Dogfights: US Hellcat vs. Japanese Zero in WWII (S1, E6) | Full Episode | History

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NARRATOR: The war in the Pacific is raging. American aircraft are being torn apart by the infamous Japanese Zero. No Allied plane can match the agile dogfighter. Then the US Navy unleashes the powerful new F6F Hellcat, the legendary warbird destined to destroy over 5,000 enemy planes and score the greatest kill ratio of any fighter in World War II. Now, through state of the art computer animation, you're in the cockpit for the clash of titans, the American Hellcat vs the Japanese Zero. Experience the battle, dissect the tactics, relive the dog fights of the Zero killer. [theme music] October 5, 1943, a flight of American F6F Hellcats from the carrier Yorktown streak toward Wake Island, a small Japanese-held base in the Central Pacific. Their mission-- establish air superiority and attack ground installations. The brand new Hellcat has yet to face off in a dogfight against the most feared fighter in the Pacific, the Japanese Zero. 22-year-old Navy fighter pilot Ensign Robert Duncan is well aware of the Zero's fearsome reputation. When we went up against the Zero, I was intimidated. Most of us were moment. Because we knew they had a good plane. We knew just exactly what the Zero could do, how fast it was, how high it could go, how well they could hit with it. NARRATOR: Suddenly, a glint of metal catches Duncan's eye. In the distance-- a Japanese Zero. I don't think he was aware of the fact that we were there, because it was in the morning. The sun was just barely coming up, and I'm not sure he even saw us. NARRATOR: The other American pilots don't see the Zero. Duncan's radio is out. Voice radios of this era are new and unreliable. He can't warn the others. He tries to alert his flight leader with hand signals. And I tried to get with him and point like that. And I saw that he wasn't going to get in position quick enough. The key to this story is not that he's trying to communicate and tell the guy what's going on. Because the priorities are aviate, navigate, and then communicate. Duncan tries to tell his flight leader. When it fails, he goes with the general prudential rule, which is "when in doubt, win the war." And he breaks off and he leads the way. NARRATOR: Duncan banks left to intercept. He opens the throttle, and the Hellcat's 2,000 horsepower kicks in. He closes fast. The Zero is here. Duncan moves to the enemy's 9 o'clock. From this position, Duncan must shoot from a steep angle. Leading the target with his gunfire is critical. Guys don't put in enough lead. They tend to want to point at their target, which is a common human tendency. Point at the target and shoot. But if you do that, every bullet you shoot is going to be behind your target. So you have to pull your nose out in front, shoot out in front, and basically let those bullets meet that target in a point in space. NARRATOR: Duncan's technique is perfect. I just held what I had, and he flew right in front of me. It was the easiest shot I ever made. I opened up, and he blew up immediately. NARRATOR: Duncan's 50 caliber rounds detonate the Zero's unarmored fuel tank. Ensign Robert Duncan has just scored his first aerial kill of the war. But it's another major milestone. I was the first one with a Hellcat to ever shoot down a Zero. NARRATOR: There's no time to celebrate. Duncan is about to square off against a Japanese ace with nine kills. And the Navy will soon find out if the Grumman F6F Hellcat is truly a match for the Japanese Zero. The Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero was deadly from the start. In its first four months of operation over China in 1940, the lightweight, maneuverable fighter scored 59 kills against no losses. Through the early months of World War II, Japanese aerial victories mounted. The truth was inescapable. The 300 mile per hour Zero, or Zeke, as it was codenamed, was the most capable fighter in the Pacific. The exceptional range and performance of the Zero was evident from the first day of the Pacific War. You had a naval fighter capable of engaging and defeating land-based enemies almost routinely. And that was a situation for which America and Britain were totally unprepared. NARRATOR: The Navy's best available fighter to combat the Zero was the F4F Wildcat. It compared favorably with the Zero in firepower, but was no match for it in speed or maneuverability. The Wildcat was the one that was out there holding the line at the beginning. It had some disadvantages. It was underpowered, for