The Deadliest Hellcats: Inside USS Intrepid’s VF-18

USS Intrepid’s Fighting Squadron 18 was one of the highest-scoring U.S. Navy fighter units of World War II—and its story is packed with skill, leadership, and raw combat power. Join Warbird Tube host Steve Buss as he sits down with author Mike Fink to explore VF-18: Flying High with Harris’ Hellcats. From the fearsome F6F Hellcat to ace Cecil “Speedball” Harris, this episode dives into how VF-18 dominated the skies and helped shape naval air combat in the Pacific. You can watch this episode on YouTube at https://youtu.be/OR6s64yUgmM.

Aired on: January 28, 2026

Guest: Mike Fink, Author

Host: Steve Buss

Producer/Editor: Leah Block

Produced by: Commemorative Air Force

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Good evening and welcome to CAF Warbird Tube. We are so glad to have you with us tonight. It is uh it is going to be a great show. We're going to talk about uh a sort of an um a squadron uh of Navy fighter pilots that um you may not have heard of before, but their story deserves to be told. And we'll we'll talk about that in in just a moment. This is episode number 240 of Warbird Tube, and we are glad to have you with us uh tonight as Mike Fink will be here to discuss his book, The Intrepids Fighting Squadron 18, flying with Harris's Hellcats. And uh again, like I said, we're going to talk about this largely inexperienced and somewhat unknown squadron that downed 170 enemy aircraft in just 81 days of combat. So more on that in just a few moments. Now, whether you're joining us for the very first time or you're a regular Warbird Tube viewer, we're excited to have you with us. If you enjoy the show, please do us a favor, spread the word across your favorite social media platforms. And uh if you are on YouTube, make sure you click that bell icon and you'll get notifications when our uh new shows uh are posted. Now, Warbird Tube is made possible by the Commemorative Air Force. If you'd like to learn more about the CAF, our aircraft, the events, local units, or how you can be a part of the fun, just join us anytime at commemorativeairforce.org. Now, tonight, you know, this show works well when you jump in and have some questions and join the conversation. So if we're talking to Mike and something comes up and you're wondering about it, whether it's about the Hellcat or the Fighting 18th, just drop it in the chat box. We'll do our best to answer either during the show or before we sign off. But right now we're going to take you back to the summer of 1944. Pacific War, it's in its final stages. America's fast carrier task forces are striking deep into enemy territory. And on the flight decks stood a squadron of relatively unknown and untested uh pilots. That yet they would become one of Navy's deadliest fighter units of the entire war, the Fighting Squadron 18, flying the F-6F Hellcats. And uh, Mike, welcome to the show tonight. Um, let's get into it, but first let's talk a little bit about you. How did you become involved and interested in telling the story of uh Intrepid's Fighting Squadron 18?

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Uh thanks for having me, Steve. Uh and yes, I really became interested in the squadron from being where they were uh over 80 years ago now. Um I spent a number of years volunteering and working at the Intrepid Museum in New York City, uh, home to uh the decommissioned aircraft carrier, the former USS Intrepid, which served from 1943 to 1974, and um just being where these guys were and learning a little bit more about them made me want to uh commemorate their service. Like you said earlier, they weren't well known in their time, they are still not well known today, uh, but were very effective and had some really incredible uh young men uh among them.

SPEAKER_02 2:55

So, how did this squadron come together and sort of go from inexperienced to one of the most deadly uh squadrons in the Navy?

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Well, one of the main reasons um you're seeing right on the cover of my book on the right-hand side there, a gentleman named Cecil Harris, he was a farm boy from rural South Dakota, actually a school teacher uh before the war and remained uh for a number of years afterward as well. Uh, he was the one member of the squadron who had really seen fighter combat, air-to-air combat in the Pacific. Uh, he had actually participated in Operation Torch in late 1942, and then in the Solomon Islands uh in 1943, in the spring of 43, and he downed two uh enemy planes at that point. So he came to the squadron with a bit of experience. He was not one of the more senior men in the squadron, um, but he had the know-how. And so that trumped rank, fortunately, and he was put in charge really of training the squadron in in combat tactics, indoctrinating them in the way of war.

SPEAKER_02 3:56

Was there something in his training style, leadership ability that that helped to make this such an effective squander?

SPEAKER_01 4:05

I think one, he was very down-to-earth. Um, you know, I think that in terms of training, being a school teacher, having some knowledge of um training more generally certainly would have uh would have helped him. Um and I think he really was willing to push the plane to the limit, right? They're flying um the F6F Hellcat at this point. It's a fast, a heavy plane. You could really fight this on the vertical, and you want to um take advantage of that, certainly against a Japanese aircraft that aren't gonna have that same kind of performance uh typically. So he was really interested in um and really emphasized, you know, if you have someone on your tail, pull back on uh the throttle, really nose up, let them blow by you. Your plane can withstand it, right? The Grumman iron works, you're you're you're gonna be okay. And then you can pour the coal on, you can put that nose right back down, you're gonna pick up speed awful fast, and then who's on whose tail, right? You've sort of reversed things. So um he was able to show the guys how to get out of really sticky situations um and and really to emphasize gunnery sticking together, you know, um, and and being selfless, being a leader by example, saying, you know, this isn't about me, this is teamwork. That's how we're gonna survive, and that's how we're gonna excel. And he becomes the uh second leading Navy ace uh in the war, correct? Uh that's correct. So he's credited with 24 uh planes, 22 of those aboard Intrepid in that 81-day span. And in fact, oftentimes when he was knocking planes out of the air, he did it four at a time. So there's four separate occasions where he's just shy of ace in a day. Uh and in fact, one of those occasions he was uh not ace in a day because he lost a coin flip to his wingman, who got credit for what would have been um that fifth that fifth victory. So uh he's been called by Barrett Tillman um arguably the most consistently exceptional fighter pilot in the US Navy.

unknown 5:54

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 5:55

And do we what's the uh what are we seeing in this picture?

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Yeah, so that's uh although Harris was pretty uh camera shy, they occasionally were able to corral him and and get some press photos. This is Harris on the left, uh, and then of course the Navy's ace of aces on the right, um, Commander uh McCampbell uh with 34 to his credit. So they're here posing with the the top two scores, nearly 60 enemy planes to their credit, um, uh a little press opportunity in January 45 when Harris came back. At that point, actually, he was the highest ranking ace that was still in in the combat area because McCampbell had already come back.

