Japanese Hated Fighting Corsair F4Us More Than Hellcats — 2,140 Kills In 64 Days Shocked Them

Japanese Hated Fighting Corsair F4Us More Than Hellcats — 2,140 Kills In 64 Days Shocked Them
On the morning of February fourteenth, nineteen forty-three, Lieutenant Kenneth Walsh climbed into the cockpit of a Vought F4U Corsair for the first time at Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, California. Walsh was twenty-six years old, had been flying Wildcats since Pearl Harbor, and carried the combat experience of seventeen months in the South Pacific. He'd survived thirty-two missions, watched friends die in aircraft that couldn't match Japanese Zeros, and learned to fight defensively because American fighters couldn't dominate offensively.
But this aircraft was different. Walsh had heard rumors about the Corsair. Pilots called it the bent-wing bird because of its inverted gull-wing design. Some called it the ensign eliminator because it was supposedly too difficult for inexperienced pilots to handle. The Navy had rejected it for carrier operations. Too dangerous. The landing approach was too fast. The nose was too long. Visibility during final approach was terrible. Pilots couldn't see the deck. They were landing blind.
So the Navy gave the Corsair to the Marines, who operated from land bases where visibility wasn't as critical and runway length wasn't a problem. Walsh didn't care about the Navy's opinion. He cared about one thing. Could this aircraft kill Zeros? He'd find out soon enough. Walsh started the Pratt and Whitney R-two-thousand-eight-hundred double wasp engine. The sound was different from the Wildcat. Deeper. More powerful. The entire airframe vibrated with restrained energy. Two thousand horsepower. More than any fighter Walsh had ever flown.
He advanced the throttle and taxied toward the runway. The Corsair's nose rose steeply in front of him. He couldn't see forward at all during taxi. He had to S-turn back and forth just to see where he was going. Naval aviators had complained about this exact problem. But Walsh lined up on the runway, straightened the aircraft, and pushed the throttle forward. The Corsair accelerated violently. Walsh felt himself pressed back into the seat. The aircraft wanted to fly. At sixty knots, Walsh pulled back gently on the stick. The Corsair leaped into the air.