Edward M. Young

Using maps, contemporary photographs, and new artwork, this book examines the Hellcat and the naval aviators who flew them. Joining combat in the Pacific in late 1943, the Hellcat squadrons soon demonstrated their ascendency over their Japanese opponents, culminating in the great "Marianas Turkey Shoot" during the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944. The fighter proved to be...

This book examines the role of the Grumman F4F Wildcat, the US Navy’s standard carrier fighter at the start of the Pacific War, and its clashes against the Imperial Japanese Naval Air Force’s Mitsubishi A6M Zero-sen. The US Navy went to war in December 1941 with the tubby Wildcat, the first of Grumman’s famed ‘cats’, as its principal carrier fighter....

This illustrated history describes the clashes between the US and the hastily created Kamikaze units of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy Air Forces, which were some of the last large-scale aerial engagements of the Pacific War. The Japanese High Command realised that the loss of Okinawa would provide the Americans with a base for the invasion of Japan. In...

The duel between Japan’s superb Mitsubishi A6M Zero and the USA’s rugged Grumman F4F Wildcat in 1942 represented the clash of two contrasting design philosophies and naval fighter doctrines. The Grumman F4F Wildcat and the Mitsubishi A6M Zero-sen were contemporaries, although designed to very different requirements. The Wildcat, ruggedly built to survive the rigours of carrier operations, was the best...