Hellcats: A Novel of War in the
Pacific
by Barrett Tillman
Brassey's, 1996, 338 pages
Exciting and realistic air combat scenes fill the pages of
this novel by Barrett Tillman, noted naval aviation historian. Grumman F6F
Hellcat fighter planes achieved impressive combat results during the last three
years of the Pacific War, and the Hellcats destroyed over five thousand
Japanese planes, including many on kamikaze missions. Phil Rogers, commander of
an air group of F6F Hellcats, and Hiroyoshi Sakaida, veteran Japanese pilot who
gets assigned to a kamikaze unit, fly several successful combat missions in
this novel. Although the book excels in its depiction of aerial battles, readers find out
little about the characters' backgrounds, motivations, and innermost thoughts.
Tillman has written over 30 books, including many about
World War II naval aviation such as his nonfiction books Hellcat: The F6F in
World War II (1979) and Hellcat Aces of World War 2 (1996). The
lifelike battle scenes in the novel Hellcats, the second volume of a
planned trilogy, demonstrate his extensive knowledge of naval air battles during
the Pacific War. He has written five other works of fiction, including Dauntless
(1992), the first book of the trilogy about the wartime exploits of pilots Phil
Rogers and Hiroyoshi Sakaida. Tillman plans to complete the trilogy with Sabrejet,
a novel that will follow the two main characters into the Korean War.
Hellcats covers from February 1944 to September 1945, but the two main characters of Rogers and Sakaida do not meet in battle until March
1945 in the last half of the book. The short chapters, each from one page to
four pages, jump back and forth from the American to Japanese side. Many minor
characters quickly come and go, and the battle scenes focus more on action
rather than characterization. Since the stories of the two main characters intersect
in very few places, many times readers will feel this book consists of two
separate stories taking place in the same time period but in completely
different places. Although almost all of Sakaida's fellow pilots from the
beginning of the war die in battle, he somehow survives air battles in the
skies above Truk Atoll, Marianas, Leyte Gulf, Okinawa, mainland Japan, and
China.
The book's multitude of geographic names, acronyms, and
military aviation terms can make reading difficult at times, but three
detailed maps, glossary of acronyms, and description of U.S. and Japanese
aircraft at the front of the book provide great assistance. Although
non-experts in World War II military aviation and the Pacific War may struggle
in some places, this depth of detail and frequent use of technical terms makes
the narrative very realistic. However, in addition to the specialized
vocabulary, the novel has numerous minor characters without distinguishing
traits, so the combination of technical language and number of characters can make the
plot challenging to follow.
Although Sakaida gets assigned to a kamikaze unit in
December 1944, this book does not provide many details to better understand the
motivation of the real kamikaze pilots. Typical of many experienced and
successful Japanese fighter pilots, Sakaida expressed little enthusiasm for
suicide attacks, but he gets a chance to survive by being assigned to the
fighter escort section that protected the kamikaze planes. His unit commander,
whose scarred face reflected a dozen operations to repair the damage from
burns suffered when his plane was shot down in Guadalcanal in 1942, volunteered
for the special attack corps with the motive of personal revenge.
Sakaida gets an offer in March 1945 to join a fighter unit,
but he decides to stay with the kamikaze unit until his unit commander gets an
opportunity to crash into a ship. When his commander gets shot down near a ship
off Okinawa, Sakaida shoots down a Grumman and engages in wild aerial aerobatics over
Rogers' fictional aircraft carrier Reprisal. After a brief stay in a
military hospital for psychiatric evaluation, Sakaida joins a fighter group at
Kanoya Air Base in order to protect Japanese airspace by intercepting American
planes. Although stationed at the main kamikaze base of Kanoya from April to
June during the period of the most intensive kamikaze attacks, the book makes
no mention of the kamikaze units that sortie from Kanoya. A kamikaze plane hits
Rogers' aircraft carrier on April 16, causing 15 deaths and 60 wounded, and the
ship returns to the U.S. for repairs. When Sakaida gets transferred to China,
his final thought about kamikaze operations was his unit commander's "Zero torn
apart and spinning wildly to fruitless destruction."
Hellcats is a great book for aficionados of World War II air combat, but other readers
without much background on the subject will find this novel a difficult read.
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