The tip of the American spear is Task Force 38—the fast carriers, floating cities of steel and gasoline. Among them is the USS Essex (CV-9), the lead ship of her class. And leading the Essex’s Air Wing is David McCambell.

McCambell is a different breed. Born in Bessemer, Alabama, he isn’t a hotheaded kid. He’s a Naval Academy graduate, class of 1933. He was kicked out of the Navy once for insufficient eyesight during the Great Depression cuts, only to fight his way back in. He spent years as a Landing Signal Officer (LSO), waving other men onto the deck. He watched friends crash. He watched friends die. He learned patience. He learned that in naval aviation, discipline matters more than bravado.

By 1944, he is the CAG—Commander Air Group. His job is to manage the battle, not fight it. He flies a Grumman F6F-5 Hellcat, a plane he named “Minsi III.” The F6F Hellcat is not a pretty plane. It is a factory of violence. The pilots call it the “aluminum tank.” It was built for one specific purpose—to kill the Japanese Zero. It has a 2,000 horsepower Pratt & Whitney Double Wasp engine, a radial beast that pulls the airframe through the sky at 380 mph. It is armored, rugged, and forgiving, but its greatest asset is the ammo capacity. The Hellcat carries nearly double the ammunition of some of its contemporaries. It is designed for sustained combat, and on this October morning, McCambell will need every single bullet.

The morning of October 24th is chaos. Reports are flooding in of Japanese battleships in the Sibuyan Sea. American planes are launching constantly. McCambell has already flown a sortie that morning, but when he lands, the Essex radar picks up a new threat. Raid One—a massive bogey detected to the north. The Essex deck is fouled. They can only scramble seven fighters. Seven. McCambell jumps into Minsi III. He doesn’t even have a full fuel load—the tanks are only partially filled to get him off the deck faster. He roars down the flight deck and climbs.

Within minutes, the situation deteriorates. Five of the seven Hellcats are forced to turn back—mechanical issues, engine trouble, low fuel. They drop out of formation one by one. Suddenly, the sky is very empty. It is just Commander McCambell and his wingman, Ensign Roy Rushing. Rushing is young, aggressive, and loyal. He pulls his Hellcat up alongside the commander. “I’m with you, CAG,” he radios.

Below them, the American fleet is exposed. Above them, the Japanese formation appears—a massive V of fighters: Zeros, Oscars, and Tonys. They are escorting dive bombers. The Japanese pilots spot the two lone American planes. They don’t seem worried. Why would they be? It’s sixty against two.

McCambell looks at the swarm. He doesn’t panic. He doesn’t call for help that isn’t coming. He opens the throttle. The Pratt & Whitney engine screams. The trap is set, but the Japanese don’t realize they are the ones inside it.

The greatest mistake a fighter pilot can make is to lose his head. When you are outnumbered thirty to one, aggression is usually a death sentence. If McCambell dives into the middle of the Japanese formation, he will be swarmed. He will be shot to pieces in seconds. McCambell knows the Japanese Zero. It is nimble, lightweight, and can turn on a dime. If he tries to dogfight them turn for turn, he loses. But the Hellcat has advantages: speed, diving ability, and altitude performance.

McCambell makes a decision that will be studied in war colleges for decades. He refuses to dogfight. He chooses to herd them. McCambell climbs to 25,000 feet, positioning himself above the Japanese formation. He uses the sun to hide his silhouette. He watches them. The Japanese formation is undisciplined. They are weaving, confident in their numbers. He keys his radio to Rushing. “We’re going to work on the stragglers.” This is the strategy of a wolf pack. They will not attack the main body. They will pick off the weak, the slow, the ones on the edges.

McCambell dives. This is not a strafing run. It is a high-speed slash. He screams down from altitude, reaching speeds of 400 mph. The Hellcat shudders under the G-force. He lines up on a Japanese A6M Zero flying on the outer edge of the formation. He waits. 800 yards. 600 yards. 400 yards. He squeezes the trigger. The .50 cals erupt. The Hellcat shudders as tracers pour out. The Zero, unarmored and fragile, catches fire instantly. It explodes into a fireball.

McCambell doesn’t watch it fall. He pulls back on the stick, using his immense speed to rocket back up into altitude. Untouchable. Boom and zoom. One down. Fifty-nine to go.

