Why the Japanese Feared the F6F Hellcat

it is April 6th of 1945 and as the battle for okanawa rages a group of f6f hellcats Roar over the Pacific providing key support for forces on the ground and pounding Japanese airfields to protect their own Fleet but suddenly on one of these missions unexpected visitors arrive and without time to think Dawn mcferson pushes the stick over and starts the first dog fight of his career in writing a crucial page in the story of a future Ace let's hear the story dive into the records and relive the mission after just taking part in his first real mission on March 19th dawn has now officially seen combat in the Pacific and was nearly a foot away from becoming a casualty but he survived and now the fighting was only going to get more intense as we can see in his log book after his first Mission Dawn flies Patrol protecting the crippled USS Franklin and then on March 21st flies a message drop Mission and here after doing some digging we can find color film of the USS Essex launching and recovering aircraft on this exact date March 21st of 1945 I have not been able to specifically see any of the ID numbers on the side of the hellcats but somewhere in one of these Fighters is the young Don mcferson following this on March 23rd the real fight would begin here we can see that the next few missions centered around one Target okanawa on these sorties Fighter Squadron 83 pounded the airfields and bombarded targets throughout the island hoping to clear the way for the troops that were coming to land soon with Okinawa in our hands we could control the China Coast send swarms of plains to smother Japan [Music] we were reaching for the throat of an Empire the risk must be taken we start in really concentrating on okanawa you know trying to get things softened up there you know for the actual invasion of Okana we worked on a lot of their airfields and of course lot of their installation military installations and our search camera people even found a uh a subbase it's a where they they made the oneman submarines so they could use them as comicazi Little Submarine as one guy in it and if they got the chance to drive it into a ship you know and it explode and so we found that base and and we destroyed it at one point as these attacks went on Don mcferson and the rest of the aircraft from the fast carrier task force pounded okanawa in preparation and then on April 1st they were given a new load out for a different kind of attack Napal this meant that today something was happening The Invasion men of the Navy 400,000 men called it love day else where in the world it was Easter Sunday 1945 at 8:30 that morning the Marines and the Army went in the first seven days were battling mysteriously quiet ashore Army and Marines pushed steadily forward looking for an enemy which had vanished on the 1400 ships supporting The Invasion men waited at their Battle Stations and waited we knew the blow would come but how and [Music] when on April the 1st which turned out to be Easter Sunday early that morning why the invasion forces was off the coast of okanawa and it was amazing the number of ships that they had bombarding the coast they had Battleship shooting the Cruisers were lobing shells in there with they had one a rocket launcher setting off there shooting rockets in there on the island of okwa 5,000 mi from San Francisco the Earth shook from a fearful pounding by our ships and [Music] [Music] way there's a jabed carrier in trouble [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] we were carrying napon bombs that morning which is a firebomb and we went in Scorch the beach ahead of the landing barges know we could see the landing barges starting to come in when we dropped it and and it really turned out I guess as good as you ever expect as far as the landing was concerned because the Japanese had either guessed right or else they had gotten some information as to when the invasion was going to happen and they had pulled back from the beach a lot their forces into the mountainous areas of okanawa there's another thing that we did then to help out in okanawa we would report over there and they would have a uh Air Force guy flying a small airplane flying real low around the area and he would have targets for us we'd get on the same frequency in the radio with him and one time I we reported in and the what he got for us today and he says I got an old grass Hut here I don't like the looks of he says put a little LMO into that well we stra it it was an ammunition something boy took about Fourth of July that was quite an explosion and then the another time he had a haze stack that he would he said put a rocket into that well that was a a fuel jump so black smoke was rolling you know so those those were kind of fun because you didn't have anybody shooting at you you know when you're doing it for the close support you know why not only they could be shooting at you but bit is the dangerous because you'd come over one peak in the mountain this area and Sho your arck then pull up till you didn't crash into the next one you know so so those are pretty tough but despite the quiet on the beach heads miles away the forces of Imperial Japan were putting together a massive response to the American Invasion Force this response would be spearheaded by the divine wind or kamakazi then it [Music] [Applause] [Music] stru they call it kamakazi meaning the Divine Tempest we call them suicide planes Man by pilots wearing in the ceremonial red s of the kamakazi core they specialize in one-way trips their destination the deck or Hull of any American ship under which plane bombs burning gasoline and Red saxed Pilot can [Music] clck at that period of time i' been in in the second half of March