Why Japanese Pilots Feared the F4U Corsair Most of All Allied Fighters
Video from the channel Frontline Armor about Vought F4U Corsair, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 44:55. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.
What it's about
Documentary on the career of the Vought F4U Corsair in the Pacific War: from its disastrous combat debut in February 1943 to becoming one of the fighters most feared by Japanese pilots. It follows figures such as engineer Rex Beisel, pilot Kenneth Walsh and Gregory "Pappy" Boyington, leading the Black Sheep.
Historical context
The prototype made its maiden flight on 29 May 1940 in Stratford, Connecticut, piloted by Lyman Bullard. Beisel built the aircraft around the Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp engine, an 18-cylinder unit with almost 2,000 horsepower, whose large propeller forced the adoption of the inverted gull wing to shorten the landing gear. On 1 October 1940 the XF4U-1 exceeded 400 mph in level flight. Its visibility problems and low-speed stalling led the Navy to reject it for carriers and hand it to the Marines, who operated it from land airstrips. The VMF-124 squadron arrived at Henderson Field (Guadalcanal) on 12 February 1943; two days later, in the so-called Valentine's Day Massacre, the Allied escort lost eight aircraft against three Japanese Zeros.
Key facts
The documentary credits Walsh with the tactic of diving from altitude, firing a single pass, and climbing back up without entering a turning fight, taking advantage of the fact that the Zero's controls stiffened above roughly 350 mph. Walsh scored his first victory on 1 April 1943, received the Medal of Honor for his combats in August near Vella Lavella, and ended the war with 21 victories. Boyington went down over St George's Channel on 3 January 1944 and returned from the Omori POW camp in August 1945. The piece also covers the Japanese air force's withdrawal from Rabaul in February 1944 and the fleet's defense against kamikazes. According to the video, more than 12,500 units were built among Chance Vought, Goodyear and Brewster until 1953. The Corsair fought in Korea and, for the last time, in the 1969 war between Honduras and El Salvador. The ending qualifies the famous 11-to-1 kill ratio, noting that some of the claimed victories over Zeros were actually against Nakajima Ki-43s.