Wildcat Wednesday - A Book Review After a Movie

So, Tuesday; Jackie and I went and saw "Midway" at the theater. I'm reserving judgement until I see it again. Which will probably be next Tuesday. So look for a movie review forth coming.

However, I will say one thing that I already disparage the movie for is the complete and total disregard, nor mention, of that great Grumman product, the F4F Wildcat.

When I was a kid, Uncle Cart helped me glue together a Revell model of a F4F-3 of VMF(A)-211. Some of you long time reader's may know that as the unit of Hammering Hank, which was the first American unit to meet the Japanese somewhat organized, prepared, and well led.

Of course, the great old black and white propaganda piece "Wake Island" inspired my love of all things Wildcat.

So, all this superfluous back story brings us to our book review this evening.

"Wildcat: The F4F in World War II" is written by the dean of naval aviation historians, Barrett Tillman. And is a great book.

He covers the development of the F4F from the F3F biplane, it's adoption by the USN/USMC and the Fleet Air Arm.

And of course, the book covers the hellish darks days of 8 Dec 1941 until May of 1943, when the F4F Wildcat, generally driven by pre war regulars, held the line against a numerically and somewhat technically more advanced foe. And hold the line they did, with guys like Butch O'Hara, Jimmy Thach, and Marion Carl driving the stubby little fighter hard against the very best the IJN had to offer.

The F4F was kind of slow, kind of fat, and kind of short legged. But it was rugged Grumman designed American made Iron, with four or six John Browning blessed .50 cal machine guns, and if it could get a bead on a Zero, Jake, Rufe, what have you, it would probably flame the lesser Japanese airplane and generally get it's pilot home.

More importantly, even though the final ledger sheets may not have been in our favor at Wake, the Marshalls, Santa Cruz, the Eastern Solomons, or numerous battle over the Canal; we wore down the might of the IJN's finest fighter pilots in the process. And where as our top guys would rotate back to P-Cola and Sand Diego to train the fresh new butter bars of the Citizen Navy, the Japanese had their honchos fly until they died. And the Wildcat brought our guys home more often than not.

So, go buy Mr. Tillman's book. And his books on the F6F, F4U, SBD, and F8U.