World War II U.S. service Navy testing and release to the U.S. Marine Corps The U.S. Navy received its first production F4U-1 on 31 July 1942, though getting it into service proved difficult. The framed "birdcage" style canopy provided inadequate visibility for deck taxiing, and the long "hose nose" and nose-up attitude of the Corsair made it difficult to see straight ahead. The enormous torque of the Double Wasp engine also made it a handful for inexperienced pilots if they were forced to
bolter. Early Navy pilots called the F4U the "hog", "hosenose", or "bent-wing Widow Maker". Carrier qualification trials on the training carrier
USS Wolverine and escort carriers
USS Core and
USS Charger in 1942 found that, despite visibility issues and control sensitivity, the Corsair was "...an excellent carrier type and very easy to land aboard. It is no different than any other airplane." Two Navy units,
VF-12 (October 1942) and later
VF-17 (April 1943) were equipped with the F4U. By April 1943, VF-12 had successfully completed deck landing qualification. At the time, the U.S. Navy also had the Grumman F6F Hellcat, which did not have the performance of the F4U, but was a better deck landing aircraft. The Corsair was declared "ready for combat" at the end of 1942, though qualified to operate only from land bases until the last of the carrier qualification issues were worked out. VF-17 went aboard the in late 1943, and the Chief of Naval Operations wanted to equip four air groups with Corsairs by the end of 1943. The Commander, Air Forces, Pacific had a different opinion, stating that "In order to simplify spares problems and also to insure flexibility in carrier operations present practice in the Pacific is to assign all Corsairs to Marines and to equip FightRons [fighter squadrons] on medium and light carriers with Hellcats." VF-12 soon abandoned its aircraft to the Marines. VF-17 kept its Corsairs, but was removed from its carrier, USS
Bunker Hill, due to perceived difficulties in supplying parts at sea. The Marines needed a better fighter than the F4F Wildcat. For them, it was not as important that the F4U could be recovered aboard a carrier, as they usually flew from land bases. Growing pains aside, Marine Corps squadrons readily took to the radical new fighter.
Marine Corps combat , the commander of
VMF-214,
Vella Lavella end of 1943 From February 1943 onward, the F4U operated from
Guadalcanal and ultimately other bases in the
Solomon Islands. A dozen USMC F4U-1s of VMF-124, commanded by
Major William E. Gise, arrived at
Henderson Field (code name "Cactus") on 12 February. The first recorded combat engagement was on 14 February 1943, when Corsairs of VMF-124 under Major Gise assisted P-40s and P-38s in escorting a formation of
Consolidated B-24 Liberators on a raid against a Japanese aerodrome at
Kahili. Japanese fighters contested the raid and the Americans got the worst of it, with four P-38s, two P-40s, two Corsairs, and two Liberators lost. No more than four Japanese Zeros were destroyed. A Corsair was responsible for one of the kills, albeit due to a midair collision when 252nd Kokutai pilot Yoshio Yoshido collided with 1st Lieutenant Gordon Lee Lyon Jr. The fiasco was referred to as the "Saint Valentine's Day Massacre". Despite the debut, the Marines quickly learned how to make better use of the aircraft and started demonstrating its superiority over Japanese fighters. By May, the Corsair units were getting the upper hand, and VMF-124 had produced the first Corsair ace,
Second Lieutenant Kenneth A. Walsh, who would rack up a total of 21 kills during the war. He remembered: VMF-113 was activated on 1 January 1943 at
Marine Corps Air Station El Toro as part of Marine Base Defense Air Group 41. They were soon given their full complement of 24 F4U Corsairs. On 26 March 1944, while escorting four B-25 bombers on a raid over Ponape, they recorded their first enemy kills, downing eight Japanese aircraft. In April of that year, VMF-113 was tasked with providing air support for the landings at
Ujelang. Since the assault was unopposed, the squadron quickly returned to striking Japanese targets in the
Marshall Islands for the remainder of 1944. Corsairs were flown by the "Black Sheep" Squadron (
VMF-214, led by Marine Major
Gregory "Pappy" Boyington) in an area of the Solomon Islands called "
The Slot". Boyington was credited with 22 kills in F4Us (of 28 total, including six in an
AVG P-40, although his score with the AVG has been disputed). Other noted Corsair pilots of the period included VMF-124's
Kenneth Walsh,
James E. Swett,
Archie Donahue, and Bill "Casey" Case;
VMF-215's
Robert M. Hanson and
Donald Aldrich; and VF-17's
Tommy Blackburn, Roger Hedrick, and
Ira Kepford. Nightfighter versions equipped Navy and Marine units afloat and ashore. One particularly unusual kill was scored by Marine Lieutenant R. R. Klingman of VMF-312 (the "Checkerboards") over Okinawa. Klingman was in pursuit of a Japanese twin-engine aircraft at high altitude when his guns jammed due to the gun lubrication thickening from the extreme cold. He flew into and chopped off the enemy's tail with the large propeller of the Corsair. Despite smashing off the end of his propeller blades, he managed to land safely after this
aerial ramming attack. He was awarded the
Navy Cross. At war's end, Corsairs were ashore on
Okinawa, combating the
kamikaze, and also were flying from fleet and escort carriers.