one thing. And the climbing wasn't that good. The guns weren't always working properly. NARRATOR: In a Wildcat, even being on a Zero's tail was treacherous. You couldn't out-turn a Zero. If you were behind a Zero and didn't maintain your speed properly, they would say that the Zero would be on your tail inside of two turns. NARRATOR: Range was another problem. The Zero's range was 1,150 miles. The Wildcat's range was only 770 miles. The Zero fought the Wildcat in the Pacific Theater, which is the largest battleground there's ever been in human history. The Pacific Ocean covers something like 60 million square miles of planet Earth. And that meant that any aircraft committed to that battle was going to have to have long legs. NARRATOR: It was clear a more powerful fighter was needed to challenge the Zero. The Navy accelerated development of the new F6F Hellcat. The Hellcat was a key element of a new strategic naval concept-- fast aircraft carriers replacing battleships as the main strike force. By October 1943, the Pacific War had been going on for nearly a year and a half. It really had taken that long for the Pacific fleet to not only recover from Pearl Harbor but to actually produce from scratch the fleet it really needed to have to wage war across the broad Pacific. Wake Island was like a proving ground for this brand new military machine the world had not seen up to that point. NARRATOR: The new Essex class carriers pack a powerful offensive punch-- an airwing of 36 dive bombers, 18 torpedo planes, and 36 fighters. This force will be tested in the heat of battle at Wake Island. October 5, 1943, Ensign Robert Duncan has just scored the first air-to-air Zero kill for the Hellcat, but the fight is far from over. Duncan spots a Zero with a Hellcat on its tail, but the Hellcat is in trouble and doesn't know it. At that time, I looked up above and there was a Zero about 300 feet above me. And he started down to get behind this Hellcat that was chasing the Zero. But he wasn't in range to get our man. NARRATOR: Duncan is here. The first Zero is here. The other Hellcat pilot is on his 6 o'clock. The second Zero is diving, gaining airspeed and closing on the Hellcat. Duncan, out of range for machine gun, fire must close the distance. He adds power, climbing and banking left. Duncan knows he can't reach the Zero, but maybe he can shake him off the Hellcat's tail. So I tried something. I just pulled up the nose of my airplane. I was still not in range. And I cut loose with a burst. Just like you take a hose and shoot out like that. NARRATOR: It works. The Zero pulls away. But now Duncan's in trouble. He dropped off from our man and made a left turn, hard left turn out like this around, to come around to me. NARRATOR: Duncan pulls into a hard left turn to evade the Zero. Both planes circle each other in tight left turns. Each pilot yanks the stick hard to the left, coaxing their fighters into tighter turns, trying to gain the advantage on the other. The Zero gets a firing angle. 20 millimeter cannon fire rips through Duncan's tail. I didn't-- I didn't have any fear toward what was going to take place. Generally, I didn't feel any. It was afterwards that my knees start. NARRATOR: What happens next takes Duncan by surprise. The Zero suddenly pulls out of the turn and goes vertical. And I looked, and I said, what's with this guy? He must be right out of flight training. He's going to get himself killed. NARRATOR: But Duncan is wrong. The Japanese pilot is no trainee. This is warrant officer Toshiyuki Sueda, a feared ace with nine kills. He's used this climbing tactic before and emerged victorious every time. NARRATOR: October 5, 1943. American aircraft are attacking the Japanese base at Wake Island. This raid is a critical test for the new fast carriers and the Hellcat fighters. Their effectiveness will determine the strategy for the rest of the Pacific War. Ensign Robert Duncan is dueling the formidable Japanese ace Toshiyuki Sueda. Sueda has made a bold move. He's taken the fight into the vertical, where the Zero excels. The maneuver is a favorite Japanese tactic. The Zero climbed far better than the Wildcat. Many Zero pilots lured the older American aircraft into a vertical climb, waited for them to stall out and lose control, then rolled over and pounced for an easy kill. Duncan climbs aggressively after the Zero-- exactly what Sueda wants him to do. I started up after him. I mean, I poured the coal onto it. NARRATOR: But this isn't the underpowered Wildcat. The new Hellcat, with superchargers whining, easily keeps pace with the Zero. Sueda