SPEAKER_02 6:33

How did he uh kind of uh translate his experience in combat to the to inexperienced pilots who were in the squadron? I mean, I I know when he started he didn't he didn't have a lot of combat experience, but as it as it went through, you know, as as the tour went through, do you have a sense for how he was able to take his experiences and pass those on to the the rest of the squadron?

SPEAKER_01 6:56

I think some of it um is akin to what I said before about leadership. Harris was the flight officer, so when he was aboard ship and they're drawing up the roster for the next day's um uh operations, he would put himself on consistently, even in the very dangerous missions. So I think um having people watch him, um, and I think there was also an opportunity uh looking at the way the squadron's experience unfolded over the course of those three months to um to ease in a little bit. September 1944, the Japanese were holding um some of their aerial assets in reserve. They really didn't want to um fight even over the Philippines to protect that airspace. They they had suffered serious losses in the summer of 1944. Um many viewers will be familiar with the Marianas Turkey shoot, the Battle of the Philippine Sea. So in September, the squadron doesn't see a ton of air combat, and that's probably a good opportunity, you know, to practice formation flying over enemy uh territory, and then in the few the few dust-ups they do have to kind of like have these encounters and and scoot back home afterwards.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

So let's back up with the with the squadron itself. When was it first uh organized and how did they they make it onto the intrepid? What was their journey?

SPEAKER_01 8:11

Sure. So uh a lot changed over the course of 1942, 43, and 44, obviously. You go from trying to draw a stalemate to going on the offensive to having all of these new Essex class carriers available, the arsenal of democracy really is pumping them out, not only ships, but also aircraft like the Hellcat. So the squadron's early journey is you know, they're supposed to be an escort carrier squadron on one of these smaller ships. Then their designation is changed again. They're supposed to be a land-based fighter squadron, and then a carrier becomes available with an air group that doesn't at that point have a fighting squadron. So while these guys are training in Hawaii from the end of 1943 into early 44, the Navy says, Well, we have a dive bomber and a torpedo bomber squadron to go aboard Intrepid, but we don't have fighters. And here are these guys, they're pretty much done their training syllabus. Let's just rename them from Fighting Squadron 36 to Fighting Squadron 18, and that's how they ultimately come aboard uh USS Intrepid.

SPEAKER_02 9:12

Great. You mentioned uh torpedo bombers and dive bombers on uh the Intrepid. What what aircraft did they have?

SPEAKER_01 9:20

So at this point, um Dive Bombing Squadron 18 was flying the SB2C Helldiver. Uh, and you would have had TBM1Cs, the Grumman Avenger for uh Torpedo 18. And then in what what version of the uh the Hellcat were they flying? So in training, it was the F6F-3 aboard ship once they're actually in combat, principally the Dash 5, which was great. I mean, when you're looking for a plane that has all the bells and whistles, um, the Dash 5 is really it. You're talking about having water injection to get that crucial, you know, edge, um, and maybe to get out of danger if things aren't aren't going your way. Um, it's a little bit more rugged. You've got spring tab ailerons for more maneuverability. Um, really, it it was just a great machine to fly. Um, so they would have had the dash five uh almost exclusively aboard ship. And there was a unit within the squadron that flew the dash five P. So they were photo recon pilots. They would have the fighter angle and also the snapping some photos along the way.

SPEAKER_02 10:27

What made the uh the F-6F5 so much uh so effective in in combat? In in just maybe some quick terms of of in your research, what you found?

SPEAKER_01 10:41

Um yeah, so the the one thing, you know, which Harris took full advantage of is that idea of fighting on the vertical, having the weight, having the engine that can get you that speed. Um, you know, the the Pratt and Whitney R2800, which was also in the Corsair, could push a Hellcat not to 400 miles an hour like it could a Corsair, but pretty close, you know, 380 or so miles an hour, uh, which is pretty fast, especially against what they're facing. You know, Japanese industry wasn't able to get planes in quantity that had kind of caught up in development to the Hellcat. So they still were fighting a lot of zeros, uh, a lot of Oscars, you know, things that would have been available earlier in the war. They didn't see as many, uh, at least until um late October, things like the George or the Jack or the Frank, um, the Shidankai or the Raiden, these more advanced Japanese fighter types were were a lot rarer to encounter in Pacific skies.

SPEAKER_02 11:38

Okay. Let's talk about a few of the other folks or gentlemen who were in the uh in the squadron as well. Uh uh Fred Wolf is is one that that comes to mind. Uh tell us a little bit about him.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

So Fred, uh Fred's a great guy. He is really tough. You know, when you look at um the character of some of the guys who are entering the squadron, he doesn't have an easy time when he's younger, and and he even gets mixed up in in some stuff maybe he shouldn't. And he finds his way through sports and through being tough, through boxing, through football, to having a scholarship and being able to go to school, uh, and then ultimately kind of takes that his toughness into the Navy. And he's one of the senior lieutenants in the squadron. So, you know, out of a unit of 65 or so guys, um, he's top five in terms of the time that he's been in training, flying like the F3F, right? We're talking like biplane uh fighters at that point. Uh, he's also the squadron's morale officer. So when it comes to making sure that they're remaining sort of a cohesive unit, parties, stuff like that, um, he's he's at the center of it all. So he's a really integral uh member of Fighting Squadron 18.