VMF-312,
VMF-323, and VMF-224 and some other Marine units met with success in the
Battle of Okinawa.
Medal of Honor recipients , standing beside a F4U Corsair Three Corsair pilots received the
Medal of Honor during World War II: • USMC 1st Lt.
Kenneth A. Walsh of the
Marine Fighting Squadron 124 was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during two separate missions in the
Solomon Islands area on 15 and 30 August 1943, flying the Corsair. On 15 August, despite being vastly outnumbered, Walsh on 15 August dove his plane into an enemy formation outnumbering his division six-to-one and, although his Corsair was hit numerous times, shot down three Japanese planes. On 30 August, after developing engine trouble during an escort mission, he landed his disabled Corsair at
Munda, replaced it with another, and rejoined his flight. Separated from his group when he encountered approximately 50 Japanese
Zeros, he single-handedly attacked, destroying four fighters before enemy fire forced him to make a
dead-stick landing off
Vella Lavella. • USMC Maj.
Gregory Boyington of the
Marine Fighting Squadron 214 was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during aerial combat missions in the central Solomon Islands from 12 September 1943 to 3 January 1944, flying the Corsair. Despite being consistently outnumbered during hazardous missions over heavily defended enemy territory, Boyington led his squadron in inflicting significant damage on Japanese aircraft, shipping and ground installations. During a major engagement over
Kahili, he deliberately provoked enemy fighters into combat, resulting in the destruction of numerous Japanese aircraft without loss to his unit. On 28 January 1944, during an aerial battle over
Rabaul, Boyington was outnumbered by Japanese Zeros and was shot down after downing one of the enemy planes. He was captured by a Japanese submarine crew and was held as a prisoner of war for more than a year and a half. He was released shortly after the
surrender of Japan. • USMC 1st Lt.
Robert M. Hanson of the
Marine Fighting Squadron 215 was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously for his actions during two separate missions in
Bougainville Island and
New Britain Island on 1 November 1943 and 24 January 1944, flying the Corsair. On 1 November 1943, despite fierce opposition from Japanese formations, Hanson attacked enemy formations, forcing Japanese torpedo bombers to jettison their payload and shooting down one bomber during the defense of Allied landings during the
Battle of Empress Augusta Bay. On a later mission on 24 January 1944 over
Simpson Harbor, after becoming separated from his formation, he engaged a large number of enemy fighters alone, destroying four Japanese Zeros and possibly a fifth while protecting American bombers. Hanson was killed in action on 3 February 1944.