and the second half of March into April uh the kamakazi Corp was just harassing the fleet like crazy our Gunners on the ship almost ate and slept at their gun mounts because there was a bogey on the screen you know seemed like a thing all the time mostly As the kamakazi attacks began to get more Fierce the invasion of okanawa officially began just a few days after this the Japanese Navy launched their last true offensive of the war operation 10o this would be an attempt to drive out the Allied Forces from okanawa using the kamakazi as their primary weapon to hopefully put a stop to this the USS Essex sent Don mcferson and wonder 5 on an attack mission to strike one of the airfields facilitating these attacks with Wonder five um then they decided this island of kikushima at an Airfield that they felt like possibly some of those suiciders were stationed at that were harassing the fleet and so they sent the four of us over there with the Rockets to tear that place up we got over there there no air Airborne aircraft so we started there weren't very many on the ground either they apparently they were all up you know trying to do their thing and and so we really worked on their hangers and and their buildings and stuff and we even gotot a few Rockets into their Landing Strip to make it tough you know for him to use that and stuff and then we were decided we better get back because you're getting low on ammo and stuff so we uh started back to the essic and we just got started and we probably weren't over maybe 1,800 ft off the ocean and a flying wing on Carlos and all of a sudden I spotted these two dive bombers coming at us on a converging course only they were real low on the water and so so I had to dive in order to you know get on one of them and and uh all I had it's good thing I had not put my guns back on safety because I wouldn't had time to get a shot off I shoved the nose over and put my sight on the path of that Val bomber the first one and and I sh I saw the pilot slump forward and he plunged into the ocean just like that Don mcferson has scored his first aerial kill he spotted a pair of Val dive bombers just above the surface of the ocean headed right towards them and attempting to make it back home he quickly responded and pushed the stick down barely getting the nose down in time to fire here da sees the cockpit of the Val take a hit likely striking the pil it and then the aircraft plunged into the water but there's no time to dwell on this Victory but then I wondered what happened to the second one I wondered where the other guys had jumped onto him but I did a wing over and and I saw that it was flying to this Airfield we had just damaged and so I gave the old Hellcat Full Throttle and and they started catching up with it and I just ready to to press the trigger to shoot and I heard my division leaders hollering on me over the radio Dawn get out of there they're shooting at you from the aircraft the shore batteries and but I continued to squeeze the trigger and that one exploded and so then I made a wing over and some real maneuvering you know to keep from getting shot down to get out of there still coming at the ear field was the second vow with none of his friendly hellcats around him Dawn turned and followed after it but then gets a call over the radio from his leader warning him that the Japanese anti-aircraft batteries are beginning to open up Dawn however wasn't going to let this one get away he gets into a firing position as quickly as possible and pulls the trigger and this time lights the Bandit a flame sending it following downwards near the coast of the island tally two kills for Don mcferson after doing some maneuvering to avoid void ground fire he turned back and locates the rest of w 5 well then I was wondering what the the other three guys had been doing all this time well come find out there had been two more vile death bombers tra trailing those two that I saw that I shot down and so the division leader shot down one of those and the section leader got the other until in Charlie he he found a Lily and I guess they're doing research after afterwards I guess that was a twin engine search plane of some sort and so each one of us got our first kill that day during this time wander 5 had been putting in their own work with every member of the flight scoring a kill it had been a great day for not only Fighter Squadron 83 but also for the rest of the fast carrier task force supporting ganawa scores of Japanese planes had been downed including 69 9 kills for Fighter Squadron 83 alone with little loss of American Life in return but the Japanese would not give up here there were more waves of kamakazi aircraft coming in the next few days and it would still be up to Dawn and wonder five to take off again and defend the fleet and what a fight he would be in for all of this will be coming in part three of Dawn's Story coming soon to tj3 history if if you want behind the-scenes content and to support my work check out my patreon at the link below or sign up for my free World War II history newsletter thanks for watching and I'll see you next time

Channel: TJ3 History

Views: 60,121

Keywords: F6F Hellcats, F6F Hellcat Fighter, F6F, Hellcat Fighter, F4F Wildcat, Hellcat Documentary, Okinawa Documentary, WWII Ace, F6F Veteran, Okinawa, USS Essex, WWII Veteran, World War II Flight Sim, Hellcats WWII, Hellcats vs Zero, War Thunder, Battle of Okinawa, History Channel Dogfights, Historic, Documentary, Mark Felton, Yarnhub, Dark Skies, WW2 Air Combat, B17, Masters of the Air, WWII Bombers, wW2 Bombers, Don McPherson, Val Dive Bomber, F6F vs Val, Marianas Turkey Shoot

Id: L4REezTehmk

Length: 15min 43sec (943 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 08 2024