09/04/2026
On September 2, 1937, Grumman test pilot Robert L. Hall took XF4F-2 Bu. No. 0383 into the air for the first time. The compact monoplane fighter would not win its first Navy competition, but the basic design would evolve into one of the most important American fighters of the opening years of WWII.
The XF4F-1 had originally been conceived as a biplane competitor to the Brewster F2A Buffalo, but Grumman quickly recognized that the future belonged to monoplanes. The company abandoned the biplane proposal and redesigned the aircraft as the XF4F-2. During Navy trials it competed against the Brewster XF2A-1 and Seversky XFN-1, and the Navy initially selected Brewster's fighter for production. Grumman went back to work.
The substantially revised XF4F-3 received a new wing, a more powerful version of the Twin Wasp and other aerodynamic improvements. Performance increased dramatically, and in 1939 the Navy ordered the fighter into production. It eventually received the name by which we know it today: Wildcat.
By the time the United States entered World War II, the F4F was the Navy and Marine Corps' principal carrier fighter. Wildcats fought during the desperate defense of Wake Island and through the battles of the Coral Sea, Midway and Guadalcanal. It was slower than the Japanese A6M Zero and could not match it in a turning fight, but the rugged Grumman could absorb punishment, carried effective armament and, in the hands of pilots who learned to exploit its strengths, proved a formidable opponent.
The arrival of the F6F Hellcat gradually moved the Wildcat out of the front-line fleet-carrier fighter role, but that wasn't the end of its war. General Motors' Eastern Aircraft Division continued building an improved version as the FM-2, which became particularly valuable aboard smaller es**rt carriers where the larger Hellcat was less suitable. Wildcats continued flying combat missions through the final months of the Pacific War.
More than 7,800 Wildcats and General Motors-built FMs were ultimately produced, serving not only with the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps but also with Britain's Fleet Air Arm, which initially knew the type as the Martlet. In fact, for many years, the CAF Wildcat FM-2 was painted in a Royal Navy Martlet VI scheme representing a Fleet Air Arm unit aboard HMS Nairana. In December 2019, it received a new, authentically applied U.S. Navy paint scheme using original wartime techniques by Warbird Colour of the U.K.