reaches the top of his climb and confidently noses over, anticipating the sight of a stalled American aircraft below. The reality is much different. The 2,000 horsepower Hellcat has energy to spare. Duncan skillfully lines up the Zero and fires. And I got him up there on the top. And I shot him down, as you shoot down any plane, and watched him go in. I thought, poor, young fella. You sure didn't know what you were doing. NARRATOR: The Zero bursts into flames and spirals down towards the sea. The Japanese ace has made a fatal error. He thought he was dog fighting the old American Wildcat. I then realized why he did what he did. He'd shot down most of his planes pulling this trick with the Wildcat. NARRATOR: This is what probably would have happened if Duncan was flying the 8,000-pound Wildcat. If he'd been in a Wildcat, the chances are he would have stalled out at the top before the Zero. The Wildcat would have gone up, gone greedy, tried to get the shot, couldn't get the shot, stalled early because it's a heavier airplane with heavier wing loading, and fallen away. The Zero watching from above rolls behind him, catches him out of the stall, and shoots him. That's the way that this pilot got many kills in the past. If I had been in that Wildcat, I would have been shot down. There's no question in my mind about it, that I'd have been too smart to do that. NARRATOR: The two day raid on Wake Island is a stunning victory for the new fighter. The Hellcat Downs 22 Zeros. Opposition over Wake has ceased to exist, and the Americans destroy 90% of the Japanese ground facilities. Six Hellcats are lost in dogfights. Another six fall to antiaircraft fire. The F6F Hellcat has demonstrated its mettle against the rising sun. Back in the US, the engineers at Grumman Aircraft breathe a sigh of relief. Their careful design and testing has paid off. The process had started on June 30, 1941, nearly six months before Pearl Harbor, when Grumman Aircraft was awarded a contract to upgrade their F6F Hellcat. Grumman had a very long term relationship with the Navy. They had put fighters on the Navy decks since the very beginning of Naval aviation at sea. So Grumman knew what the requirements were flying out at sea. They knew what the requirements were to take a fighter and make it carrier-suitable. NARRATOR: At first, the new plane was slated to be a modest improvement over the Wildcat, but the US Navy, wary of the Zero's dominance in China, demanded more. The key to the design was the engine. The engineers chose the Pratt & Whitney R-2800 double wasp. At 2,000 horsepower, it had almost twice the power of the Wildcat. The larger engine demanded an expanded fuselage and wings. This allowed for larger fuel tanks, yielding 300 mile greater range than the Wildcat. Grumman equipped the new F6F Hellcat with six .50 caliber machine guns and the same rugged construction and heavy armor protection that earned the company the nickname Iron Works. The plane featured thick armor plating around the engine and cockpit, bullet resistant windscreens, and rubber-coated self sealing fuel tanks. Grumman as a designer had tremendous respect for the pilots in terms of their lives and their safety. They knew that it was not enough for a pilot to just go out and fight. You had to give them the ability to sustain damage and come home. NARRATOR: On June 26, 1942, Grumman test pilot Selden Converse successfully flew the first prototype Hellcat. Soon, an entire factory was dedicated to Hellcat production, with 20 planes a day rolling off the assembly line. By January 1943, the new plane was delivered to the fleet. The Hellcat had gone from prototype to carrier operations in less than a year. Experienced Wildcat pilot and flight instructor Robert Duncan well remembers the first time he flew a Hellcat. And I thought, boy, this is a wonderful plane. It's a 100% better plane than the Wildcat. And I flew it right off the bat without any difficulty. It was like sitting in the seat of your mother's lap. NARRATOR: The Hellcat wasn't just better than the Wildcat. It was better than the enemy's Zero. The Hellcat flew about 30 miles per hour faster than the Zero. The F6F had a comparable rate of climb, but because of its power and weight could easily out-dive the Zero. The Hellcat could also take tremendous punishment and keep on flying, something the lightly armored Zero could not do. The Zero did not have self-sealing tanks, and if you got one of the gas tanks, they would catch on fire in a hurry. We had six .50 caliber guns. And you fire of six of those, and you can start tearing pieces