SPEAKER_02 12:46

And speaking of morale, uh in some of the pictures that you sent, there's a uh uh I guess it's a memo talking about the the fact that the uh the squadron's not in combat yet. They're they have old, worn-out aircraft, they get new stuff and then it gets taken away and back and forth and back and forth. Um that must have been tough on the squadron, you know, itching to get into the action, but yet not being able to be there. So gentlemen who's a morale officer had had kind of a tough duty for a while.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

Yeah, some rowdy, some rowdy young guys. I mean, they had expected to go aboard Intrepid earlier in 44, but the ship was torpedoed uh in February uh during Operation Hailstone. The repairs took an awful long time. So these guys were thinking we're gonna get out in May of 44. Well, June comes along, the end of June, and now they've missed the Battle of the Philippine Sea, this last epic carrier clash. And they're thinking, oh man, like what a raw deal we've got. Uh but of course the military, you know, is gonna operate the way it operates. You should suit yourself to understanding that you're a cog and a much bigger machine. Um, and yes, um uh the CAG, the air group commander Ellis issues this all-hands memorandum and basically says, you know, this this is the way it's gonna be. And you have two uh possible options. You can continue to complain about it and focus on it and let it kind of eat you up and distract you, frankly. Or you can take this opportunity, this extra time you've been granted, since so many of you don't have combat experience, to fly more, to practice um you know, dog fighting against your squadron mates. Um so it's really wise, you know, information. Uh Ellis ultimately becomes a vice admiral in the Navy, arises pretty high up, um, commander of Seventh Fleet, I think, at one point later in his career. So um wise words from yes, Fred Wolf, the morale officer, and and the CAG.

SPEAKER_02 14:42

Who are some of the other uh characters in the uh in the squadron that that you've encountered in your uh in your research?

SPEAKER_01 14:51

Uh a big one was uh Wesley Keels. Um and what really struck me um about Wesley is he was one of eight that grew up uh in a sharecropping family. So when I think when I started my research at least, and I thought of who is a naval aviator, you know, college educated, comes from a pretty um wealthy background, potentially middle class sort of background, at least. Um I didn't initially think sharecropper, because how would you have the resources to kind of get into this? Well, here's a guy who, even though he he grew up as the eldest of eight, grew up picking soybeans, cotton, all of that stuff in the Waxaw region of the Carolinas, um, got a job working for the you know cigarette uh paper manufacturing plant nearby, was also going uh to a two-year college, Brevard College in North Carolina, also took civilian pilot training. So he was doing all of this stuff simultaneously, huge work ethic to be able to fly. And he really loved to. He was that classic need-for-speed fighter jock kind of guy. They called him Red Lightning in college because the way he uh drove his T-model forward, lots of letters uh between him and his siblings talking about, you know, working on uh working on the cars and stuff like that. So he really he really stuck with me. And I've seen his um ground training, you know, when he's actually going through ground instruction early on as a cadet in 1942. I've seen um his handwriting and his notes and all of that. So it kind of connected me to him that way.

SPEAKER_02 16:25

Have there been other um instances where you've been able to get sort of that uh that that physical feel of either artifacts or letters, things like that that have come from the families?

SPEAKER_01 16:38

Quite a few, actually, and that was an important part of this project and this process for me getting to a book was uh I wanted to know who these men were. And so I've I've been able to reach dozens of squadron families at this point. Um, I've been working on this since late 2015, uh, so it's a little over 10 years since I first started my outreach. Um, and and another sort of name or um uh set of artifacts that comes to mind for training uh is Wally Walworth or Bryant Walworth. I've seen his training diary, uh, which is really cool. All of his memories of worrying about check flights, getting a thumbs down and getting a thumbs up, going through increasingly difficult maneuvers in N3Ns and N2S, stearmins and stuff like that, going into the SNJ and the SNV, to the S to the F4F, you know, in operational training and all of that, really getting a sense of psychologically, emotionally what that was like. Um, so yes, diaries, correspondence, uh medals, ribbons, all of that I've seen from so many um families related to these men. I'm I'm really grateful, honestly, to the families who who picked up a phone call from a stranger or responded to an email um, you know, over the course of these years.

SPEAKER_02 17:56

Which brings up the next point, is and that is how did you how did you put all these pieces together? Where where what was the maybe the first family that you were able to connect with? And did they help you reach other families to kind of build your network?

SPEAKER_01 18:12

Um, I'm trying to think if there were any families that were already sort of in touch. It was a little bit more scatter shot, I think. But the the first family, and and this is important because you need that emotional connection. Um, when I was working in New York and at the museum, um, the granddaughter of a guy named Ed Ritter, uh, who is a cartoonist, actually, who's an ad um artist from Brooklyn, New York. I went and met her because she was in the city, um, interviewed her, taped it, you know, saw some of the stuff that she had kept. And it was clear, you know, how passionate she was. She has donated, and her family have donated a number of Ed's artifacts to the museum where they can tell those stories, you know, to all to all the visitors who come through about a million people a year. Um, and that I think is what got me, helped get me hooked, you know, to see how much it meant to her and to be able to share that uh moment and then to understand him better, you know, who he was, uh, not only in service, but as he got older, as he became, you know, a father, a grandfather, all of this, that um was the connection I needed, the spark I needed to really carry me through to today.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

Well, one of the things that uh with the the CAF and and our touring aircraft, uh not so much these days because the number of World War II vets continues to diminish, but uh one of the stories that I've heard from pilots and ground crews is that uh they would go to an event and a veteran would come out and start telling stories around an aircraft, and the family would say, I uh he's never said anything like this before. Were there any moments like that in in your research that you could go back to a family and say, hey, I found this out about your dad, your grandfather. Did you know it? Were there any of those kind of moments that that uh Came across your research?

SPEAKER_01 20:01

There were a few. One of them, you know, I was lucky enough over the course of my research to reach a few of these guys while they were still with us. Um, Larry Donahue was an engineering officer for the squadron. So he didn't fly. He was aboard ship overseeing the enlisted men who were working on the Hellcats. Um, and in the course of talking with him, um, I heard a story, and he said, you know, after the first mission, everyone was gathered around in the ready room, congratulating, you know, everyone had come back safely, even though he wasn't, he didn't fly, he was in that circle in that huddle. And they got to him, everyone was kind of saying what they were thankful for. And they got to him and he said, I'm just thankful that you guys go out there, you know, day in and day out and and risk the danger for us. You know, I just appreciate you all. I would give you the shirt off my back. And the guys were so rowdy at that point, they took him literally and kind of like started to try to like rip his short rip his shirt off and were like, you know, uh, which was a hassle for an officer. He had to, you know, look pretty good when he was aboard. Certainly, if he was going to mess or anything, they would kick him out. But um, so that was big, you know, hearing stories I had never heard and his family had never heard before, um, just through having these conversations. And then I think making the connections, like you were talking about, uh, Bill Zemer, who's a member of the squadron, who unfortunately didn't come home. In the course of looking at his artifacts, the correspondence, photographs, learning more about him. Um, I said, wow, this is a really impactful story. He was lost over Taiwan during this huge air battle, um, and then ultimately uh died as a prisoner of war, the very tail end of the war in August 1945. And as I reached more and more families, and as I saw more and more correspondence, I saw letters from the family of uh Bryant Walworth, Wally Walworth, that were from Bill Zemer's sweetheart to Wally talking about this event. So all of a sudden, I had two different families uh with this shared story, and I could share the letters from the Walworth family with the Zemers who had lost Bill. And I could share the Zemer family had photos of the woman who wrote those letters, Frances Leighton. I could share those now with the Walworth family who had seen only her penmanship up to that time. Um so those connections are incredible, yeah.

unknown 22:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:19

One of our viewers uh points out that the uh torpedo squadron, the bomber squadron, and the fighters were all numbered 18. So that must mean that the intrepid was 18 as well, right?

