Text: Richard Plos

Illustration: Adam Tooby

Cat. No. 84194

In January 1944, American forces were entering the third year of the war in the Pacific. They had a number of combat operations under their belts, and experience to the credit of units, commanders, and their men was growing. However, none of these experienced men were present at the formation of VF-34, a Naval fighter squadron that was to operate from land bases during the final phase of Operation Cartweel. The newly and hastily formed unit consisted of 45 pilots, only one of whom had seen any combat action and only two of whom were classified as fully trained Class A pilots. None of the eighteen Lieutenant or Lieutenat Junior Grade pilots had completed combat training, and of the twenty five Ensign rank pilots, twenty had indeed been trained, but only ten of them in the F6F Hellcat. The rest had only experience in Wildcats or Dauntlesses. This was simply not an A-team, or even a B-team. More like a C-team ... Still, the unit was thrown into combat without hesitation.

The personnel of the new VF-34 departed San Diego on February 13 bound for Pearl Harbor, from where they were airlifted to Espiritu Santo on February 23 to pick up their equipment. Within a week everything was ready, and on March 3 the entire unit moved to Guadalcanal and from there to Piva Yoke airfield on Bougainville, where the rookies of VF-34 first encountered the harsh realities of war. Their airfield experienced shelling the very next day and three aircraft were damaged. Therefore, VF-34 left the hot ground and moved to the island of Vella Lavella, where the pilots made their first combat sorties, but their location proved logistically disadvantageous. So, their third and final move followed. Green Island became the squadron’s home for nearly two months.

Pilots of VF-34 provided escort to bomber formations of Mitchells, Dauntlesses or Avengers and attacked ground targets, though they had no opportunity to get a single kill because the enemy aircraft were neither seen nor heard.. Thus, the greatest danger to the VF-34 pilots was Japanese anti-aircraft fire, which soon claimed its first victim when Ens. Driscoll was hit by defensive fire during an attack on a Japanese boat. Although he managed to land on the sea and was even seen swimming away from the sinking aircraft, he disappeared shortly thereafter and was never found. Ten days later the unit suffered a second loss when Ens. Miller failed to return from an attack on Japanese vessels off New Ireland, and five days later the squadron endured its third casualty. In bad weather conditions, Lt. Rose’s landing Hellcat collided with an Avenger that was landing on the runway in the opposite direction. The unfortunate pilot was pulled out of the burning wreckage by Lt. Kukuk, but Rose died shortly afterwards in hospital.

It took less than a month of fighting for the rookies to become seasoned warriors, because the combat sorties were conducted one after the other virtually on an everyday basis. The squadron’s account included destroyed ammunition or fuel depots, vessels including gun boats, trucks, engineering machines or port facilities. There was hardly a mission from which the pilots did not bring back some wounds, caused by the “salutes” of Japanese anti-aircraft guns. Pilots attacked from ever lower altitudes. Sometimes they literally “combed” the tops of the vegetation with their propellers, which proved fatal to the Ens. Richardson, who hit a tree on April 24. His Hellcat flew by inertia over the shoreline to the water surface and soon disappeared under it.

The fifth and most unfortunate loss was suffered by VF-34 three days before the end of its operational tour. Two divisions led by Lt. Knight and Lt. Shaw escorted Avengers and Dauntlesses that were to attack two Japanese gun boats. During the attack, Lt. Knight was hit by AA fire and crashed into the ocean. Both boats were destroyed, unfortunately it turned out they were not Japanese but American...

The Navy was quite strict when it came to the efforts of personnel to improve the appearance of their aircraft with various nosearts. Occasional exceptions happened though, especially when the unit was out of reach of high command officers’ supervision, which was the case with the VF-34. Thus, several of their Hellcats were decorated with some pin-ups, including the boxart aircraft of kit cat. no. 84194. The port side was decorated with a painting based on Vargas’ masterpiece from the Esquire magazine calendar and the inscription Mary Jane, while the starboard side was most likely adorned with the cut-out of the same calendar glued to the fuselage.