[R Leonard]

Just missed the cut off - - -

LT Thomas Sherwood Sedaker -- VC-84 -- 4.833 / 0.0 / 0.0

FM-2 aces were:

LT Ralph Earle Elliott Jr -- VC-27 -- 9.000 / 0.000 / 0.500
LCDR Harold Nathan Funk -- VF-26 -- 6.000 / 0.000 / 0.000
ENS Joseph Dennis McGraw -- VC-10 & VC-80 -- 5.000 / 0.000 / 1.000
LT Kenneth George Hippe -- VC-3 -- 5.000 / 0.000 / 0.000
LT Leo Martin Ferko -- VC-4 & VC-20 -- 5.000 / 0.000 / 0.000

Sedaker is next on the list.

Your step-father just missed my father. Dad was exec of BHR when she came out of the yard from her SCB-27/SCB-125 modernization/conversion in 1955. He made the first launch with the new catapults and the first trap on her nice new angle deck. Somewhere around here I've a large chunk of wood with a big brass plaque commemorating the event.

My father flew the F4F-3 and the F4F-4 in combat. He always said he preferred the -3 to the -4. He picked up a lot of FM-2 hours while VF training officer at ComFAirWest from the fall of 1943 to fall of 1944. He thought the FM to be similar in handling to the -3, but a shade hotter. Its interesting to note that BuAer thought the FM-2 to be sufficiently different from the F4Fs that they tracked its combat statistics separately.

Rich