The Japanese called it "Whistling Death".  Its pilots called it "Hose Nose", "Bent-Wing Bird", or simply the "Hog".  But whatever it was called, the Vought F4U Corsair was the ultimate Navy and Marine Fighter of World War II.

The Vought F4U went down in history as one of the best fighters of the entire Second World War.  With the Grumman Hellcat, it shared the honor and the burden of the last two years of battle against Japan.  In the course of the 64,051 missions (54,470 carried out from land bases and 9,581 from aircraft carriers) completed by the pilots of the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps., the F4U's destroyed 2,140 enemy aircraft in combat, compared to only 189 losses, marking an incredible ratio of more than 11:1.  Nevertheless, as these figures show, the Corsair passed about half of its career in the Pacific confined to land bases, despite its indisputable skills.  This was due to the fact that for almost a year the U.S. Navy did not consider it suitable for use on board ship.   However, the great potential of this powerful combat plane was eventually recognized.  In fact, production continued without interruption for more than 10 years (until December 1952), and amounted to 12,571 aircraft in all.  It continued to serve in the front line of the units of the U.S. Navy until December 1954.  Its career in the French Navy was even longer.  The F4U's were used for another 10 years (until October 1964).

The Corsair was developed at the beginning of 1938, at the request of the U.S. Navy, which ordered the construction of the prototype of a new single-seater carrier-based fighter with advanced characteristics.  Rex B. Beisel, Vought's chief designer, wanted to build the smallest possible airframe compatible with the most powerful engine available at the the time, the Pratt & Whitney XR-2800 Double Wasp (a large 18-cylinder radial, generating 2,000 hp).  The characteristic "inverted gull wing" shape was chosen, which also allowed for the adoption of a propeller with a large diameter.   Such a propeller was capable of absorbing the remarkable engine power and shortening the legs of the forward landing gear to a maximum.

The XF4U-1 prototype took to the air for the first time on May 29, 1940. During a transfer flight on October 1, the aircraft reached 403 mph (650 km/h), thus becoming the first American produced fighter to surpass the 400 mph limit.  However, despite this brilliant performance, the preparation of the prototype proved to be long and laborious.   An initial request was made for the strengthening of its armament.  This modification made it necessary to move the fuel tanks on the wings and to add another in the fuselage.  The pilot's seat was thus moved back by about three feet (90 cm), posing serious visibility problems, which created difficulties in the aircraft's carrier-based qualification testing.

On June 30, 1941, an initial contract for 584 F4U-1's was signed and the first production series aircraft appeared on October 30 of the following year.  However, operations on board the aircraft carriers did not commence until April 1944, and the Corsair first went into service in the units of the Marines and then in the land based units of the U.S. Navy.  In the course of the year, the Fleet Air Arm's F4U's went into frontline service on board the British aircraft carriers.  The Fleet Air Arm received 2,012 aircraft (a further 370 going to the Royal New Zealand Air Force).

The aircraft of the initial version numbered 688 and they were followed on the assembly lines by 2,066 F4U-1A's, with modifications to the engine, the landing gear and the cockpit canopy.  The final change was carried out in order to improve the pilot's visibility.   The principal variants were the F4U-1C (armed with four 20 mm cannons, 300 being built in all), and in 1944 the F4U1-D, with more powerful engine and armament, of which Vought built 1,375. Vought's production was backed by that of Goodyear, and Brewster. The former built 2,302 F4U1-D's (designated FG-1D) and 1,704 F4U-1A's (designated FG-1A), while the latter completed 735 F4U-1's with the designation F3A-1.