The Japanese formation reacts like an angry hive. Fighters break formation to chase him. They pull their noses up, trying to catch the climbing American. This is exactly what McCambell wants. The Hellcat has superior climb energy. The Japanese planes stall out trying to reach him. As they hang in the air, motionless for a split second before falling back, they are helpless.

McCambell and Rushing repeat the maneuver. They dive. They fire. They climb. Another Zero goes down in smoke. Then a Tony—a Kawasaki Ki-61. The Japanese are confused. They can’t corner these two Americans. Every time they try to swarm, the Hellcats are already gone, climbing back to the sun.

For the next ninety minutes, a strange rhythm takes over. McCambell is methodical. He is not spraying bullets wildly. He is conserving everything. He fires in short, controlled bursts—one second, two seconds. He watches a Japanese fighter drift too far from his wingman. Dive, fire, kill, climb. It becomes mechanical. At one point, McCambell finds himself diving on a Japanese fighter that tries to loop over him. McCambell pulls lead, calculating the deflection. He fires a burst into the enemy’s engine block. The plane disintegrates.

Rushing is doing his part, too. The young Ensign is sticking to McCambell like glue, protecting his tail and taking his own shots. They are a two-man demolition crew.

The Japanese pilots begin to panic. They are losing planes so fast they assume they are being attacked by a squadron. They start to break formation. They drop their bombs into the ocean to gain speed. McCambell has achieved his primary objective. The fleet is safe. The bombers have aborted, but he isn’t done. He still has ammo and he still has fuel. The fight has drifted over 100 miles. They are far from the Essex. The fuel gauges in the Hellcats are dropping into the red. Normally, this is when you go home, but McCambell sees something. The Japanese fighters, now without their bombs, are turning back toward Luzon. They are running.

McCambell looks at Rushing. “You have ammo left?” “Yes, sir.” “Then let’s finish them.” They pursue the retreating enemy. This is the most dangerous phase. They are deep in enemy territory, low on gas, and fatigue is setting in. Flying a fighter plane in combat is physically exhausting. The G-forces drain the blood from your brain. The adrenaline dump leaves you shaking. McCambell’s hands are steady. He chews on a cigar stub he keeps for luck. He checks his gun sight. He lines up the next victim.

As the chase continues, McCambell enters a state of flow. He is no longer just a pilot. He is a surgeon. He spots two Zeros flying close together—a section. Usually, you pick one. McCambell decides to take both. He dives, gaining speed. He aligns his sights on the trailing plane. A short burst. The right wing of the Zero shears off. The plane enters a flat spin. McCambell doesn’t climb this time. He maintains his energy and slides his sights onto the lead plane. The Japanese pilot doesn’t even know his wingman is dead. McCambell fires. The fuel tank in the Zero’s fuselage ignites. Two kills in ten seconds.

He checks his counters. He is running dangerously low on .50 caliber rounds. He has shot down five planes. That makes him an ace in a day—in a single morning. But there are more targets ahead. Rushing radios over. “I’m tallying three more, CAG.” “Take them,” McCambell orders.

The two Americans are now simply harvesting the enemy formation. The Japanese pilots are demoralized. They are flying straight and level, just trying to get home. They have lost the will to fight. McCambell pulls up behind a Nakajima Ki-43 Oscar. He is so close he can see the pilot’s head in the cockpit. He fires. Click. Only three guns fire. The others are jammed or empty. The torque of the uneven recoil throws his plane sideways. He wrestles the stick, kicks the rudder, and realigns. He fires the remaining rounds. The Oscar explodes.

He is now at seven kills. Most pilots go an entire war without seeing seven enemy planes, let alone shooting them down. He finds another straggler. He has to aim carefully now. He can’t afford a deflection shot. He needs a no-deflection shot straight from behind. He creeps in. Closer. Closer. He waits until the enemy fills the windscreen. He taps the trigger. Eight.

Finally, a lone fighter tries to dive away toward the cloud deck over Luzon. McCambell chases him. He has only a few seconds of firing time left. He anticipates the Japanese pilot’s turn. He fires a burst into the cockpit. The plane smokes and noses over into the jungle below. Nine. Nine confirmed kills in a single sortie. It is a record that has never been broken by an American pilot. Rushing has shot down six. Together, two men have destroyed fifteen enemy aircraft in ninety minutes.

