Angels of Okinawa by Stan Stokes.
In 1938 Vought won a contract for what was to become one of the last of the great propeller driven fighter aircraft, the F4U Corsair. Designed to incorporate the most powerful air-cooled radial engine available at the time, the Pratt and Whitney Double Wasp, the Corsair was powerful, heavily armed, ruggedly built, and designed from the onset as a carrier based fighter. The Corsair was fast, and became the first military aircraft to obtain 400 MPH in level flight. The Corsair incorporated the largest three-bladed propeller ever utilized on a single engine aircraft, a unique distinctive gull wing design, and its 2804 cubic inch engine developed a whopping 1800 HP, more than twice the horsepower of the Japanese fighters which dominated the early years of the War in the Pacific. Despite its design emphasis the USN was reluctant to utilize the Corsair for carrier-based operations because of the aircrafts poor pilot visibility during landings. As a result, the Corsair initially entered service with land-based USMC Squadrons in February of 1943. VMF-124, the first squadron to be equipped with Corsairs, quickly realized that they had a very special aircraft, and at the end of their tour of duty, VMF-124 had 68 confirmed kills of Japanese planes in air-to-air combat vs. losses of only 11 Corsairs. The Royal Navy, which procured over 2,000 of the 9,441 Corsairs produced, successfully overcame the pilot visibility problem by incorporating a curved angular approach to landings. Influenced by the Royal Navys success, the USN requalified the Corsair for carrier-based operations in early 1945. During the Okinawa campaign U.S. forces encountered a desperate shift in Japanese strategy which incorporated the full fury of the Kamikaze suicide attack. Lacking experienced pilots, and in hopes of slowing American advances, more than 3,000 Kamikaze planes were directed at the U.S. naval forces during the Okinawa campaign. The Corsair was instrumental in the fact the 2,600 Kamikazes did not succeed. In his spectacular painting, aviation artist Stan Stokes shows a F4U Corsair of VMF-451 of the Bunker Hill piloted by Marine Major Archie Donahue in action against an incoming (A6M2 Zero) Kamikaze attack during the Okinawa campaign. In three months during the campaign Navy and Marine pilots based on the Bunker Hill recorded 176 kills. However on April 29, 1944 the Bunker Hills luck ran out. Struck by two Kamikazes within minutes, a four hour conflagration ensued, which killed nearly 400 servicemen, and destroyed the bulk of the ships aircraft. This forced the withdrawal of the Bunker Hill from the campaign. Despite these losses, the Corsairs deservedly earned one of their nicknames, Angels of Okinawa, from the thousands of servicemen who no doubt owed their lives to these last of the great propeller driven fighter aircraft, and the courageous pilots who flew them |
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