"[4] HELLCAT IN FOREIGN SERVICE

* The Hellcat was also heavily used by the British Royal Navy's Fleet Air
Arm (FAA). A total of 252 F6F-3s were supplied beginning in March 1943. The
FAA had originally wanted to call it the "Gannet F.I (Fighter Mark I)", but
by this time they were realizing that changing the names of Yank aircraft in
their service caused more confusion than it was worth, and so the aircraft
was simply called the "Hellcat F.I".

Two squadrons were built up in 1943, being dispatched on the HMS EMPEROR for
convoy duty late in the year, where they saw no real combat. When the
EMPEROR returned to Britain in early 1944, the ship was sent north in March
as part of OPERATION TUNGSTEN, the attack on the German battleship TIRPITZ
in its protected Norwegian fjord. The Hellcats fought in wintry weather,
taking on German Bf-109Gs and FW-190As, and claiming three kills for the
loss of one of their own.

The Hellcat Is did not participate in the Normandy invasion in June 1944,
but the EMPEROR did participate in the invasion of southern France in
August. US Navy Hellcats also fought in that operation, flying from the
"jeep" carriers KASAAN BAY and TULAGI. The Hellcats performed strikes and
shot down a handful of German aircraft."

From: http://www.faqs.org/docs/air/avf6f.html#m4

Brian