The Brutal Reality of Flying the F6F Hellcat 

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Historical notes: Everything should be pretty accurate here! Only notes: This is not a Taylorcraft shown in training, but the closest aircraft I had available to use. Also, Don, being in the Navy used various Hellcats throughout his missions. However, for clarity - he will be flying Hellcat 115 throughout this series just for clarity! Part 2 coming soon! Thanks for watching :)

Don is a very dear friend and goes to my church. He is the most humble man I know and never tells his story to brag. Thank you so much for sharing his story and giving everyone a chance to visualize what he went through.

Thank you for your service, courage and sacrifice for our country ❤️🇺🇸

It was a pleasure and an honor flying with you on this one. Thank you for beinging these stories to us and immortalizing the brave heroes of yesteryear. Stay awesome TJ

That was such a close call... engine quit and got hit losing rudder!

Thanks for this. My great uncle, George McKibben, flew an Avenger off the Essex during this period as part of VT-4.

The Grumman Hellcat is a lovely US navy aircraft even the British FAA pilots love the Hellcat too during the Europe and the pacific campaign I can’t wait for part 2 story.

Looking forward to part 2. The Hellcat is one of my favorite airplanes from WW2. Great story.

As a testament to the durability of the Essex class carriers none were sunk in combat during the war despite many ships of the class having suffered major damage and of the ones that entered service during the war only two (USS Franklin and USS Bunker Hill) were decommissioned after the war due to severe battle damage.

I love to hear these old warriors talk

This story is amazing, the extra effort and resources that you've been putting into your content hasn't gone unnoticed TJ, thank you!

Thank you for finding these incredible stories and sharing them with the world! It’s great to be a part of recreating these missions.

Many thanks - wonderful to hear Don's story. He recounts it like most of us would for a trip to the supermarket. He's undoubtedly one of America's heroes. Best wishes from London UK.

Fantastic story and another great video. My Dad was in VF-82 flying off of the Bennington in a Hellcat. He often talked about fighting when they were anchored off of Ulithi Atoll. Brings back a lot of memories.

My great-uncle Don was an F6F Hellcat plane captain and trained folks on maintaining them.

A mix of original wartime footage on an old TV (yes there were B & W TV's in the 40's ) and modern animation from Warthunder-- it's great to see this !!!

Another great video TJ you never let us down. Thanks for all the hard work and time you put into making these incredible videos for us. Pleas " Keep 'Em Flyin"

00:43 Pilot Don McFearson was fearsonless and showed know fearson as he flew his F6F against the enemy.

Great video, as always! Don is a great storyteller, as well! Thank you, Don, for your service!

Your stuff just keeps getting better. I am glad I have been with you for several years now. You have come a long way. Good job!

These men are quiet heroes. My grandfather earned a battlefield commission to Cornel in Battle of Manila leading an assault team against a 5 inch Japanese naval gun, taking the gun and turning on the enemy. You would never know it because he never spoke about it but I have his Silver Star with a V for Valor for that action.

Wonderful video as always! Fascinating story with awesome visuals as well (we all love Sparky)

Outstanding! Your videos are getting better and better! Can hardly wait 'till the next one.

I love your historical videos and well researched commentary. Much appreciated and Mahalo.

Wow! Top shelf reporting/production and interview once again, TJ! Jim C.

The animations in your videos are the best I have seen- well done!

Super. cant wait to see the rest. Great old calm man. Been there done that and lived to tell his story.

Great job, TJ.

Great interview. Thanks.

@tj3 Thank you for another great one!

I was on the edge of my seat..! Great story.

Absolutely great...thanks...that filled a big gap in my knowledge.🇨🇦✌️Looking forward to more.

Great stuff. Amazing stories, next level graphics, very creative presentation of the newsreel and combat footage. Thank you. Terrific stuff. :-)

Really great videos, content, and presentation! Thank you!

Thank you for your videos, absolutely amazing, very informative and they just draw you in. Great job man and if you have a team great work from them. But if it’s just you….wow amazing job keep it up

great Storie as usual the hellcat is definitely one of my favourite ww2 planes now 👍keep up the amazing videos 😀

Great work, thank you.

