being a bit late, but I've been looking for this link for a couple of days, but even though it is late by two days, I still think it should be posted. In 1942, on Oct. 6th the first of about 12,000 F6F "Hellcat" fighters started rolling of the assembly line on Long Island for delivery to the Norfolk base. Grumman F6F Hellcat The first "Hellcats" didn’t get into combat until August of 1943, but their first real success came at Wake, almost exactly a full year after the first production model rolled off the line. That marked a "turning point" in the aerial war in the PTO, for the next two years, the A6M (and all other Japanese aircraft) would be the prey, not the predator.
