If I’m not mistaken, the Hellcats racked up a much higher total kills than the Corsairs. It’s kill numbers ranked right up there near the top with any of our fighters in WW2.
My Dad too, he was in the Leyte invasion of the Philippines. He died last year.
To all you fans. YOu can watch “og Fights” rom the history channel on line. Just go to the site. The Hell Cat had 6 Fifty cals, could climb higher than the zero and had armorment and bladder fuel tanks. The pilots liked to take a Zero on Head on. Talk about guys with guts.
I lost my Dad in May. He was on the USS Block Island, so he and your Dad were in the same waters. The Block Island was all Marine Corsairs. He contracted malaria in the Philippines, which kept him from becoming a foreign missionary after the war. A few years ago my brothers and I got him to talk about his service. He told us about his ship picking up the prisoners of war and carrying them back to an island with a hospital. After years of captivity many of them died on the way. Very sad.