Word: hellcats
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...first five white men to reach Munda airport (he got there 24 hours before our troops marched in) -and in the first raid on Marcus Island he saw three new fighting tools first tested in battle: the Essex class carrier, the Independence type carrier, and the sensational Grumman Hellcat...
...June 1, Annapolisman McCampbell jubilantly radioed his group's first tally. On June 19, McCampbell, who directs his group from a Hellcat, helped them set a new Pacific record for one day's combat (68½) by bagging seven himself. His biggest spurt in the ace-race came in the second battle of the Philippines when he set a Pacific (and perhaps World War II's) solo record for one day's combat. That day he shot down nine planes in 95 minutes (TIME...
Farm boy Dick Bong's top score of 33 Jap planes was almost broken in 95 minutes of furious fighting during the second battle of the Philippines, when Commander David McCampbell, piloting a Hellcat, shot down nine Jap fighters (plus two "probables"). McCampbell's air-combat total after his rampage: 30-which made him the second-ranking...
...ships moved into tight anti-aircraft formation. Through our ear-cotton the flash of guns sounded like a mad symphony on kettle drums. A Jap fighter made two strafing passes at our stern and got away with it, but a minute later I watched him dog-fighting a Hellcat-two fly-like dots against the sky going around like Ferris wheels. Our ship opened up again. Black bursts broke high over us and I saw a dive bomber readying...
...first Hellcat was built in August 1942. Five months later, the production line began to tick them off. This was unheard-of speed in an industry which used to need years to translate blueprints into planes. When a Navy brass hat dropped in to tell Grumman that he should expand to take care of Hellcat production, Swirbul pulled a mess of blue prints from his desk, said: "We are." When the officer said he would rush priorities for steel, Swirbul said: "I've got steel." And he had it, from Manhattan's razed Second Avenue elevated railway...