SPEAKER_01 22:30

No, that's a good it's it's a good thought um and makes a lot of sense intuitively. The Navy doesn't quite make it that easy. No. Um think of the the air groups as plug and play, right? So so go back to thinking about Intrepid. The ship is damaged, it's laid up for a number of months. What are you gonna do with the aviators? You've put so much time and resources into training them. Are they going to wait all of those months while the war is still progressing? No. Um, so they need to be able to rotate um through these deployments and through different carriers through all sorts of extenuating circumstances. So, no, they were not intrepid is C V11, it's Hull Number 11, the third Essex class carrier ordered, um, as opposed to being uh 18.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

There you go. What uh what differentiated the Essex class from from other carriers?

SPEAKER_01 23:18

Yeah, so these were, I mean, when you when you talk about fast carriers, ships that are capable of traveling almost 40 miles an hour, you know, 32 some odd knots, um, these are the latest and the greatest. Um, so when these roll off the line, fabrication processes have improved to be able to pump these out quickly. I think Intrepid uh is is ready in 17 months from the time the keel is laid December 1st, um, 1941, six days before the attack on Pearl Harbor, to the time that the ship is christened, which is incredible when you think about a ship that's you know three football fields long and uh displaces like 27,000 tons or something like that, um, is is truly remarkable. Um, it can carry, you know, a ship like this can carry about a hundred aircraft. So, really, when you think about a city at sea, about 3,000 men, 100 aircraft, um, uh it's truly tremendous. And there were 24 of these ships, speaking about you know, how quickly they could be pumped out, um, that were laid down and put put out in service by um, you know, the end of the class, by the end of the war, really. So um, this was the backbone of the Navy's fast carrier fleet. This was when the Navy needed to go deep into enemy territory in advance of an invasion force, um, you know, as was the case in October 1944 for the invasion of the Philippines, MacArthur's uh fulfilled promise, I shall return. You know, the fast carriers are the first ones in to hit to kind of hit and run and get things ready. Uh, and then of course they need to be available if there's any Japanese fleet fleet units for these major battles, like at the Philippine Sea or Leyte Gulf. Um, you know, they're they're they're kind of the backbone um of third fleet as far as air power is concerned.

SPEAKER_02 25:04

What was the uh the first the first encounter they had uh fighting 18 had with uh with enemies or enemy fighters?

SPEAKER_01 25:13

So that was in um uh mid-September, is when there was any kind of like big dust-up. It was in the central Philippines. And actually the the guys who um did most of the the fighting at that point were the the photopilots. It's kind of interesting. I guess you have to think about it as a Japanese pilot who at this time you know has vastly fewer hours in the cockpit than the average, you know, um U.S. naval aviator is flying a plane that's that's probably inferior to what uh he's going to be fighting against. Do you go up against a strike that's dozens of aircraft going out over the field? Or if there's a photographic unit that doesn't have an escort, that's about four planes, you know, which of these is a more inviting target? So the photo guys got picked on a lot in September while they were doing their work. Um, and you're seeing right now Harvey Pickin, who is the lead photographic officer in this unit, ended the war as a double ace uh because they they got jumped so frequently. Um so they were the ones who were doing a lot of the the mixing it up in September 1944.

unknown 26:19

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 26:20

Uh one of our viewers watching tonight, uh actually two questions back to uh uh Speedball Harris is was was he a graduate of the Naval Academy?

SPEAKER_01 26:30

He was not, no. He went to Northern State Teachers College. Um and then he was out, he was out in the up. That was his alma mater. So nice. And did he fly with the uh flying tigers before? He did not. So he was um during Operation Torch, he was in uh VF 27, if memory serves, aboard the SWANE, which is a an escort carrier, and then that squadron was put on land-based duty um in the Solomons in early 1943. And so he scored on April Fool's Day, 1943. There was this huge air battle, uh, and that was his introduction to war. He loved there's a couple guys he flew with that actually didn't come back from that. It was a really tough mix-up. There were a lot of zeros then. Um, and so he knew you know that was additional motivation for him. He's joining this new squadron, there's all these green guys, he's already lost some buddies. He's got the motivation to get them up to speed um in advance of their deployment.

SPEAKER_02 27:32

We talked about the fact that the fighting 18th had a had a great record of of shooting down uh enemy aircraft, but they there were also some losses. Um, and you just recently were were at a uh uh a funeral for someone who was lost and has now been recovered and returned home.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:52

Talk a little bit about that for us.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

Yeah, so his name is Ralph DuPont, he was one of the youngest guys in the squadron. Um, him and another member of his division, Wesley Keels, who who we saw earlier, uh, were both lost over Taiwan October 12th, 1944. They were in the same division. So four men in a division, so half of their division didn't survive this huge dust up. Um, Ralph probably went down um over water, you know, and and as is often the case when you're lost in the Pacific to this vast expanse, um, you're reported missing in action. About a year passes until they change that to, you know, assumed, presumed killed in action. Um, and then the question is: well, how do we identify you and bring you back? We promise um, you know, pledge to our service members, we will we will do what we can to find you. You know, we're not going to stop looking for you. The the defense uh POW MIA accounting agency does that, continues to do that for the families. And so in Ralph's case, um, the DuPont family, which has a continued um legacy of Navy service, there's a naval aviator and captain uh in the family still who I got to meet, uh, this past October, you know, wanted to learn more and provide as much as they could to the DPA, DNA, all of this, um, and then learn from the DPA any information they had. Um, and so over the course of a number of years, with the family working, with the DPA working, um, there was a case, uh, X248, uh, a body that was um interred in the punch bowl in Hawaii that seemed like it might be a candidate. Um, and so things progressed, forensic testing was done, you know, dental, all of this other stuff, DNA. And uh earlier in in 2025, the announcement came out that there was a positive ID that it was Ralph DuPont from Fighting 18. And so I I live in in Delaware, right outside Philly. I I just I said, I'm gonna drive down there. You know, I want to be with the family, I want to see this firsthand, had the opportunity to present to the family a little bit after um the funeral service. Uh it's just incredible. Like I didn't imagine that I would get to see that in my lifetime. And I hold out hope for the other families of the men who are who are missing in action. Um, like Wes Keels, for example, that you know, someday they'll they'll get that news. Um, I think it's important to hold on to that that hope.

