Japanese Pilots Laughed At F4U Corsairs, Until They Shattered Their Zero Squadrons

The Corsair was not laughed at by the men it killed — they called it Whistling Death. It was rejected by its own Navy, which ruled it unfit for carrier decks after it bounced over the crash barriers on trials. Handed to the Marines, flown from a mud strip at Guadalcanal, it became the fastest fighter in the Pacific and ran up an eleven-to-one kill ratio against the Mitsubishi A6M Zero. The Zero squadrons of the Imperial Japanese Navy would never again dominate the sky over Rabaul. This is the full record of the Vought F4U Corsair against the A6M Zero in the Solomons and at Rabaul, 1943. It covers the XF4U-1 prototype's first flight on 29 May 1940 and its 405 mph record that October, the R-2800 Double Wasp engine and gull wing, the Navy's carrier-rejection and the British Fleet Air Arm's curved-approach fix, Marine Fighter Squadron 124's combat debut on 13 February 1943, Navy Fighter Squadron 17 and the Jolly Rogers, Marine Fighter Squadron 214 and Major Gregory "Pappy" Boyington, the carrier strikes on Rabaul of 5 and 11 November 1943, and the collapse of Japanese fighter strength by February 1944. Drawn from after-action reports, loss tables, and squadron records — not the legends. New documentaries every few days. Subscribe for the definitive history of the United States in the Second World War — new documentaries every few days. #WW2 #WorldWarII #PacificWar #USNavy #WWIIHistory #F4UCorsair #A6MZero #Rabaul #VF17 #VMF124 #MilitaryHistory #USAInWW2