Boom and Zoom can be done individually and relies on the American planes’ stronger airframe to dive to high speeds and then use that energy to convert back into altitude, Thach Weave is all about a pair working together with properly timed and performed execution. P40, there’s another underappreciated early warbird that did some heavy lifting on just about ALL theaters of the war, including the Eastern Front, Africa, Pacific.
The Navy’s designation system for aircraft was interesting. For the Wildcat it was F for fighter, 4 for the fourth fighter design from F, the code for Grumman. So the Hellcat was the sixth, F7F Tigercat the seventh, F8F Bearcat the eighth, F9F Panther the ninth, F11F Tiger the eleventh. In 1962, the services standardized the system for everyone, hence the F-14, F-15, F-16, F-18 for Air Force and Navy aircraft.
The other thing about the old Navy system, the manufacturer designator wasn’t the company that designed it, but the company that built it. A Wildcat built in Bethpage was an F4F, but an FM (first design didn’t carry a number) when built by GM (code M). When Goodyear took on Corsair production, those planes were FG’s instead of F4U’s.
The Dauntless was an SBD (scout bomber, Douglas), while the Avenger was a TBF when built by Grumman, TBM when built by GM.
Sometimes the USN designations could make for amusement. The SB2C Helldiver, which replaced the SBD Dauntless, more or less – they hated them at first – was called Son-of-a-Bitch 2nd Class. Never really loved, it was slowly, grudgingly improved to be effective at it’s job until it was phased out in favor of the AD-1 Skyraider.
They handled so badly the British Fleet Air Arm refused them. Quality control was poor, sometimes an arrested landing would result in the tail being torn away. Some USN commanders even lobbied for the SBD line to be reopened. One of the final nails in the coffin of a formerly successful aircraft company, Curtiss was shut down and the assets sold to North American Aviation in 1948.
The Dauntless, which tended to be respected by their crew members, was often referred to as “Slow But Deadly”. Of course the Grumman Avenger which took over from the Douglas Devastator as the primary torpedo bomber in WWII was considered to be a huge improvement. It shows something, perhaps that you never know how a new design will turn out until it reaches the operational stage.