Speaking of Hellcats

[Holedigger]

Recently I have been working with Mark (Mr Hellcat) Mansfield on a little project tracking his father's Naval Aviation career. Here is our result to date, still tweaking and trying to get finished up so he can get it framed and hung in a place of honor.

[Tom Crawford]

This a great way to remember a pilot. I have been trying to research a relative who flew a Hellcat with VF-50 while serving on the U.S.S. Bataan then transferring to VF-8 on the U.S.S.
Bunker Hill. I would like to do the same thing in his memory. He finished the war with 13 kills and a Air Medal. I haven't had a lot of luck with squardron markings and aircraft camouflage colors, if any, and insignia that will be required to accurately represent the profiles. I have the squardron patches. He went on to command a reserve squadron after the war. Do you have any suggestions as to how I can research the information. The Museum of Naval Aviation hasn't been much help.
Thanks,
Tom

[Django]

Very cool Chris!

[Holedigger]

Thanks, fortunately, Mark had a lot of info and pics (I think some came from Jack's Private Stash!). Often very hard to get exact markings right when chasing this stuff down. I'm sure we're not 100% yet.