unknown 30:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:19

Are there any members of the uh of the 18th that are still still with us?

SPEAKER_01 30:24

There's one gentleman, and and I actually thought with the passing of Larry Donahue, who I interviewed um a number of years ago and who passed in 2023, I thought he was the last member. And and I resigned myself that my book would come out, it was published January 2025, and none of the guys in the squadron would actually get to hold it, see it, know that their story had been brought together. And lo and behold, earlier this month, I reached the family of a gentleman named Jim. He turned 103 earlier in January. Um, he was an enlisted man in the squadron, and I actually got to talk with him. I'm looking forward to doing doing more of that. I'm gonna be meeting some of his family um later this week, actually. Um, and yeah, so there is there's to my knowledge, there's at least one now who's who's still with us, which is incredible.

unknown 31:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:16

Certainly is. Now with the uh with the the the squadron being uh on board the ship, they're out, they've got their their first few combat missions uh on under their under their belt. Um, what's the progression of uh where they where they go uh during their tour?

SPEAKER_01 31:35

Sure. So September uh they support the invasion of the Palau Islands, so that's Peleliu. I'm sure a lot of the viewers will be familiar with that one, and also a neighboring island, Angar. Um they travel up the Philippine archipelago from Mindanao to the Visayas to Luzon, and then things really heat up in October, and Tripit actually becomes the flagship of its carrier task group. Admiral Bogan comes on board with his staff. Um, and in October, the ship moves much closer to enemy territory. The fleet anchorage changes and moves everything, all the operations about 1400 miles closer to Tokyo. Uh no small feat. Um, at that point in October, you have strikes on the Ryukyu Islands, Okinawa and Ieshima, for example, the first carrier strikes on Japanese home islands since the Doolittle raids. You have the um Formosa air battle, Formosa being Taiwan, that's what we call it, um, now, which is the biggest air-sea battle that takes place over the course of the Pacific War. I mean, the Navy had not seen anything like this in the prior 30 months uh of engaging the Japanese. Um, and then you have the Battle of Leyte Gulf again in the vicinity of the Philippines, and that's really where the ship is going to operate uh for the remainder of this tour of duty.

SPEAKER_02 32:51

Well, let's get into depth uh a little bit about the Battle of Leyte Gulf. What how did uh the Fighting 18th, how did their work uh fit into the overall plans?

SPEAKER_01 33:01

Yeah, so it's it's interesting. After this big air battle at Formosa, the the carrier groups are pretty chewed up. Intrepid's task group, which at one point had three Essex class carriers in it, is reduced to one. It's just Intrepid um and a and a light carrier in its group, the the Cabot, that's available in this critical place because the carriers are kind of stacked up north-south along uh the Philippine archipelago. And when the main Japanese battleship force under Admiral Karita is spotted, you know, heading for it looks like San Bernardino Strait, uh just above Leyte, um, it's Intrepid's task group that's closest, that's available. Um, so the morning of October 24th, Fighting 18, uh, two members of the squadron, along with um Max Adams, who's the pilot in a hell diver, who goes out with a radar console to actually look for the Japanese planes, uh Japanese ships, I should say, they go out and locate um this massive battleship force, which is like I don't even think I could describe what that must have been like. Seeing Japan's largest battleships, the Yamato and the Musashi. You know, I mentioned Intrepid displaced about 27,000 tons. These are over 70,000 tons, the heaviest, you know, battleships put afloat with the biggest uh naval guns, you know, put to sea, 18.1 inch uh diameter guns. And they have to fly and shadow this fleet uh for an extended period of time to let Halsey know, you know, what is the disposition, what are the kinds of ships, where are they heading, what's their speed. Um, and that really kicks off their role at the Battle of the Cebuyan Sea, the first carrier kind of phase of the Battle of Leyte Gulf. And the guys are in it from start to finish, from this opening salvo, you know, helping Intrepid live up to its name, you know, Intrepid is fearless, dauntless, courageous, kind of first to fight. Um, they're in it from that point all the way through October 26th, when the fleeing remnants of Admiral Corita's battleship force kind of retransits um San Bernardino Strait and slips away, they kind of deal the last blows against this force um before the end of the battle and before really the end of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

SPEAKER_02 35:13

And also uh this sort of same time frame, uh the Japanese kamikaze uh attacks start becoming more and more frequent. What was the reaction from the fighting 18th to seeing and encountering uh this sort of tactic?

SPEAKER_01 35:33

They were kind of incredulous, right? Like, how do you their initial response was, well, we don't understand why you would do that. Um, it's it's beyond the pale, it's unimaginable. Um, because yeah, to your point, October 25th, you know, that's the first uh successful official kamikaze attack sinks the escort carrier St. Lowe. Um only four days later, Intrepid encounters this. Uh the ship is hit by a kamikaze, a glancing blow, thanks to um gunner's mates aboard the ship uh that are in Guntub 10, right behind the portside elevator. That story is told really beautifully, I think, at the Intrepid Museum. And if you haven't heard of the men of Guntub 10, I strongly urge you to Google it. Um, really incredible heroes. Um, from that point on, you know, October 29th to the end of their deployment on November 25th, Fighting 18 is really all about um protecting the ship, combat air patrol, um flying increasing anti-kamikaze patrols called Jack Patrols. Um the guys are doing double duty. And as you can see from this photo, this is from November 25th, 1944, the last day that they served aboard ship. Even all of um uh the new training, the new flights that are taking place, it's it's really not enough to staunch um the attacks of the kamikaze, the quantity of kamikaze that are coming down on Third Fleet at this point. Um, Intrepid is hit by two back to back within the span of about five minutes, just shy of 1 p.m. on November 25th. It's only a couple days after Thanksgiving, actually. Um, 69 officers and enlisted men aboard Intrepid are killed in this attack. Fighting 18 loses one enlisted man, uh Harry Beardon, who's in the gallery deck uh under the flight deck. It's an it's an unprotected space. That's where many of the losses are suffered. And because of this attack, you know, Intrepid is put out of commission and the squadron ultimately has to um go back to the states to reform and to get ready to fight again later in 1945.