Field modifications for land-based Corsairs Since Corsairs were being operated from shore bases, while still awaiting approval for U.S. carrier operations, 965 FG-1As were built as "land planes" without their hydraulic wing folding mechanisms, hoping to improve performance by reducing aircraft weight, with the added benefit of minimizing complexity. (These Corsairs’ wings could still be manually folded.) A second option was to remove the folding mechanism in the field using a kit, which could be done for Vought and Brewster Corsairs as well. On 6 December 1943, the Bureau of Aeronautics issued guidance on weight-reduction measures for the F4U-1, FG-1, and F3A. Corsair squadrons operating from land bases were authorized to remove catapult hooks, arresting hooks, and associated equipment, which eliminated 48 pounds of unnecessary weight. The RNZAF Corsairs were all land based and all had the tailhooks removed.
Fighter-bomber Corsairs also served well as fighter-bombers in the Central Pacific and the Philippines. By early 1944, Marine pilots were beginning to exploit the type's considerable capabilities in the close-support role in amphibious landings.
Charles Lindbergh flew Corsairs with the Marines as a civilian technical advisor for
United Aircraft Corporation in order to determine how best to increase the Corsair's payload and range in the attack role and to help evaluate future viability of single- versus twin-engine fighter design for Vought. Lindbergh managed to get the F4U into the air with of bombs, with a bomb on the centerline and a bomb under each wing. In the course of such experiments, he performed strikes on Japanese positions during the battle for the Marshall Islands. The aircraft was a prominent participant in the fighting for the
Palaus,
Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
Navy service In November 1943, while operating as a shore-based unit in the Solomon Islands, VF-17 reinstalled the tail hooks so its F4Us could land and refuel while providing top cover over the task force participating in the
carrier raid on Rabaul. The squadron's pilots landed, refueled, and took off from their former home,
Bunker Hill and on 11 November 1943. Twelve USMC F4U-1s arrived at Henderson Field (Guadalcanal) on 12 February 1943. The U.S. Navy did not get into combat with the type until September 1943. The work done by the
Royal Navy's
FAA meant those models qualified the type for U.S. carrier operations first. The U.S. Navy finally accepted the F4U for shipboard operations in April 1944, after the longer oleo strut was fitted, which eliminated the tendency to bounce. The first US Corsair unit to be based effectively on a carrier was the pioneer USMC squadron
VMF-124, which joined
Essex in December 1944. They were accompanied by
VMF-213. The increasing need for fighter protection against
kamikaze attacks resulted in more Corsair units being moved to carriers.
Sortie, kill and loss figures U.S. figures compiled at the end of the war indicate that the F4U and FG flew 64,051 operational sorties for the U.S. Marines and U.S. Navy through the conflict (44% of total fighter sorties), with only 9,581 sorties (15%) flown from carrier decks. F4U and FG pilots claimed 2,140 air combat victories against 189 losses to enemy aircraft, for an overall kill ratio of over 11:1. While this gave the Corsair the lowest loss rate of any fighter of the Pacific War, this was due in part to operational circumstances; it primarily faced air-to-air combat in the Solomon Islands and Rabaul campaigns (as well as at Leyte and for kamikaze interception), but as operations shifted north and its mission shifted to ground attack the aircraft saw less exposure to enemy aircraft, while other fighter types were exposed to more air combat. Against the best Japanese opponents, the aircraft claimed a 12:1 kill ratio against the
Mitsubishi A6M Zero and 6:1 against the
Nakajima Ki-84,
Kawanishi N1K-J, and
Mitsubishi J2M combined during the last year of the war. The Corsair bore the brunt of U.S. fighter-bomber missions, delivering of bombs during the war (70% of total bombs dropped by U.S. fighters during the war). The Royal Navy hurriedly adopted higher-performance single-seat aircraft such as the
Hawker Sea Hurricane and the less robust
Supermarine Seafire alongside, but neither aircraft had sufficient range to operate at a distance from a carrier task force. The Corsair was welcomed as a more robust and versatile alternative. In mid 1943 the Royal Navy received its first batch of 95 Vought F4U-1s, which were given
the designation "Corsair [Mark] I". The first squadrons were assembled and trained on the U.S. East Coast and then shipped across the Atlantic. The Royal Navy put the Corsair into carrier operations immediately. They found its landing characteristics dangerous, suffering a number of fatal crashes, but considered the Corsair to be the best option they had. In Royal Navy service, because of the limited
hangar deck height in several classes of British carrier, many Corsairs had their outer wings "clipped" by to clear the deckhead. The change in span brought about the added benefit of improving the
sink rate, reducing the F4U's propensity to "float" in the final stages of landing. and wiring shut the cowl flaps across the top of the engine compartment, diverting oil and hydraulic fluid spray around the sides of the fuselage.