off of it. NARRATOR: November 11, 1943, one month after the Wake Island attack. American Dauntless and Avenger bombers head for the key Japanese Naval base at Rabaul. A flight of Hellcats fly escort. The new carrier task force is relentlessly assaulting Japanese outposts. Rabaul was a tough nut to crack, and everyone going in knew that. The Japanese had invested a considerable amount of material in turning Rabaul into a bastion. And so moving into Rabaul to launch a carrier strike was not looked upon as being any kind of easy endeavor. NARRATOR: 22-year-old Hellcat pilot Lieutenant Junior grade Hamilton McWhorter scored his first kill at Wake. At Rabaul, he'll earn his reputation as a brilliant aerial gunfighter in one of the most famous dogfights of World War II. NARRATOR: November 11, 1943, a combined strike force of American bombers and fighters move in to attack Japanese ships in the harbor at Rabaul. The bombers initiate their diving attack. Lieutenant JG Hamilton McWhorter noses his Hellcat over to stay with them. He pulls out on a strafing run on a Japanese cruiser. McWhorter runs a lethal gauntlet of 25 millimeter antiaircraft fire and 8 inch shells. In these situations, everything's coming back at him-- Japanese heavy rounds, machine gun rounds. Everything is spraying at him. He is fearless as he's bearing down on these ships. NARRATOR: The Hellcat's six .50 caliber machine guns can put 4,000 rounds per minute on the target. Every fifth projectile is a white hot phosphorous incendiary round. And when it hit, you got a nice, bright flash. And I can still see in my mind the superstars of that cruiser lit up like a Christmas tree. NARRATOR: McWhorter pulls up and heads for the rendezvous point. Climbing, he spots a dozen Hellcats and 30 or more Zeros mixing it up in a wild furball. It reminds me what you used to see in the movies about World War I-- planes all over the sky exploding, parachutes, planes going down. NARRATOR: Hamilton McWhorter is about to become a Hellcat legend, using both his eight months of flight training and special intel derived from a chance discovery. In June 1942, a US Navy flying boat on routine patrol over Akutan island in the Aleutians spotted a downed plane partially submerged in the soft marshy soil. It was an intelligence coup-- a virtually undamaged A6M2 Mitsubishi Zero. The plane, dubbed the Akutan Zero, was hurriedly shipped to San Diego, where it was rebuilt, repainted with US markings, and thoroughly flight tested by the Americans. Having the Zero in hand allowed us to actually test it and to compare it to all of our existing fighters. We could tell where its strengths were and where its weaknesses were. That's not an academic exercise. That's an exercise to tell our pilots where they are strongest, where the Zero is weakest, therefore where to force him, so that you can beat him in a dogfight. NARRATOR: A key find was that the Zero had a disadvantage in a high speed dive. Above 200 knots, its ailerons froze, restricting any kind of rolling maneuver, especially to the right. This important data was quickly passed to Grumman engineers and on to the fleet. Now Hamilton McWhorter will put it into practice. McWhorter is heading into a swirling mass of Zeros and Hellcats. He spots a Hellcat with a Zero on its 6 o'clock. I could see big pieces of metal flying off the Hellcat. NARRATOR: The wounded Hellcat is here. The Zero is right behind him. McWhorter is here. He will pull a high G climbing turn to get behind the Zero. McWhorter's Hellcat easily closes the distance. His machine guns shred the Zero's unarmored fuselage. McWhorter gets a good look at his first kill of the day. I looked down right into the cockpit. Couldn't have been more than a second or so since I'd fired. And there were flames coming out from under the instrument panel. He had no chance whatsoever. The Zero had no armor plate behind the pilot. NARRATOR: Then, looking up, he spots another Zero at 1 o'clock high, 2,000 feet away. He pitches up and banks right on an intercept course. It looks like another easy kill. But suddenly he's jolted by a loud noise. Best way I can describe it is you're standing on a metal shed, and someone throws a couple of big handfuls of rocks against the outside. That's what it sounds like when your plane gets hit by machine gun bullets. Very loud, and you can actually feel the impact of bullets hitting. NARRATOR: McWhorter is focused on his target and doesn't see the plane that's peppering his Hellcat. It's the bogey you don't see that will generally get you. McWhorter target fixates on the Zero that