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Operational History
Even before the Wildcat had been purchased by US Navy, both the French Navy and the British Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm (FAA) had ordered the Wildcat, with their own configurations.
The F4F Wildcat (known in British service as the Martlet) was taken on by the British Fleet Air Arm as part of an interim replacement for the Fairey Fulmar. The Fulmar was a two seat fighter with good range but at a performance disadvantage against single seater fighters; navalised Supermarine Spitfires were not being made available because of the greater need of the Royal Air Force. In the European theater, the Wildcat scored its first combat victory on Christmas Day 1940, when a land-based Martlet destroyed a Junkers Ju 88 bomber over the Scapa Flow naval base. This was the first combat victory by a US-built fighter in British service in World War II. The type also pioneered combat operations from the smaller escort carriers.
Six Martlets went to sea aboard the converted former German merchant vessel HMS Audacity in September 1941 and shot down several Luftwaffe Fw 200 Condor bombers during highly effective convoy escort operations. These were the first of many Wildcats to see shipboard combat.
The Fleet Air Arm (FAA) was later to abandon the practice of using its own unique names for US-provided aircraft in British naval service, and began to use the US Navy's aircraft names instead. In March 1945, Wildcats shot down four Messerschmitt Bf 109s over Norway, the FAA's last victory with a Wildcat.
U.S. Navy and Marines
Pacific
The Wildcat was outperformed by the Mitsubishi Zero, its major opponent in the early part of the Pacific Theater, but held its own partly because, with relatively heavy armor and self-sealing fuel tanks, the Grumman airframe could survive far more damage than its lightweight, unarmored Japanese rival. Many US Navy fighter pilots also were saved by the Wildcat's ZB homing device, which allowed them to find their carriers in poor visibility, provided they could get within the 30 mi (48 km) range of the homing beacon.
In the hands of an "expert pilot" using tactical advantage, the Wildcat could prove to be a difficult foe even against the formidable Zero. After analyzing Fleet Air Tactical Unit Intelligence Bureau reports describing the new carrier fighter, USN Commander "Jimmy" Thach devised a defensive strategy that allowed Wildcat formations to act in a coordinated maneuver to counter a diving attack, called the "Thach Weave."
Four US Marine Corps Wildcats played a prominent role in the defence of Wake Island in December 1941. USN and USMC aircraft were the fleet's primary air defense during the Battles of Coral Sea and Midway, and land-based Wildcats played a major role during the Guadalcanal Campaign of 1942�43. It was not until 1943 that more advanced naval fighters capable of taking on the Zero on more even terms, the F6F Hellcat and F4U Corsair, reached the South Pacific theatre.
F4F Wildcats of the VF-11 "Sundowners", on the flight line, 1943.
[Source: U.S. Navy]
US Navy Wildcats participated in Operation Torch. USN escort carriers in the Atlantic used Wildcats.
Grumman's Wildcat production ceased in early 1943 to make way for the newer F6F Hellcat, but General Motors continued producing Wildcats for both US Navy and Fleet Air Arm use. From 1943 onward, Wildcats equipped with bomb racks were primarily assigned to escort carriers for use against submarines and attacking ground targets, though they would also continue to score kills against Japanese fighters, bombers and kamikaze aircraft. Larger fighters such as the Hellcat and the Corsair and dedicated dive bombers were needed aboard fleet carriers, and the Wildcat's slower landing speed made it more suitable for shorter flight decks. In the Battle off Samar, fleet carriers had failed to destroy a battleship-led force, but it was lightly armed Avengers and FM fighters from escort carriers of Taffy 3 which found themselves backed against the wall in the path of a much larger Japanese fleet away from Leyte Gulf. By resorting to tactics such as strafing ships including the bridge of the Japanese battleship Yamato, the combined efforts of what was only equipped as a slow light escort force turned back the Japanese fleet. At first, GM produced the FM-1 (identical to the F4F-4, but with four guns). Production later switched to the improved FM-2 (based on Grumman's XF4F-8 prototype) optimized for small-carrier operations, with a more powerful engine, and a taller tail to cope with the increased torque.
In all, 7,860 Wildcats were built. The British received 300 Eastern Aircraft FM-1s as the Martlet V in 1942/43 and 340 FM-2s as the Wildcat VI. In total, nearly 1,200 Wildcats would serve with the FAA. By January 1944, the Martlet name was dropped and the type was identified as "Wildcat."
During the course of the war, Navy and Marine F4Fs and FMs flew 15,553 combat sorties (14,027 of these from aircraft carriers), destroying 1,327 enemy aircraft at a cost of 191 Wildcats (an overall kill-to-loss ratio of 6.9:1). True to their escort fighter role, Wildcats dropped only 154 tons of bombs during the war.
Sources:
Wikipedia
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