Surplus F6F at Missoula - Hale Field in 1945

[T J Johansen]

I was just looking at Paul Freeman's wonderful abandoned airfield site http://www.airfields-freeman.com/ and while checking out the Montana West entries I found a place called Missoula - Hale Field. In it there is a photo from ca 1945 in which there is an F6F. The text describes the following:

A circa 1945 aerial view looking south showing a considerable number of planes & hangars at Hale Field.

Charles Bloom noted, “You will see in the lower left part a military 'Hellcat' [Grumman F6F] parked on the turf.

That was given to the airport by the military after WWII. The military just flew in it, gave it to the city & left.

I was 9 or 10 years old at the time & used to ride my bicycle out to the field & play in the plane.”

Which leads to the $100 question, whatever happened to this one? I tried looking at Goodall's directory to see if any of the known survivors have spent time in Missoula, but no such luck.

T J

[Chris Brame]

Hmm.

Hale_MT_39_planes.jpg (19.05 KiB) Viewed 2505 times

I'm not so sure that's a Hellcat? The wings are a bit too high on the fuselage; looks like a Wildcat to me.
If so, maybe this one? Only one on the Registry that spent time in Montana:
http://www.warbirdregistry.org/f4fregis ... 47160.html

[Jesse C.]

Hmm.

Hale_MT_39_planes.jpg

I'm not so sure that's a Hellcat? The wings are a bit too high on the fuselage; looks like a Wildcat to me.
If so, maybe this one? Only one on the Registry that spent time in Montana:
http://www.warbirdregistry.org/f4fregis ... 47160.html

Looks like a Buffalo to me

[MacHarvard]

I think it's a Peashooter. Look at the Townend ring, the separation from the fuselage, what appears to be a turtle deck and a high mid wing. ???

[AG pilot]

"I'm not so sure that's a Hellcat? The wings are a bit too high on the fuselage; looks like a Wildcat to me."

I tend to agree, I would say FM-2 Wildcat.

[Dan Jones]

I agree - I think it's an FM-2 as well. The profile of the vertical fin is being distorted by the shadow of the right wing. And it makes more sense for them to be giving away a Wildcat as opposed to an F6F which was still fairly first-line equipment.

[JohnB]

To build on Dan Jones' comment...
When were F6Fs surplused?
Just because the war was over didn't mean everything was available surplus.
For example..P-51Bs were surplussed fairly soon after the war...witness the racing examples...but the P-51D wasn't available until later.
As Dan pointed out, Hellcats were still frontline and Reserve equipment.

Also, ask yourself what would a F6F be doing in Montana?

Whereas we do know that some Wildcats were used as sprayers...so it makes some sense that one could have ended up in Montana.

As far as the other suggestions...a P-26 and Buffalo.
While I can see where the Peashooter idea came from, it does kinda look like one...does anyone have proof that ANY USAAF P-26s survived in airworthy condition until the end of the war?
I've never heard of any in the U.S.
By the end of the war, they were either scrapped or given to foreign governments.

Last edited by JohnB on Mon Jul 13, 2020 12:17 pm, edited 2 times in total.

[Dan Jones]

If I were gonna make a guess... I'd bet that that airplane was an FM-2 that either became a sprayer a year or so later, or got parted out by somebody who had one for a sprayer.

[aerovin]

I was just looking at Paul Freeman's wonderful abandoned airfield site http://www.airfields-freeman.com/ and while checking out the Montana West entries I found a place called Missoula - Hale Field. In it there is a photo from ca 1945 in which there is an F6F. The text describes the following:

A circa 1945 aerial view looking south showing a considerable number of planes & hangars at Hale Field.

Charles Bloom noted, “You will see in the lower left part a military 'Hellcat' [Grumman F6F] parked on the turf.

That was given to the airport by the military after WWII. The military just flew in it, gave it to the city & left.

I was 9 or 10 years old at the time & used to ride my bicycle out to the field & play in the plane.”

Which leads to the $100 question, whatever happened to this one? I tried looking at Goodall's directory to see if any of the known survivors have spent time in Missoula, but no such luck.

T J

Or, it was as the eyewitness recalls: "That was given to the airport by the military after WWII. The military just flew it in, gave it to the city & left." In other words, obtained by the city or local organization as a war memorial and transferred as such by the RFC, as was the case with dozens of other communities obtaining surplus warplanes in 1945-1946. Many of these war memorials never ended up on the civil registry and records of them surface unexpectedly every once in a while. Most were eventually just scrapped by the communities when they went derelict. Granted, most of these transferred aircraft were AAF but Navy aircraft were also available under the same RFC/WAA program. Could have been a local Navy vet was involved in locating a war memorial aircraft.

There were hundreds of surplus F6Fs at Clinton, OK, as well as several other fields, in 1945.

A thorough search of the Missoula paper during that period might provide the answer.

[Chris Brame]

A thorough search of the Missoula paper during that period might provide the answer.

Hit the Newspapers site and searched under "Hellcat", "Wildcat" and "Hale Field". All I turned up was one item, but in the wrong place (and what happened to this one?):

[Chris Brame]

Also found this while I was looking - kind of off topic but a good story:

The_Billings_Gazette_Wed__Jul_25__1945_.jpg (199.42 KiB) Viewed 1430 times

[aerovin]

Just to follow up a bit as a point of reference, as per William T. Larkins' excellent Surplus WWII U.S. Aircraft, as of January 1946 there were 1,151 surplus F6F-3s available for civilian sale by the War Assets Administration at a fixed price of $3,500 each (equates to $46,271 in 2020 dollars) and 197 P-51s (series not specified) also a fixed price of $3,500. Transfers for educational or memorial purposes were much less...$100 to $350...but title was retained by the U.S. government for these aircraft.