Deployment The Royal Navy initially received 95 "birdcage" F4U-1s from Vought which were designated Corsair Mk I in Fleet Air Arm service. Next from Vought came 510 "blown-canopy" F4U-1A/-1Ds, which were designated Corsair Mk II (the final 150 equivalent to the F4U-1D, but not separately designated in British use). 430 Brewster Corsairs (334 F3A-1 and 96 F3A-1D), more than half of Brewster's total production, were delivered to Britain as the Corsair Mk III. 857 Goodyear Corsairs (400 FG-1/-1A and 457 FG-1D) were delivered and designated Corsair Mk IV. The Mk IIs and Mk IVs were the only versions to be used in combat. The Royal Navy cleared the F4U for carrier operations well before the U.S. Navy and showed that the Corsair Mk II could be operated with reasonable success even from
escort carriers. It was not without problems; one was excessive wear of the arrester wires, due both to the weight of the Corsair and the understandable tendency of the pilots to stay well above the stalling speed. A total of 2,012 Corsairs were supplied to the United Kingdom.
Fleet Air Arm (FAA) units were created and equipped in the United States, at
Quonset Point or
Brunswick and then shipped to war theaters aboard escort carriers. The first FAA Corsair unit was
1830 NAS, created on the first of June 1943, and soon operating from . At the end of the war, 18 FAA squadrons were operating the Corsair. British Corsairs served both in Europe and in the Pacific. The first, and also most important, European operations were the series of attacks (
Operation Tungsten) in April, July, and August 1944 on the , for which Corsairs from and provided fighter cover. It appears the Corsairs did not encounter aerial opposition on these raids. From April 1944, Corsairs from the
British Pacific Fleet took part in several
major air raids in South East Asia beginning with
Operation Cockpit, an attack on Japanese targets at
Sabang island, in the
Dutch East Indies. In July and August 1945, Corsair naval squadrons 1834, 1836, 1841, and 1842 took part in a series of strikes on the Japanese mainland, near Tokyo. These squadrons operated from
Victorious and
Formidable. On 9 August 1945, days before the end of the war, Corsairs from
Formidable attacked
Shiogama harbor on the northeast coast of Japan.
Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve pilot, Lieutenant
Robert Hampton Gray, of 1841 Squadron was hit by flak but pressed home his attack on the Japanese destroyer escort
Amakusa, sinking it with a bomb but crashing into the sea. He was posthumously awarded Canada's last
Victoria Cross, becoming the second fighter pilot of the war to earn a Victoria Cross as well as the final Canadian casualty of World War II. , 1945, with added "bars" based on their 28 June 1943 adoption by the U.S. Navy FAA Corsairs originally fought in a camouflage scheme with a Dark Slate Grey/Extra Dark Sea Grey disruptive pattern on top and Sky undersides, but were later painted overall dark blue. As it had become imperative for all
Allied aircraft in the Pacific Theater of World War II to abandon all use of any "red devices" in their national insignia — to prevent any chance of misidentification with Japanese military aircraft, all of which bore the circular, all-red
Hinomaru insignia (nicknamed a "meatball" by Allied aircrew) that is
still in use to this day, the United States removed all areas of red color (specifically removing the red center to the roundel) and removed any sort of
national fin/rudder markings, which at that time had
seven horizontal red stripes, from the American national aircraft insignia scheme by 6 May 1942. The British did likewise, starting with a simple paintover with white paint, of their "Type C" roundel's red center, at about the time the U.S. Navy removed the red-center from their roundel. Later, a shade of
slate gray center color replaced the white color on the earlier roundel. When the Americans started using the added white bars to either side of their blue/white star roundel on 28 June 1943; SEAC British Corsairs, most all of which still used the earlier blue/white Type C roundel with the red center removed, added similar white bars to either side of their blue-white roundels to emulate the Americans. In all, out of 18 carrier-based squadrons, eight saw combat, flying intensive ground attack/interdiction operations and claiming 47.5 aircraft shot down. At the end of World War II, under the terms of the Lend-Lease agreement, the aircraft had to be paid for or to be returned to the U.S. As the UK did not have the means to pay for them, the Royal Navy Corsairs were pushed overboard into the sea in Moreton Bay off Brisbane, Australia.
