Dancing with the Witch - History of the Vought F4U Corsair

During the early years of World War II a cackling witch blazed through the skies of the Pacific theater and wrought havoc on every allied aircraft it encountered. That witch was the Japanese Mitsubishi A6M Zero; also known to many allied aviators as the, "Zeke". She flew gracefully, capable of both slow sweeping arcs and swift hair-pin turns. Built to maneuver, this radial position wench out-maneuvered and out-killed everything allied forces could manage to throw at it. Yet the US aviation industry had a new aircraft in development that would help change the balance of air power in the Pacific. The aircraft was the Vought F4U Corsair. The Vought F4U Corsair proved to be the US aviation industry's fatal blow to the Japanese Mitsubishi A6M Zero in the battle of the Pacific.

With initial trials of the A6M complete in 1940, fifteen of them were sent along with several other production aircraft for combat trials in China. In short order, the reinforced A6M squadron destroyed 99 Chinese aircraft while losing only two of their own. Combat trials an obvious success, the A6M(2) was accepted for production as the Japanese Navy Type 0 Carrier Fighter Model 11. As with any new aircraft, modifications were made including a reinforced tail spare and folding wings. The resulting production version became the Navy Type 0 Carrier Fighter Model 21. At the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese Navy had 328 Zeros in front line units and production continued to increase that number every day.

The Zero established and maintained air superiority throughout the Pacific during 1941 and 1942. With a 950 horsepower engine, it could muster a maximum airspeed of 288 knots. Its large wing/control surfaces and light airframe attributed to its unbeatable maneuverability. The preferred technique of Zero pilots centered on drawing allied pilots into a tightly turning dog fight. There, faster aircraft lost airspeed and consequently, maneuverability. The Zeros would then pick off allied aircraft at will.

While allied aircraft of the time were competitive with many aircraft of the day, they just did not have the significant maneuverability advantages at slower speeds required to counter the Zero. American aircraft designers took note of the shortfall. In 1938 the US Navy issued a request for design proposals for a new high performance carrier based fighter. Designers at the Vought-Sikorski division of the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) took up the challenge. They designed a new fighter around a new monster 2000 horsepower engine conveniently produced by Pratt & Whitney, another division of the UAC. To take full advantage of the enormous power produced by this engine, designers selected a 13.33 foot propeller, also designed and produced by another division of the UAC. Due to the oversized propeller, the aircraft required extra long landing gear to ensure propeller ground clearance. Unfortunately, long landing gear had a tendency to break and would definitely not be strong enough for carrier landings. To overcome the problem, designers settled on the bent wing design providing the extra clearance needed.

The US Navy ordered the prototype in June 1938 and a full scale model was completed by early 1938. Navy acceptance trials commenced in February 1941 and the first production model had its initial flight in June 1942. Although the aircraft still had several bugs to work out, production was ordered and 178 aircraft were delivered by the end of 1942. Due to these bugs, the Navy was slow to accept the airframe. The Marine Corps, under the Department of the Navy, worked closely with UAC to work out the more unpleasant design problems like its tendency to flip upon departure from a carrier deck. As a result, the Corsair still ended up being a bit of a handful to fly, but with a dive speed in excess of 650 knots (cruising at well over 400 knots) a little extra torque compensation on the part of the pilot was well worth the effort.

In February 1943 the F4U had its first encounter with the enemy in combat, but did not perform well. A group of P-40 War Hawks, P-38 Lightenings and F4U Corsairs were escorting a group of B-24 Liberators to a Japanese target and were intercepted by Zeros. The Americans lost ten aircraft and the Japanese lost four. One Corsair did score a kill out of this group, but only because it was involved in a midair collision with a Zero. The Marine pilots needed to reevaluate their use of the new airframe.

Over the course of the next few months, Marine pilots adapted their tactics to capitalize on the strengths of the Corsair. Using speed and partner (wingman) tactics, Marine aviators concentrated on avoiding the slow speed tightly turning dog fight tactics that favored the Zero. Instead they used the massive power of their 2000 plus horsepower engines to out run, out climb and out dive the enemy, effectively nullifying the Zero's strengths. Marine and later Navy pilots managed to use the Corsairs attributes as a weapon, forcing Zero pilots out of their combat comfort zone to fight.

By May 1943, the Marine Corsairs were winning a majority of the engagements they encountered. With each engagement, invaluable experience was gained by Marine and Navy pilots and invaluable experienced pilots were lost by the Japanese Imperial Navy. This exchange of experience all but sealed the fate of the Japanese campaign. From this point until the end of the war, Corsairs shot down a total of 2140 enemy aircraft while losing only 189 aircraft. With an overall kill ratio of 11.3 to 1 there is little support for any argument against the superiority of the F4U Corsair Squadrons that flew against the A6M Zero.

As the War went on and Zeros were dominated by allied Corsairs and eventually Hellcats, Zeros were increasingly used in suicide attacks. The Japanese leadership likely thought that the Zeros decreasing value as a fighter could be made up for by the damage and terror they could inflict as flying bombs. While these Kamikaze attacks were initially successful, counter tactics were eventually developed to minimize their effectiveness. US ship commanders learned that a Final Protective Fire (FPF) focusing the cross firing of many main deck guns, cannon, machine guns and rifles on a single approaching aircraft would effectively take Kamikaze aircraft out of the sky quickly. The success of Kamikaze attacks was short lived and ended up being the death throws of the falling eastern empire.

The Mitsubishi A6M Zero began the war as a devastating fighter aircraft that had little trouble defeating the allied airframes of the time, swatting them out of the sky almost at will. Fortunately for the allies, the UAC was in the midst of developing a devastating monster of an aircraft. The Corsair combined with Marine ingenuity would eventually exploit the attributes of the Zero. Within three months of their first combat engagement, Marine Corsairs were winning a majority of their encounters with the enemy. Marine and later Navy pilots learned to fly to the Corsairs' strengths and turned in a brutal 11 to 1 kill ratio against the Japanese fighters until the end of the war. The F4U Corsair and the men that flew them proved to be the fatal blow to the Japanese Zero, permanently silencing the eastern witch that once dominated the Pacific sky.