he's going for. And much to his surprise, he hears noise on his aircraft that alerts him, that says, get your head up and look around. Get your head on and swivel. NARRATOR: A Zero making a high speed pass from above rakes his Hellcat with machine gun fire. Stunned, McWhorter looks around to find two more Zeros directly on his tail. McWhorter is here, chasing a Zero. The Zero shooting at him is here. McWhorter never sees this plane, but its gunfire actually saves his life by alerting him to the Zeros behind him. At that point, he's in a life and death situation, and he's got to take immediate action to get out of it. NARRATOR: Remembering the lessons learned from the Akutan Zero, McWhorter dives steeply toward the ocean below. The Japanese, knowing their plane can't dive with the Hellcat, choose not to follow. At that point, he looks through his windscreen and sees an aircraft passing directly in his line of travel. McWhorter slides his aircraft into the same plane with the Zero and rakes him with gunfire and gets a kill. [gunfire] Now he's had his second kill within about 45 seconds. It's all just due to good airmanship, maintaining a situational awareness, executing that nose low maneuver when he was being attacked by an unseen Zero, sets himself up for an attack on another aircraft. NARRATOR: It's an incredible achievement, one that's respected by every generation of fighter pilot. Two kills in 45 seconds would be outstanding. It would be awesome. Fighter pilot's dream. NARRATOR: But McWhorter isn't out of the woods yet. He pulls his aircraft up out of its dive, climbs to 3,000 feet, and again heads for the rendezvous point. Then, from 11 o'clock, another Zero dives directly toward him. McWhorter breaks left to engage. The Zero rolls toward his Hellcat. The enemy has the altitude advantage. That translates to more energy, more speed. He can counter any move McWhorter makes. But suddenly, even though the Zero has the advantage, he breaks away from the Hellcat and makes a run for it. Whereas the Japanese Zero used to be the king of battle and have the upper hand, now the Japanese recognize the Hellcat has arrived. They understand the strengths. They know they can't fight the Hellcat one on one. NARRATOR: A week later, Hamilton McWhorter scores two more kills, earning him a coveted title-- the first Hellcat ace. The Hellcat shot down more planes than any other American fighter. 5,300 planes, 305 aces. And I just happened to be the first Hellcat ace. NARRATOR: The November 11 attack on Rabaul lasts less than one hour. The Americans sink the Japanese destroyer Suzunami and destroy 20 planes. Later that day, the Japanese launch a counterattack, but they are intercepted en route, and another 35 Japanese planes are downed. So many enemy pilots are lost, the Japanese cannot effectively respond to the invasion of Tarawa less than two weeks later. The tide is turning against the empire of Japan. The Hellcat, through superb engineering and tactics, is truly becoming a Zero killer. Three months later, the Hellcat would face its fiercest test-- attacking the might of the Japanese Navy head-on. NARRATOR: February 16, 1944, dawn, waves of Hellcat fighters speed toward Truk Atoll. Their mission-- destroy enemy shipping in the highly defended Japanese stronghold. 25-year-old Lieutenant JG Alex Vraciu flies with a division of 12 Hellcats from the aircraft carrier intrepid. This was a mission that had us going against an enemy that we weren't certain of, but we felt confident. And I guess that's what a fighter pilot's supposed to be-- be confident or he can't do his job. NARRATOR: Truk Atoll in the Caroline Islands is Japan's main anchorage in the South Pacific. They've been fortifying the Atoll with port facilities and runways since the end of World War I. Truk was billed as almost impregnable, their version of Gibraltar or Pearl Harbor. And the propaganda was very strong that Truk would be an incredibly tough fight. NARRATOR: The barrier reefs that surround Truk put the Atoll out of range of the battleships' big guns. The only way in is by air. The plan calls for a two day raid. Day one is a fighter sweep. 