Today marks 82 years since the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot…

June 1944 was rather eventful.

marianas are a great place to visit. saipan and tinian have a ton to look at from wwii. guam has some but most of the crazy stuff is on andersen and you cant get to it

The fall of Rome on June 5th gets overshadowed for obvious reasons.

quote:

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Yeah, and my mother was born

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Pics?

The Japanese had lost many of its skilled, well-trained pilots earlier in the war.

The Japanese pilots at the Turkey Shoot were poorly trained with little flight time.

The US pilots and the US Army was churning out fighter pilots weekly that were well trained and had lots of flight training.

The F6F Hell Cat was the beast that made it possible. The Japanese at first laughed and scoffed at the Hell Cat but it wouldn't take long for them to realize how mistaken they were.

They thought that their nimble, fast Zeros would obliterate the clunky Hell Cat.

The Hell Cat was one of the most feared weapons in the US arsenal that made the Japanese shutter in fear.

Coupled with the fact that American pilots, overtime, were better armed, more flight time and with superior airplane, the Japanese airplanes were no match for the 'clunky, slow' Hell Cat.