VF-80 Vipers - Vorse's Vipers of air group eighty

Fighting Squadron 80 was established 1 February 1944 by RADM C.T. Durgin at NAS Atlantic City, N.J. Assigned to command the new unit was LCDR Albert O. Vorse Jr.; his Executive Officer was LT Frank G. Gooding, USNR. "Scoop" Vorse, a 1937 graduate of the Naval Academy, was a remarkably experienced fighter pilot. While serving with VF-2 and VF-3 on USS Lexington (CV-2) and VF-6 on Enterprise (CV-6) during 1942, he had been credited with the destruction of five-and-a-half Japanese aircraft in the Coral Sea and the Solomons.

Assigned to Air Group 80, the squadron's original complement was 36 pilots, 3 ground officers and 15 enlisted men, 14 more pilots reporting in during the following two weeks. VF-80?s aircraft totaled 36 F6F-3 Hellcats. Shortly after its establishment, the officers decided that they would be known henceforth as Vorse's Vipers, or simply, Vipers.

The majority of the Vipers of VF/VBF-80 did fire their guns at an airborne enemy, but by no means all of them. Fifty-seven of them were credited with confirmed kills and at least six more made probable/damaged claims. Ten Vipers became aces during CVG-80's four-month combat tour. Pat Fleming destroyed every Japanese plane he shot at ? a total of 19.

Appropriately, Fighting Eighty scored its last aerial victories on its final mission, even as it had scored its first kills on its first mission on 5 November. These kills brought the squadron's score to 159.5 enemy aircraft destroyed in the air, plus about 60 more probably destroyed and damaged. The Vipers and CVG-80 had done their job well, including the destruction of considerable enemy shipping and many aircraft and installations on the ground.