72 Hellcats from six carrier air wings will swarm in to eliminate the enemy fighters, clearing the way for day two, when Dauntless, Avenger, and Helldiver bombers will target the anchored Japanese fleet with high explosive 500-pound bombs. This was going to be an attack of annihilation. So what you're seeing with the Truk raid is a systematic approach to taking a substantial shorebashing and reducing it to nothingness. NARRATOR: Pure fighter sweeps are rare. Hellcat pilots are anxious for a raid unencumbered with bomber escort. It was the first time we didn't have to escort, and we were just pure fighter, we called ourselves. And as we got closer and closer to it, and being in a plane that we knew we can handle, I'll tell you, quite honestly, we were looking forward to it. NARRATOR: Vraciu and his wingman, Lou Little, bring up the rear of their 12-plane formation. As they fly the 90 miles from their carrier, they stay low to avoid enemy radar. Approaching the atoll, they climb to 13,000 feet. The higher altitude gives them better visibility and positions them for diving attacks. You want to have an altitude advantage because altitude can be translated into airspeed with a dive. NARRATOR: The enemy has scrambled fighters. The Americans haven't spotted them yet. Vraciu's flight noses over to start its strafing run on the enemy airstrip. First 10 had already started their dive going down, and we were just preparing to, but I just took a look around back, looked back over my shoulder, and that's when my mind was quickly changed. NARRATOR: There they are, 3,000 feet above, a swarm of Japanese Zeros, closing fast from 7 o'clock. Vraciu radios the other Hellcats, but they're already diving. He must stay and fight. I couldn't continue, because then I'd have a stream of Zeros right behind us while we were going down. NARRATOR: Vraciu and Little are here. The other Hellcats are here diving, the Zeros attacking from above. If Vraciu dives, the Zeros will be on his and the squadron's 6 o'clock-- perfect attack position. His only option is to turn sharply into the enemy, minimizing his cross section and reducing his time in the Zeros' gun sights. Vraciu and Little pull a hard left turn and focus on the lead Zero. He was already starting to shoot. I could see the twinkle of the guns. So I headed towards them, and made a burst, a fast burst, just to discourage him. And he stopped his run and just kept going down. They had a habit that they weren't afraid to attack, but once they were countered, they'd dive down for the water. NARRATOR: The first Zero darts away, but immediately another swings around on Vraciu's tail. The Americans counter by pulling up into a steep chandelle. They're relying on the Hellcat's superior power, large wing area, and strong air frame to push them through the high G maneuver and turn the tables on the Zero. The chandelle maneuver, it's basically a maneuver to try and point your aircraft in another direction in a fairly quick method. Instead of just doing a level turn, actually pitch your nose up high, roll over on a wing, and now you can use gravity or what we like to call God's G to help you out in the turn, allow you to pull your nose around faster and point in the other direction. NARRATOR: The enemy cranks over hard, trying to stay behind the Americans, but the Zero can't hack the severe turn. He stalls. The Hellcats roll over and get behind the falling Zero. They're primed for the kill, but more Zeros speed in from above. I had ideas to try to follow him, but there were still some planes above me. I had to get them out of-- out of my back. He doesn't want to be fighting anybody that can be sitting up on a perch 2,000 feet above him, who can then instantly dive down, pick up energy, and now have an advantage on him in a turn. So he wants to bring the whole fight down low if possible, to beat everybody down to the same state. NARRATOR: Vraciu and Little must neutralize the enemy's numerical and altitude advantage. They snap into a classic defensive maneuver, the thatch weave. In the thatch weave, the two Hellcats swing back and forth, providing mutual support and protection. If a Zero positions himself to fire on one of the Hellcats, he will fall under the guns of the second American fighter. Vraciu and Little dodge and weave. The Zeros come at them from every direction. These Zeros were good. We were able to ward them off a little bit, but what they do, they fake you on one side, and then the guy would come from the other side and try to come on in. NARRATOR: The Zeros press the attack. The Hellcats are surrounded. NARRATOR: February 16, 1944, above Truk Lagoon in the South Pacific. Hellcat pilot Alex Vraciu and his wingman Lou Little mount a desperate defense against attacking Japanese Zeros. Frustrated by their inability to score decisive hits, the Japanese move down to the Hellcats' altitude. It's a fatal mistake. The Americans break their defensive formation and seize the advantage. Up until that time, we were purely defensive. Once they came down to