What a pleasant surprise to see Don's video. He contributed memories to "August 1945: When the Shooting Stopped." A rare perspective by the time I wrote the book. As others have noted, the video's completely weird contraption at 3:30 onward defies comprehension. CGI options for U.S. trainers of the era appear online including the Stearman PT-17 (Navy N2S). Around 18 and 20 minutes: CGI carriers are Saratoga and Enterprise; definitely not Essex class. However: Certainly looking forward to Part 2.

I saw one of those hellcats start up and idle over at Cheetle airport in California. I was probably 100 feet away man that thing was loud. I thought I open head hot rock was wild. Everyone of those airplanes were open headers😅😅😅

Wow! Whoever created these graphics is fabuous! Well done on the entire vid!

Been waiting for this!

Good work covering this.

thank you for your service sir...love from england

In a shoebox in my grandma's closet were photos of my grandfather and his friends on Ulithi. He was with the seabees and they built a park on one of the islands with baseball fields and bbq pits even a swimming pier with a diving board. Today I keep the pictures in my cabinet in the living room

This is awesome! I'm obsessed with ww2 arial stuff.

Great Video!

Great video. One of the best channels for content.

First, I have to thank those serving and who have served our country. I remember as a child my father, a US Army Captain at the time, and I went to a military aircraft salvage yard. I wanted to take everything there home with me. I can still recall the sight of all types of aircraft lined up in rows just like the automobile salvage yards, it was incredible!

A great story. I have so much respect for these old-timers and what they went through in WW2.

I had an uncle aboard the Essex. He was only seventeen when assigned to the ship. A few days after his first Kamikaze attack (or maybe it was the first air attack during his duty), he noticed what looked like gray hairs beginning to push through his scalp. By the time the war ended and he was discharged, the hair on his entire head was solid gray. He was handsome, he was funny and a great singer. God bless all the pilots and seamen aboard the USS Essex. I thank them for their sacrifice, their devotion to duty, and the extreme nature of their service.

'Vandal Havoc!'..... Brilliant as usual...ta chap!✌️

I absolutely LOVE your documentary videos. So well produced, but, God help me, I just LOVE IT! 😼🇺🇸

F6F HELLCAT- GREAT PLANE. DON MCPHERSON- GREATER MAN! THX FOR VIDEO.

Great video❤❤❤

Amazing editing.

Great video...👍

Excellent!

Great video

The plane taking off of CV 18 was USS WASP that my Dad served on as a Aviation metalsmith 1st class he lost a lot of friends on the Franklin

Great story by a humble hero.

Another amazing download!!!!!

An old friend, I worked with 30ish years ago, served on a cruiser during this battle and some others. He died a few years ago, sad loss.

Good job on the video. 👍🇺🇸

F6F is one of my favorite propeller driven warplanes. F4U, P-51 and the P-38 were a close second. Thanks for your videos. RT

And here I thought the Corsair was the Sweetheart of Okinawa 🤣🤣🤣

Thank you for your service and sacrifice. A True Warrior and Patriot!

My Dad's Squadron VMF213 went over on Essex, from Ulithi, the Brass liked to use F4U against kamikaze.

youtube is not posting your video's in my nots So i really look for your very excellent videos......Thanks very much for this video... Old F-4 2 Shoe🇺🇸

Will you be making any can you survive videos soon? I really enjoyed them!

Awesome!!

Excellent.

Salute!!!

Great video. Historical footnote: The news clips were actually from movie newsreels. Television didn't appear until the 1950s.

At 20:05 in the video another ship can be seen to the left in the distance smoking heavily beyond the Franklin. This could be the Wasp which was also hit in the same manner as the Franklin, a lone dive bomber out of low overcast and within minutes of the Franklin being hit. My dad was on Wasp at this time. He was a dive bomber pilot in Carrier Air Group 86. 175 or so were killed. He had his first combat mission the day before, March 18, hitting the air base at Kanoya on Kyushu. I am looking at the mission map he was issued that day which he had on that flight with his penciled in marks showing assembly areas and attack route. Glad he saved this stuff. Hope his grear great grand kids and beyond appreiciate It.