Royal New Zealand Air Force Equipped with obsolescent
Curtiss P-40s, Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) squadrons in the
South Pacific performed impressively, in particular in the air-to-air role. The American government accordingly decided to give New Zealand early access to the Corsair, especially as it was not initially being used from carriers. In addition as the war moved up the island chain the RNZAF moved from the US Army Aircorps zone to the US Navy zone reporting into Chester Nimitz and needed to use the US Navy supply lines making the P40 unworkable. Some 424 Corsairs equipped 13 RNZAF squadrons, including
No. 14 Squadron RNZAF and
No. 15 Squadron RNZAF, replacing
Douglas SBD Dauntlesses as well as P-40s. Most of the F4U-1s were assembled by Unit 60 with a further batch assembled and flown at
RNZAF Station Hobsonville. In total there were 336 F4U-1s and 41 F4U-1Ds used by the RNZAF during the Second World War. Sixty FG-1Ds arrived late in the war.
CAC Boomerang on
Bougainville, 1945. The first deliveries of lend-lease Corsairs began in March 1944 with the arrival of 30 F4U-1s at the RNZAF Base Depot Workshops (Unit 60) on the island of
Espiritu Santo in the
New Hebrides. From April, these workshops became responsible for assembling all Corsairs for the RNZAF units operating the aircraft in the South West Pacific; and a Test and Despatch flight was set up to test the aircraft after assembly. By June 1944, 100 Corsairs had been assembled and test flown. hence F4U-1
NZ5313 was first used by 20 Squadron/1 SU on Guadalcanal in May 1944; 20 Squadron was then relocated to 2 SU on
Bougainville in November. In all there were ten front line SUs plus another three based in New Zealand. Because each of the SUs painted its aircraft with distinctive markings and the aircraft themselves could be repainted in several different color schemes, the RNZAF Corsairs were far less uniform in appearance than their American and FAA contemporaries. By late 1944, the F4U had equipped all ten Pacific-based fighter squadrons of the RNZAF. No. 14 Squadron was given new FG-1Ds and in March 1946 transferred to
Iwakuni, Japan as part of the
British Commonwealth Occupation Force. Only one airworthy example of the 437 aircraft procured survives: FG-1D
NZ5648/
ZK-COR, owned by the Old Stick and Rudder Company at
Masterton, New Zealand.
Captured Corsairs On 18 July 1944, a British Corsair (
serial JT404) of
1841 Naval Air Squadron, was involved in anti-submarine patrol from HMS
Formidable as it returned to
Scapa Flow after the
Operation Mascot attack on the German battleship
Tirpitz. It flew in company with a
Fairey Barracuda. Due to technical problems the Corsair made an emergency landing in a field in
Hamarøy Municipality north of
Bodø, Norway. The pilot, Lt Mattholie, was taken prisoner and the aircraft was captured undamaged. Luftwaffe interrogators failed to get the pilot to explain how to fold the wings so as to transport the aircraft to
Narvik. The Corsair was ferried by boat for further investigation. Later the Corsair was taken to Germany and listed as one of the captured enemy aircraft (
Beuteflugzeug) based at
Erprobungsstelle Rechlin, the central German military aviation test facility and the equivalent of the
Royal Aircraft Establishment for 1944 under repair. This was probably the only Corsair captured by the Germans. In 1945, U.S. forces captured an F4U Corsair near the Kasumigaura flight school. The Japanese had repaired it by covering damaged parts on the wing with fabric and using spare parts from crashed F4Us. It seems Japan captured two force-landed Corsairs fairly late in the war and may have tested one in flight.