The silence returns. The sky is empty. The Japanese formation has been shattered. The survivors have scattered. Now the adrenaline fades and the reality of physics takes over. McCambell looks at his fuel gauge. It is effectively at zero. He is over Luzon. The Essex is over a hundred miles away. He radios Rushing. “Let’s go home. Lean it out.”

They drop their RPMs. They lean the fuel mixture until the engines are barely running, sipping gas. They glide more than they fly. The flight back is agonizing. Every minute they expect the engine to cough and die. If they ditch in the water here, they will likely never be found. Or worse, they will be captured by the Japanese, who are not known for their mercy to downed pilots.

The fleet appears on the horizon—tiny gray specks on a blue carpet. McCambell calls the tower. “Consumer One inbound. Dry, I repeat, dry.” The Essex clears the deck. They know something big has happened. They counted the radio chatter.

McCambell lowers his landing gear. He prays the hydraulics still work. They do. He lines up on the deck. He has one shot. He cannot go around. He doesn’t have the fuel for a second pass. The LSO waves him in. “Cut throttle.” The Hellcat drops. The tail hook catches the number three wire. The cable stretches, groans, and snaps the plane to a halt. The engine sputters and dies instantly. It didn’t stall. It ran out of gas. There was exactly one gallon of fuel left in the tank—enough for perhaps thirty seconds of flight.

The deck crew rushes the plane. They are used to patching up holes. They expect the plane to be riddled with bullets. They walk around Minsi III. There is not a single bullet hole—not one. In a fight against sixty aircraft, McCambell was never touched.

Then the ordnance men open the gun bays to rearm the plane. They freeze. The Hellcat holds 2,400 rounds of ammunition. McCambell has two rounds left—two bullets. He destroyed nine aircraft and forced a massive enemy formation to retreat. And he used almost every single piece of lead he carried to do it.

McCambell climbs out of the cockpit. He is stiff, sweaty, and exhausted. His face is covered in soot from the gun gases. Rushing lands right behind him. The young Ensign is grinning. “We had a field day, CAG.” McCambell just nods. He walks to the ready room. The intelligence officers don’t believe him at first—nine planes in one flight—but the gun camera footage tells the story. The film is developed. It shows plane after plane disintegrating. It shows the discipline. It shows the smile of a man who knew exactly what he was doing.

News of the “Turkey Shoot” spreads through the fleet. It boosts morale at a critical moment. The Battle of Leyte Gulf rages on, but the air war has turned. The Japanese naval air arm never recovers from the losses of 1944.

David McCambell is recommended for the Medal of Honor. The citation reads: “For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty.” Commander McCambell, assisted by but one plane, intercepted and daringly attacked a formation of sixty hostile land-based craft, shooting down nine Japanese planes and disorganizing the enemy group.

President Roosevelt himself receives the report. McCambell becomes the ace of aces for the US Navy. He finishes the war with thirty-four aerial victories—the highest of any American Navy pilot in history.

David McCambell survived the war. He didn’t write a book immediately. He didn’t brag. He stayed in the Navy, retiring as a captain in 1964. He passed away in 1996 in Florida.

But his legacy isn’t just the medal or the kill count. It’s the lesson of that day in October when the radar screen turned red. When the odds were sixty to two, when fear said run and logic said hide, McCambell turned his plane toward the enemy.

The story of David McCambell is a reminder that in the chaos of war, technology and numbers are only half the equation. The other half is the human element—the ability to stay calm when the world is burning. The ability to think when others panic. McCambell didn’t survive because he was lucky. He survived because he was a professional. He treated a sixty-plane dogfight like a math problem, and he solved it one bullet at a time.

He was the hunter, and on that day the sky belonged to him.

There was a time when giants walked the earth, and they flew Hellcats.

If you enjoyed this deep dive into naval aviation history, keep your airspeed up and stay tuned. Because the stories of the aces of World War II are far from over. Was the Hellcat the best carrier fighter of the war, or does the Corsair take the crown? Let us know what you think. And remember: sometimes, the sky belongs to the man who refuses to back down.