SPEAKER_02 37:33

With the uh, you know, looking at the the kamikaze attacks and and the way things progressed through the war, um, did VF 18 have any tech special techniques of their own? I mean, the one that comes to mind is the thatch weave, right? But did they have any sort of secret secret weapons that they that they used as as a squadron?

SPEAKER_01 37:52

A secret sauce. I mean, the the closest thing I can think of really is is like I said, about Harris. And there's a story actually that's told by Harold Thune, one of the guys that he flew with. Um Thune kind of said to Harris in the ready room, Well, what do I do? Like if someone's on my tail, what do I do? And Harris said, Well, here's what you do. You know, pull back on the thr on the throttle as hard as you can, as fast as you can, and point the nose up. You know, stomp rudder to kind of skid out of the way, and just let the enemy plane blow by you because you've got this F6F, it can handle anything they throw at you, you know, don't worry about it. And then as soon as they're as soon as they shoot by you, the surprised pilot's not going to have time to react, then you shove the stick forward, throttle up, you know, pour on the coal. Uh, you're gonna be on their tail in a heartbeat. Uh, and then you have 650 cals, you know, you've got the firepower. Their plane can't handle this, it, you know, it doesn't have the same features that your aircraft has. And that's kind of how you can um uh put the you know uh switch roles really in that moment. So I think Harris's emphasis on fighting in the in the vertical and taking advantage of the Hellcat's you know strengths uh help to make make the the margin of difference for their experience.

SPEAKER_02 39:11

And it's been mentioned before uh on this show and other shows talking about the the the Gremlin Ironworks and and the real the durability of uh all of their aircraft, especially the F-6, uh, to be able to handle those kinds of maneuvers, which uh uh Zero probably couldn't because it was not built with the same the same structure and and strength that uh that the uh that the Hellcat was. And and that really was uh a turning a turning point uh in the in the war and in in in naval aviation as well. With the with the kamikaze attacks, the the intrepid is is basically knocked out of service, it's got to go back for repairs. What happens to the uh fighting 18th at that point?

SPEAKER_01 39:53

Yeah, so they got a period of you know brief R and R, um, but then for the men who stick with the Unit, you know, you can ask for a transfer, you can try to get back into combat early, maybe. Uh, if you don't want to wait for a whole new period of retraining, um, you are assigned to a squadron. Most of the guys go back to Fighting 18. They have that faith in Harris, they really like, you know, the unit and they want to stick with it. Um, they reform and they go through a period of training that lasts all the way to the end of the war. They're not quite done their syllabus yet when the war comes to a close. So they don't deploy um in October 45 to go down to New Orleans area for Navy Day and they get to kind of mock attack New Orleans and they get to do all sorts of interesting stuff like that. Um, they also uh, I should say, transition at that point from the F-6F to the F-8F. Uh, so they're one of the first squadrons to kind of get to put that plane through its paces, which is really cool. Um, I know the SoCal chapter is working on restoring, if I'm not mistaken, an F-8F Bearcat and also has a zero and an F-6F. So that's I need to make it out to SoCal at some point, obviously. Um, but yeah, so they they go through a period of retraining. There are some accidents and close calls, you know, training is dangerous. More uh more of these guys are lost, you know, at naval aviators over the course of the war to training, ferrying planes, operational accidents than are in combat. Um uh but these guys make it through fortunately, and then the war comes to a close. So they avoid after how difficult their first deployment was, you know, sure they sweat it out, but they they make it to the end of things. And what happens to uh VF-18 after the war? So, you know, as you can imagine, the Navy sort of draws down a little bit, it reconfigures uh its squadrons. Fighting 18 is goes through a number of changes, um, but doesn't really, you know, when you think of modern strike fighter squadrons, there are some kind of old insignias and old squadrons where they've kept using things, like um the Jolly Rogers, obviously, or the Tom Catters with the Felix of the Cat. For a while, the um Grim Reapers were around, which was Fighting 10, they were aboard and trip in 45, actually. Um, but but Fighting 18, it doesn't really have that lineage. Um, there's a squadron that uses their insignia during the Cold War, um, but that's really it. I mean, the squadron just sort of fades and and the story uh sort of fades, frankly. And that's why uh when I was looking, when I was working at the Intrepid Museum and looking at all this information about aces, I was seeing information about the Grim Reapers, I was seeing information about Alexander Vrashu, another very well-known Hellcat uh ace, Intrepid's first ace, actually. Um, and he served in that Felix, you know, the cat squadron. But Fighting 18 kind of fell into a divot between those two and hadn't really been looked at uh in detail by historians. So I thought that that's a that's a shame. I wonder if I can rectify that. And and here we are.

SPEAKER_02 43:00

And which is which is incredible because the the uh the record of of the of VF 18 is is remarkable, but yet as you said, it just kind of falls in between a couple of other major squadrons as well, and it's just sort of lost to history, which is uh is sad. I and I'm glad you wrote the book and and uh that but it makes me wonder what other groups, whether it's an air group or ground support group or whatever, are just sort of lost to history and and their their stories are are yet to be discovered.

SPEAKER_01 43:37

I think I think there's a lot out there, and I think with increasing digitization, more public access to archival records, you know, family members of some of these units you're talking about will start to do this work. And I think we'll see more of these stories come to light. And I hope we see more, not just about the Essex class carrier guys, but the guys who served on um escort carriers, you know, who did kind of the yeoman work um but don't always get the same level of spotlight. Or the shore, you know, the people who facilitated everything back ashore of the logistics and moving stuff, sustaining the carrier war, which is actually a book came out by that title from Naval Institute Press not that long ago, which kind of um brings a spotlight to that. So so yeah, I think there are a lot, there are a lot of stories out there that can still be told.

