history · 31 August 1943 · 81 years ago
The first combat mission of the US Navy's latest fighter aircraft occurred when F6F-3 Hellcat fighters of VF-5 operating from the carrier USS Yorktown assisted in an attack on Japanese installations on Marcus Island. This was a mere eighteen months after the prototype's first flight. Altogether some 2,545 examples of the F6F-3 aircraft were delivered during 1943.
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