Many Japanese Aces met their end thinking the new Hellcat was the under powered Wildcat. A tacit the Japanese would utilize is having a Wildcat chase them straight up, then stall and the Zero would swoop down for a easy kill but then to sell a Hellcat gaining as they turned down and be ripped to shreds but it's 6 -50 cals.. The Hellcat had the highest kill ratio at 19 to1. The Corsair had a 11 to 1 Kill ratio. The hellcat downed 5,156 enemy aircraft in just two years, accounting for 75 percent of the Navy's aerial victories during the war.

Oh my gosh my grandfather Kenneth green mcdonald died on the uss Franklin on March 19th. He was asleep in the barracks after a long night on battle duty. He was killed when the second bomb hit the deck causing the massive destruction taken by the Franklin.

This confirms that war thunder is a good game even for videos. Loved flying with you during this video.

They had no television in 1941 1942. One of the first television and brodcast station was in 1942 (?)- 1944 in Paris France in a hospital for german soldiers.

I knew a veteran who was on Iwo Jima, he told me a couple of stories about it. I don't remember if he was one of the group raising the flag or was just present for it, but he was on the summit when it was raised after capturing the island. He told me of the two closest times he knows of for sure that he was to getting killed, once while they were pushing forward a bullet ricocheted off the side of his helmet. The other was a little more sobering, he was in a mortar crater using it as a foxhole with a squad of other guys. They had been in there for several minutes before he had a feeling of he had to move, he ignored it for several minutes before he finally broke and started running, he made it about 10 steps before a mortar landed in the hole and killed everyone in it, and knocking him off his feet. Luckily he wasn't injured and managed to scramble into another hole before getting shot. He was lucky enough to make it through the fight for the island mostly uninjured. He also mentioned that the closest depiction of how bad the war was in a movie was Saving Private Ryan. The D-Day scene was too much for him, he had to get up and leave the theater because it brought back unpleasant memories. I wish I had spent more time talking with him, but he moved back to California several months after our last conversation, sadly he's since passed away.

The visuals are awesome, how’d you get them?

Nice

I really like these interviews. Because we all know that sooner than later ... There will be no more. And it will all just be history.

It is gentleman like these who represent what being a true bad ass is really about. Heroes in every sense of the word.

Overall well done, however, as a historical note, why portray a newsreel that was released for theatrical viewing on a late fifties/early sixties TV that was not yet invented during the war?

One gramps a Seabee, another B 17's ETO, one RCAC, RAF, and USAAC, one mabe AVG or Tigers, an Uncle on the Mighty Mo, others oilers, Gramma and other Uncle was Air Powers RnD developments Burbank, Palmdale, and Long Beach. RIP GREATEST!

It's funny, this B&W TV presentation... because nobody had TVs during the war.

I'm starting to suspect Mr. McPherson really appreciated the Hellcat's 2000HP!

Showed up this time.

I had an uncle who was on the Franklin. He survived but I never heard him talk about it

May God bless all our vets

Dang. This guy was Cool Hand Luke if there ever was one. "Oh, the engine's out, but I'll just pump gas with the auxiliary pump and get it going. No problem at all."

hi good video

Grummen always been a good aviation company the Hellcat ànd the Tomcat were the best

8:48 What are those structures between the funnels, with the four round heads on top?

Just one thing: no one was watching these film clips at home on television during the war. People saw newsreels at their local movie theaters. At home, news came over the radio.

Hi tj im only 11years old and i love your vlogs always form the Philippines

I'm blanking on the fellows name right now, but in1985 while a student at Kent State University here in Ohio I was ground crew at Andrew Patton field where the university ran their flight school. In consequence of the flight school, we had a semi-resident FAA examiner on the field most days who had been a flight instructor during WWII, and most days we could get him to share some stories with us. He told us an almost identical story about spin training a cadet in a Piper Cub, when coming into the second rotation of the students spin, they were treated to an awful bang! Our examiner immediately looked left and right because he thought one of the wings had departed. Nope, correct number of wings .... looking straight ahead he finally saw a crack in the front windscreen from top to bottom. An uneventful landing followed and I'm pretty sure that's the first time I heard the expression "my ass was taking bites out of the seat cushion".

How are yall getting some off the cockpits open in warthunder?

What is the parasol aircraft in which Don is talking to his instructor during a spin? Looks like a French Loire, a single seater and not a two seat trainer 🤷‍♀🤷‍♀