Brewster F2A Buffalo

This is a story of an American fighter with a very controversial fate. The F2A Buffalo fought in various theaters of World War II at the beginning of 1940th – from the Arctic Circle to the Pacific Ocean. The evaluation of the warplane was no less controversial: the hero of the Finnish Air Force earned a reputation of an old-fashioned loser in its homeland, the USA.

In the middle of the 30th the United States of America was recovering from the Great Depression which in its turn affected not only the economic situation of the country but also its defense capacity. For example the main fighters on military service at that time were army’s Boeing Р-26 Peashooter and fleet’s Grumman F3F. The first had an all-metal design and a number of anachronisms like open cabin and non-retractable landing wheels in a cowling, whereas the second was a biplane equipped with two machineguns. And that was the time when the lead aeronautic countries were actively building fast-speed monoplanes and the world was on the edge of the new world war.

In 1935 the US Navy authority undertakes a tendering procedure for the development of a new fighter for carrier aviation. The winners of the tender were 2 companies: the already mentioned Grunnman, with a monoplane based on F3F, which later became the famous F4F Wildcat, and Brewster Company, which had been famous since XIX century. At that time they produced mail coaches and from 1870th switched to railcars. According to the tender result its aeronautic department became a winner. The military chose it from the economic considerations: the future F2A Buffalo turned out to be cheaper and simpler than its competitor. Legend has it during the construction of the warplane a railway tank-car building technology was used.

However the low price did not do good for the new warplane. The F2A Buffalo was able to reach 444 km/h (according to agreement) only after sweeping it out in the air tunnel and serious improvements to its aerodynamic scheme. The first F2A-1 Buffalo lot consisted of 55 warplanes. 11 of them were began service in the US Navy, the rest were sold to Finland under an export index B-239. Later appeared two more modifications of the warplane: F2A-2 with the Wright R-1820-G40 engine 1200 h.p. and F2A-3, equipped with a enlarged fuel tank.

Though the Brewster F2A Buffalo was designed as a carrier fighter its fleet service did not last long: by Spring 1941 it was replaced by a superior Grumman F4F Wildcat on the US carrier. Most of the F2A warplanes continued their military service on land bases, some part of them were patrolling North Atlantic and Caribbean Sea, being able to spot 8 and damage 1 German submarines.

The direct participation in combat operations took the squadron of F2A’s which was in service with U.S. Marine Corps. Firstly, they were based in Pearl Harbor, later the squadron was moved to the Midway Islands where in June 1942 they participated in one of the most crucial battles of WW2. During the Midway battle the Japanese shot down 13 Buffalo fighters and destroyed 6 more on the airfield. The F2A pilots in their turn “killed” 3 bombers and 2 fighters of the adversary. F2A Buffalo, getting out of date, had little chance to compete with Japanese Mitsubishi A6M Zero, which totally dominated the sky. So, no wonder the pilots soon started calling it a “flying coffin”, which sounded really sarcastic. Nevertheless, it’s also worth mentioning that the Maine Corps pilots themselves were far from being top guns in the beginning of WW2.

The situation with Brewster F2A Buffalo (B-239), used by the Suomi Air Forces in 1939-1945, was absolutely different. Finnish F2A was reconstructed for air-to-ground operations, for instance, the rescue boat container, located behind the pilot’s head, was replaced by the automatic direction finder. During the Winter War in 1939 (between the USSR and Finland) Buffalo fighters were considered rather dangerous opponents for Soviet biplanes (I-15, I-15bis, I-153) and even monoplanes (I-16 of early and mid series). The reason was quite obvious - excellent flight training of the Suomi pilots. As compared with the Soviet Air Forces with their “mass production” approach towards both aircraft manufacturing and staff training, the Finnish had to take care of every machine and each pilot. As a result, pilots simply perfected their flying techniques to the highest level. Many Suomi aces started with F2A including the most famous of them – the legendary Eino Ilmari Juutilainen (92 victories, 34 of them – with B-239). One of Finnish Brewster F2A Buffalo fighters shot down a German scout aircraft Junkers 88 in January 1945 after signing the peace treaty with the USSR when Finland got involved into the military actions against Germany. So, the machine had been serving to this country quite well for a very long time. 

Apart from Finland, the Dutch and Brits were also purchasing Brewster F2A Buffalo fighters; the former - in order to protect their colonies in Indonesia from the Japanese and the latter – so as to use them, first, for the Air Defense of Great Britain, then – that of Crete. F2A is far from being a perfect air defender due to lack of its altitude capacity. So, finally, it was sent to Malaysia and Singapore. This region wasn’t considered that important, as the potential military threat on behalf of Japan was really underestimated. The Japanese Intelligence service managed to deceive the British, persuading them that the Japanese aircrafts were hopelessly out of date. So, no wonder, that the British pilots were really astonished when meeting Mitsubishi A6M Zero and Nakajima Ki-43 Hayabusa aircrafts in action in 1941-1942. Brits had many experienced pilots but most of them were sent to colonies in due to their age or injuries. So, the situation was pretty similar to that in Midway – far from being perfect.

To sum up, the case of Brewster F2A Buffalo simply proves the commonplace truth: not the machines but people, who operate them, really matter. Ordinary machines run by real aces played a really crucial part in military actions. The strong points of F2A placed this reliable aircraft on WW2 records.