My favorite WWII fighter plane has always been the F4U Corsair. I still have the drawings I did in 3rd grade class, resulting in a late stay in the principal's office, and have a large wooden model and framed print hanging in my office.
I'm really not trying to sound chauvinistic here, but just stating facts. I watched a History Channel program about the F4U Corsair last year and was surprised that they ignored what to me was a significant part of its development as a carrier fighter.
Initially, the USN concluded that the extremely long nose of the F4U made it so difficult to see ahead in a landing attitude that it was impractical as a carrier plane, where precision in the touchdown is mandatory. They then lend/leased a bunch to the Royal Navy and restricted US use to land-based Marine units (as in Pappy Boyington's "Black Sheep" squadron).
The RN developed a curved, as opposed to a straight-in, approach, allowing the pilot to keep the landing deck in view up to the last few seconds, at which point he would obey the instructions of the Flight Deck Officer with his paddles, which he could still see to the left of that long nose. The USN finally adopted the same procedure, and the F4U went on to rack up a score in the Pacific second only to the F6F.
At the risk of again sounding chauvinistic, the three most important developments of the modern carrier (other than nuclear power): the angled flight deck, optical landing system and steam catapult, were all British. One might perhaps add the armored, as opposed to wooden, flight deck. A RN carrier task force of 4 battleships, 18 carriers and assorted cruisers and smaller craft operated alongside the very much larger USN's in the Pacific in 1945, and several were hit by kamikazes, with none sunk or even suffering major damage. It was a matter of serendipity: the Brits had plenty of steel but very little wood.
Together with their British Seafires and Barracudas, the force had 188 Corsairs, 105 Avengers and 39 F6Fs.
HMS Formidable entering Sydney harbor. The blackened funnel is a result of a kamikaze hit.