SPEAKER_02 44:24

In your opinion, what's the lasting legacy of VF-18?

SPEAKER_01 44:30

I think the lasting legacy really is of service and sacrifice. These are young men who who didn't have much experience. They went aboard the latest and greatest kind of ship with the latest and greatest kind of plane. They went up against the kind of last line of defense for the Japanese, the the biggest ships, you know, the biggest air battles. They sweated, sweated through all of that stuff at an age where, you know, I was in college, I was, you know, what pretty carefree, I think, relative to the kind of stuff they were going through. So I think their their important legacy is uh of service and sacrifice, of being out there when their nation and the world needed them, some of them making the ultimate sacrifice, others, you know, bearing the invisible wounds of war and coming home, um, others, you know, uh trying to get on with their lives and um pitching in, you know, when America was really booming in the post-war years. So I think connecting all of those dots, paying, paying tribute to their legacy, um uh is is what's most important, I guess, to me. They're they're kind of my heroes, I'm sure you can tell with the way I talk about them, but um their their legacy is that they put um the needs of the many in front of their own, and some of them um did that at at great peril and at great cost.

unknown 45:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:52

You mentioned working at the uh Intrepid Museum. And uh is there any uh plans to uh trying to find an F6 uh for the museum?

SPEAKER_01 46:02

Uh I wish I could speak to that. So the museum did just get an uh on loan from from the Navy uh an FG1D Corsair. Um so there is a Corsair now displayed in hangar one of the ship um that just came in March of last year. So if you haven't been uh to the museum in a while, that's one of the many new additions, which is really cool. Uh and actually there's uh a logbook for one of these guys in Fighting 18, Don Watts, who was uh at the center of that search for Admiral Corita's battleships at the Battle of Leyte Gulf. That's now on display as part of the permanent exhibition, too. So uh one of the really impactful things about this book project has been, you know, I'm gonna reach so many people with the book, like a certain number of people will read it and digest it and appreciate it. But far, far, far more people are gonna go, you know, see the museum and and have those takeaways from being where these guys lived, where they ate, where they got their briefings, that they flew off of, came back to, that they lived these really important days and months of their lives, they're gonna see that stuff where it happened and they're gonna walk away uh with those stories. So um uh I love the Intrepid Museum. Um, I it's a shame that I don't live closer, or I'd I'd probably still be there. Um, this is one of the ready rooms up in the gallery deck, um, which again, with my knowledge of the squadron and the ship's history, and when you hear the voices that are piped through, you know, the one MC that tell you in their own words what it was like flying these missions, what it was like when the the kamikaze destroyed this area of the ship. Um it's it's hard to describe what that's like to be where it happened. Um yeah, no, it's it's great.

SPEAKER_02 47:51

Is any of your research uh part of the museum, or do you do presentations there at all?

SPEAKER_01 47:57

Um I do actually tomorrow I'm gonna be presenting to veterans um in an after-hours program at the museum. They do a lot of um free um programs for veterans in different communities locally, so that'll be great. I'll be standing right next to the the Corsair talking about fighter uh pilots and and their role, uh the fighter role aboard Intrepid during World War II. Um uh they they do a lot in those terms. So um the other, I guess, component of this, I mentioned the logbook being on display. A lot of squadron families, whether the items are on display or not, have donated um artifacts to the museum. So many of these are digitized and available um on the kind of digital archive for the Intrepid Museum. So the public can just go on there, see photographs, see medals, see maps of the Pacific that were carried by these men. Um, so over the years, the museum has become more and more a repository for the artifacts related to the squadron as a result of my outreach and research and uh uh meeting families aboard ship. Um, so it's special, you know, those those things uh are coming back to the ship where they were 80 some odd years ago. Uh so it's kind of a homecoming of sorts.

SPEAKER_02 49:17

With the uh Intrepid being uh one of the aircraft carriers that that was uh saved and preserved and is now a museum. The question normally comes up: whatever happened with the uh USS Enterprise, the most decorated ship in the Navy? Um and that's a it's a story in itself, which um you know takes place in the 1950s, so you know, 10 years or so after the war is over, and uh different mindset, uh, I guess for for saving things from World War II. Um what what's your thought on that?

SPEAKER_01 49:50

I'm well I'm glad there's still some um trace of the ship around. Uh I'm if anyone is near New Jersey, the Battleship New Jersey has you know the butt plate of uh of Enterprise on display. My thoughts are certainly that it's uh that it's a shame that it's not still around. Um but I think increasingly there's an opportunity um at these different carrier museums to whether it's through you know ARVR kind of technology, um, to try to make that imminent as best we can, even though we don't have the ship anymore, to preserve its heritage and its legacy. So would I love to go aboard uh Enterprise? You betcha. Um but I think that uh at the end of the day, if we care enough, um, there are ways that we can that we can capture its story, whether it's preserving a piece of the ship uh and making that a draw at a museum, or finding out more, sort of like I've done with the book, you know, who was aboard it, what are the artifacts that are around, and trying to bring that together into a story.

SPEAKER_02 50:54

That's a that's a very good point. It's uh and we talked earlier uh before we came on the air about the fact that uh there's history, which is the dates and places and things that happened, and then there's the history that comes through the stories that that you've discovered, through the families and through the through the veterans who who lived through it. And I think we're we're kind of seeing that shift in history, maybe a little more away from the the pretty dry you know statistics and more into the into the stories. And uh just to circle back to the enterprise, because uh a number of years ago I had the same question. Why wasn't the I read a book about the enterprise and and I I wondered why it wasn't preserved. Well, if we take ourselves back to the mindset of the the mid-50s, uh it was really putting World War II behind us, right? And the the economy is booming, the baby boom is happening, suburbia is happening. There's so many things happening and looking forward that people were not in the same mood to look backwards. And uh just to kind of uh bring that to the CAF mission is that you know the founders of the commemorative Air Force, Confederate Air Force at the time, kind of saw that. I mean, it sort of started as as fun to go fly these airplanes, but then they realized that so many of them had been destroyed that this was an opportunity to do something. And uh let's be honest, it's a little easier to preserve an F6F or a Mustang than it is a full-sized aircraft carrier. So if you want if you want the full story on the Enterprise, I mean there was a fundraiser that was started, they just couldn't get the funding. So it's a story in itself and maybe a show for for uh for future times. And speaking of shows, I I mean Speedball Harris was was quite a character. I mean, has there been any thought about doing a movie about him or someone else from from VFAT?