Korean War F4U-5NL Corsair equipped with the air intercept radar (right wing) and a 154-gallon drop tank in the Geneseo Airshow, on 9 July 2006 During the Korean War, the Corsair was used mostly in the close-support role. The
AU-1 Corsair was developed from the F4U-5 and was a ground-attack version which normally operated at low altitudes: as a consequence the Pratt & Whitney R-2800-83W engine used a single-stage, manually controlled supercharger, rather than the two-stage automatic supercharger of the -5. The versions of the Corsair used in Korea from 1950 to 1953 were the AU-1, F4U-4B, -4P, and -5N and -5NL. There were dogfights between F4Us and Soviet-built
Yakovlev Yak-9 fighters early in the war, but when the enemy introduced the
Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15, the Corsair was outmatched. On 10 September 1952, a MiG-15 made the mistake of getting into a turning contest with a Corsair piloted by Marine Captain Jesse G. Folmar, with Folmar shooting the MiG down with his four 20 mm cannon. In turn, four MiG-15s shot down Folmar minutes later; Folmar bailed out and was quickly rescued with little injury. F4U-5N and -5NL Corsair night fighters were used to attack enemy supply lines, including truck convoys and trains, as well as interdicting night attack aircraft such as the
Polikarpov Po-2 "Bedcheck Charlies", which were used to harass United Nations forces at night. The F4Us often operated with the help of
C-47 'flare ships' which dropped hundreds of 1,000,000
candlepower magnesium flares to illuminate the targets. For many operations detachments of U.S. Navy F4U-5Ns were posted to shore bases. The leader of one such unit, Lieutenant
Guy Bordelon of VC-3 Det D (Detachment D), off , became the Navy's only ace in the war, in addition to being the only American ace in Korea that used a piston engined aircraft. Bordelon, nicknamed "Lucky Pierre", was credited with three
Lavochkin La-9s or
La-11s and two
Yakovlev Yak-18s between 29 June and 16/17 July 1952. Navy and Marine Corsairs were credited with a total of 12 enemy aircraft. More generally, Corsairs performed attacks with cannons, napalm tanks, various iron bombs, and unguided rockets. The
5 inch HVAR was a reliable standby; sturdy Soviet-built armor proved resistant to the HVAR's punch, which led to a new
shaped charge antitank warhead being developed. The result was called the
"Anti-Tank Aircraft Rocket (ATAR)." The
"Tiny Tim" was also used in combat, with two under the belly.
Lieutenant Thomas J. Hudner, Jr., flying an F4U-4 of VF-32 off , was awarded the
Medal of Honor for crash landing his Corsair in an attempt to rescue his squadron mate, Ensign
Jesse L. Brown, whose aircraft had been forced down by antiaircraft fire near
Changjin. Brown, who did not survive the incident, was one of the U.S. Navy's first African American naval aviators.
Aéronavale After the war, the French Navy had an urgent requirement for a powerful carrier-borne close-air support aircraft to operate from the French Navy's four aircraft carriers that it acquired in the late 1940s (Two former U.S. Navy and two Royal Navy carriers were transferred). Secondhand US Navy Douglas SBD Dauntless dive-bombers of Flotille 3F and 4F were used to attack enemy targets and support ground forces in the
First Indochina War. Former US Grumman F6F-5 Hellcats and Curtiss SB2C Helldivers were also used for close air support. A new and more capable aircraft was needed.