our level or below, then we were able then to go on the offense. NARRATOR: The Americans have skillfully turned the tables. Now the Zeros are vulnerable to the powerful and highly maneuverable Hellcats. What ensues is the dogfight equivalent of a brawl, and the winner determined by who can line up the first burst. Vraciu turns hard on an attacking Zero. The Japanese pilot dives to escape. One of the favorite Japanese techniques, if engaged in a defensive position, was to try to dive away and try to head for the water. NARRATOR: The technique worked with a Wildcat, but not with the Hellcat. Once he caught on fire, OK, he's gone down, you're looking for another one. You just go from one to the other and hope you get a dozen of them. NARRATOR: Vraciu draws a bead on a second Zero. The enemy tries to dive away, but the Hellcat easily catches him. It's Vraciu's second kill of the day. Then he spots a roof, a floatplane version of a Zero. Again, the enemy dives away. Vraciu is relentless. His job is to sweep the enemy from the sky. Once I got on their tail, I didn't let go. NARRATOR: Kill number three. Vraicu spots another Zero at 12 o'clock low. I start to try to get in position, but he wouldn't let me. He kept ducking into a cloud. NARRATOR: The Zero is running from cloud to cloud, so Vraciu calls on a basic dogfighting tactic. I'm not going to let the SOB get away. So I just pulled up and kept looking for him while he was ducking in and out, and got in position to where I figured he couldn't see me. I pulled up into the sun, and waited until I got a good shot, and I came down on him from 5 o'clock. I don't think he ever knew what hit him. NARRATOR: Vraciu's .50 caliber armor piercing rounds slice into the Zero's wing tank and cockpit. Vraciu's fourth kill of the day plummets in a flaming spiral. The American fighter sweep continues throughout the day, turning the skies above Truk into a swirling vortex of gunfire and flame. There are loose fights all over the place. They were those planes going down one every 30 seconds. This was a wild dog fight, a wild one. NARRATOR: The Americans are unyielding. The fierce combat costs the Japanese 130 planes in the air, and another 74 on the ground. Eight Hellcats are lost, mostly by anti-aircraft fire. Hellcats basically function like strike fighters, like F18s of today. And the Hellcats went in as fighters and as fighter bombers to completely clean the sky of Japanese aircraft, so much so that there was no opposition to the bombers that went in later on. NARRATOR: On the planned second day of the attack, American bombers sink 47 Japanese ships. Truk Atoll, the Gibraltar of the East, is left smoking and in ruin. The results of the Truk raid were quite devastating to Japanese air power as well as the merchant fleet that had been at anchor inside the atoll. It was also an indication once and for all that Truk was no longer a bastion for the Japanese defense network, which was rapidly collapsing in the Central Pacific. NARRATOR: The skill of American pilots combined with the Hellcat's superb flying characteristics helped turn the tide against the Japanese. The Hellcat in tremendous numbers with great quality control, with survivability, with lethality really made a difference in the Pacific War. 75% of all the Navy's air to air kills were from the Hellcat. It's a tremendous record. What more can I say? We knew we had the best plane. It had a kill ratio that was 19-1, the greatest kill ratio of any plane in any war in any country. And to me, it was up to us to demonstrate our use of it, to do it and do it well. NARRATOR: The war would go on for another 18 months after Truk. By the end, the Hellcat blasted down nearly 5,300 Japanese aircraft. Japanese air power was dead, and the Hellcat was the executioner.
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Channel: HISTORY
Views: 1,186,458
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Keywords: history, history channel, history shows, history channel shows, dogfights, history dogfights, dogfights show, dogfights full episodes, dogfights clips, full episodes, Japanese Zero Fighter vs. American Aircrafts, Dogfights, Dog fights, Dogfights full episode, Dogfights: Japanese Zero Fighter vs. American Aircrafts, Dogfights season 1 episode 6, Dogfights season 1, Dogfights episode 6, Dogfights history, world war II, world war 2, WWII, WW2, The Zero Killer, japan, pearl harbor
Id: COC1CZlXWCc
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 45min 13sec (2713 seconds)
Published: Thu Aug 19 2021
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