SPEAKER_01 52:42

Um, I think that would be great. There's been no one's no one's approached me as of yet. Um, but I think, and and I think that you know, knowing Harris, he would be like, no, I don't really, you know, um, because again, he was sort of every time newspaper, uh, newspaper men approached him, like Mori Landberg, um, you know, there were a lot of articles where he said, well, it was easier to get him to talk about his siblings and how proud he was of his siblings. And when he was interviewed for radio, it was if you want the straight dope, you got to talk to my wingman, and him basically like foisting these uh war correspondents off onto Franklin Burley, his wingman, who was an ace in his own right. So um I think he absolutely deserves one. I think it would be great, you know, really a citizen soldier um who who lived up to that kind of archetype. Um, but is one in the works? I am not, I am not sure.

SPEAKER_02 53:31

How would you compare the success rate of the 18th to some of the more well-known groups, the the Red Tails, uh, Black Sheep Squadron, ABG? Most, I mean, I guess just from a high-level observation, most of them operated in a much longer time period than VF-18. But uh from from your research and and and thoughts, what what what do you how do you compare them?

SPEAKER_01 53:57

Yeah, I think the important thing when we're talking about ACEs, right, is you have to have opportunity, um, which is huge, um, and you have to have ability. So as far as opportunity is concerned, a target rich environment, we could call it, um, fighting 18 was in the right place at the right time. Uh the Formosa air battle over the course of that week, October 12th to 16th, Japan allocated, not all of these planes flew as part of it, but they Japan allocated 1,425 planes for for less than a week of combat. Um, that's a huge number. And on October 12th, 1944, uh, the guys in Fighting 18 claimed shooting 46 enemy planes down over the course of that one day. I mean, that's how thick the fighting was. You're not going to see that through most of the course of the war. You could you could have a deployment of months and not see a day like that. So having that opportunity could be the margin of error between being an ace and not being an ace, right? Or having being a high-scoring squadron or not being a high-scoring squadron. So I think more than anything else, that plays a really big role. And I think maybe some of the self-um effacing kind of posture of Harris and some of these other guys was just like, I was I was there when all of this was happening. That's why, you know, being an ace doesn't mean as much to me because I'm just glad I came through it okay. You know, I'm thinking of the guys who didn't. I think that was really their their posture towards the score thing. Um yeah, I think they performed very well, especially given how little um experience they had in combat. Um, but other than that, it's hard to say, like to try to do an apples to apples comparison between other units. Um, yeah. Uh one of our viewers was asking, uh, where where did they originally train? Um so fighting 18 originally was training uh in Hawaii, at least at Kaneoe Bay. When they were still Fighting 36, they would have been um in the vicinity of like San Diego. So Fighting 36 was put together on the West Coast. Um a lot of the guys in the squadron, you know, they were training initially at like Olatha, Kansas, or like uh Barren Field, or um, I know for the operational training units for guys like Wally Walworth and Paula Amberman were out at St. Simon's Island, Georgia. So a lot of them started, you know, um, certainly as cadets going through Pensacola or Corpus Christi. And then when you're getting the call up and the squadrons are being put together, you're on the West Coast. Um, so that's sort of short story long for you. But there we go.

SPEAKER_02 56:42

What do you hope that uh the that people take away from your your book when they when they finish reading it?

SPEAKER_01 56:48

Yeah, I hope they see you know how different all of these guys were, that every kind of plane, every cockpit has a story in it because there's a person who had a completely different set um uh of kind of experiences, different background, different upbringings, different friendships were formed. So I think the the important thing to see is that a squadron is is kind of like a family. Their experience in air combat is really important. There's lots of air combat narratives in the book, obviously, because that was what they were doing out there. Um, but woven into that is really like, all right, well, who is the person who fits our um stereotype of what a fighter pilot is, a fighter jock or whatever, right? Need for speed. Who maybe is more interested in being a pilot because, well, I don't love flying, but this way I can see my contribution to the war effort. That would be like Bryant Walworth. That was his sort of uh position. Getting into the minds of these young men and through their own writing, their own diaries and correspondence. Um, I think that's the most important part for me, and what distinguishes this book from just another unit history, that's mostly sort of like the action reports or the squadron's own little war history. Um goes much deeper into who liked country music, you know, who who was the best man at another guy's wedding? Um, I think that's really fascinating because we that that's what connects us to the stories.

SPEAKER_02 58:16

Excellent. Mike, thank you for uh for joining us tonight for preserving the story of Fighting Squadron 18 and the men who flew those Hellcats off of uh USS Intrepid. Uh if you if you're into aviation, World War II aviation, especially naval aviation, this is a great book, and uh you can add it to your uh to your collection. And and uh Mike, thank you uh again for being uh a part of our show tonight. And for those in the audience, thank you for joining us and thank you for your questions as well. Uh hopefully we we answered them all for you, and uh we uh do appreciate that. Now, we'd like to hear more about your thoughts on tonight's episode. If you have any uh critiques, feedback, we'd love to hear it, or something that you'd like us to cover in in a future show, just drop us a line at media at CAFHQ.org. And as always, if you like tonight's show, please share it across your social media platforms. And uh when you subscribe on YouTube, click that bell icon and you'll get notifications when our new episodes are posted. So until next time, I'm Steve Buss for the Commemorative Air Force. Wishing you blue skies and tailwinds, have a great night.

SPEAKER_00 59:15

CAF Warbird Tube is produced by the Commemorative Air Force and hosted by Steve Bus. The views and opinions expressed by our guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Commemorative Air Force. To learn more about the CAF, explore upcoming episodes, or watch past shows. Visit Commemorative Air Force.org or WarbirdTube.com. You can also watch our show on YouTube at CAF Media TV, or listen wherever you get your podcasts by searching WarbirdTube. Thanks for tuning in, and let's keep implying.