First Indochina War The last production Corsair was the '
F4U-7, which was built specifically for the French naval air arm, the Aéronavale. The XF4U-7 prototype did its test flight on 2 July 1952 with a total of 94 F4U-7s built for the
French Navy's
Aéronavale (79 in 1952, 15 in 1953), with the last of the batch, the final Corsair built, rolled out on 31 January 1953. The F4U-7s were actually purchased by the U.S. Navy and passed on to the Aéronavale through the
U.S. Military Assistance Program (MAP). The French Navy used its F4U-7s during the second half of the First Indochina War in the 1950s (12.F, 14.F, 15.F Flotillas), On 15 January 1953, Flotille 14F, based at Karouba Air Base near Bizerte in Tunisia, became the first Aéronavale unit to receive the F4U-7 Corsair. Flotille 14F pilots arrived at
Da Nang,
Vietnam on 17 April 1954, but without their aircraft. The next day, the carrier USS
Saipan delivered 25 war-weary ground attack ex-USMC AU-1 Corsairs (flown by VMA-212 at the end of the Korean War) to
Tourane Air Base. During three months operating over Vietnam (including in support of the
Battle of Dien Bien Phu), the Corsairs flew 959 combat sorties totaling 1,335 flight hours. They dropped some 700 tons of bombs and fired more than 300 rockets and 70,000 20 mm rounds. Six aircraft were damaged and two shot down by
Viet Minh. In September 1954, F4U-7 Corsairs were loaded aboard and brought back to France in November. The surviving Ex-USMC AU-1s were taken to the Philippines and returned to the U.S. Navy. In 1956, Flotille 15F returned to
South Vietnam, equipped with F4U-7 Corsairs.
Algerian War As soon as they disembarked from the carriers that took part in Operation Musketeer, at the end of 1956, all three Corsair Flotillas moved to Telergma and Oran airfields in Algeria from where they provided CAS and helicopter escort. They were joined by the new "
Flottille 17F", established at Hyères in April 1958. French F4U-7 Corsairs (with some borrowed AU-1s) of the 12F, 14F, 15F, and 17F Flotillas conducted missions during the
Algerian War between 1955 and 1962. Between February and March 1958, several strikes and CAS missions were launched from , the only carrier involved in the Algeria War. At the outset of the Football War, El Salvador enlisted the assistance of several American pilots with
P-51 and F4U experience. Bob Love (a Korean war ace), Chuck Lyford, Ben Hall, and
Lynn Garrison are believed to have flown combat missions, but it has never been confirmed. Lynn Garrison purchased F4U-7 133693 from the French MAAG office when it was retired from French naval service in 1964. It was registered N693M and was later destroyed in a 1987 crash in San Diego, California.
Legacy The Corsair entered service in 1942. Although designed as a carrier fighter, initial operation from carrier decks proved to be troublesome. Its low-speed handling was tricky due to the left wing stalling before the right wing. This factor, together with poor visibility over the long nose (leading to one of its nicknames, "The Hose Nose"), made landing a Corsair on a carrier a difficult task. For these reasons, most Corsairs initially went to
Marine Corps squadrons which operated off land-based runways, with some early Goodyear-built examples (designated
FG-1A) being built with fixed wings. This performance advantage, combined with the ability to take severe punishment, meant a pilot could place an enemy aircraft in the killing zone of the F4U's six
.50 (12.7 mm) M2 Browning machine guns and keep him there long enough to inflict major damage. The 2,300 rounds carried by the Corsair gave just under 30 seconds of fire from each gun. Beginning in 1943, the Fleet Air Arm also received Corsairs and flew them successfully from Royal Navy carriers in combat with the British Pacific Fleet and in Norway. These were clipped-wing Corsairs, the wingtips shortened to clear the lower
overhead height of RN carriers. FAA also developed a curving landing approach to overcome the F4U's deficiencies. Infantrymen nicknamed the Corsair "The Sweetheart of the
Marianas" and "The Angel of Okinawa" for its roles in these campaigns. Among Navy and Marine aviators, the aircraft was nicknamed "Ensign Eliminator" and "Bent-Wing Eliminator" because it required many more hours of flight training to master than other Navy carrier-borne aircraft. It was also called simply "U-bird" or "Bent Wing Bird". The Corsair has been named the official aircraft of
Connecticut due to its multiple connections to Connecticut businesses including airframe manufacturer
Vought-Sikorsky Aircraft, engine manufacturer
Pratt & Whitney and propeller manufacturer
Hamilton Standard. ==Variants==