Fighting Fifteen: The Navy's Top Ace and the Deadliest Hellcat Squadron of the Pacific War

by Stephen L. Moore

The inspiring, action-packed tale of VF-15, the elite group of U.S. Navy “top gun” pilots that destroyed more enemy planes than any other Pacific War squadron.

David McCampbell ended his tour of duty as the navy’s “ace of aces,” with thirty-four confirmed enemy planes shot down, and received the Medal of Honor. His “Fighting Fifteen” played a major part in bringing an end to the Pacific War. But when the squadron was commissioned in 1943, most of its men—some barely out of their teenage years—were completely new to aerial combat. A string of deadly crashes during training in their rugged new F6F-3 Hellcats led the men to be booted off their first carrier. With their commander fired and McCampbell installed in his place, the group’s future looked bleak.

But McCampbell transformed this ragged group of talented but disparate individuals into a selfless team of well-trained aviators, and by the time they formally entered the Pacific War with a series of daring island strikes, they were ready. Nicknamed "Satan's Playmates," during six critical months of combat the squadron destroyed a record-setting 660 enemy planes across air and ground. Twenty-six of the men would eventually become aces, ascending to an elite fraternity and immortalizing the “Fabled Fifteen.” Now, using previously unknown accounts from the aviators themselves, military historian Stephen L. Moore places readers in the heart of the action as McCampbell and his flying band of brothers battle the Japanese navy and its formidable Zero fighters to the death.

Genres: History, Military Fiction, Nonfiction

432 pages, Hardcover

Published November 18, 2025

Reviews

[Marc · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for this review.

VF-15, or Fighting Fifteen, was the fighter squadron component of Air Group 15 which sailed aboard the USS Essex and saw extensive action during both the Battle of the Philippine Sea and the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The majority of the pilots in the squadron had no combat experience, yet by the end of their tour in November, 1944, the squadron claimed over 600 Japanese aircraft destroyed in the air and on the ground, along with having 26 of its pilots being named aces. Even though he did not command the squadron in combat, Commander David McCampbell was its first commanding officer and served as the commander of Air Group 15 during its tour. As such, he participated in much of the combat action which VF-15 was a part of.

Author Moore has written a really good book on McCampbell and VF-15 as they carved their way through Japanese planes and into US Navy history. While McCampbell gets a significant amount of ink (spoils of being the US Navy's top ace of World War II), other pilots such as Roy Rushing, Clarence "Spike" Borley, Bert Morris, John Strane, Wendell Van Twelves and George Carr have their stories told as well. For the aviation combat enthusiast, there is a ton of content which will surely satisfy anyone, and not just for the fighters of VF-15 as there's also a nice amount of action involving the other three elements of AG-15: VB-15 (dive bombers), VT-15 (torpedo bombers) and VF(N)-77 (night fighters). There are some great photos in the book showing the various pilots and planes, along with some good action shots.

So, if the book is so good why did I only give it 4 stars? Well, the author either made a major error in his writing or something got screwed up in the version I received. The issue in question is the sinking of the USS Princeton during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Author Moore has it sinking on two different days in two different engagements. I'm not sure if the story of the Princeton's demise somehow got split into two pieces and accidentally put in the wrong place, so I'm hoping the book will receive a final editorial review prior to publishing.

But overall, a really good book which will satisfy anyone who loves aerial combat, Grumman F6F fighters, the US Navy, or any combination of the three.

[Chad Manske · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stephen L. Moore’s “Fighting Fifteen” is a crackling, exhaustively researched squadron biography that reads less like unit history and more like an ensemble war drama played out in the cobalt skies over the Pacific. It takes what could have been a stats-and-sorties narrative and instead delivers a richly human portrait of VF‑15, “Satan’s Playmates,” as they claw their way from a shaky stand‑up to the Navy’s top‑scoring fighter squadron of the war. Moore anchors the book around Commander David McCampbell, the Navy’s “ace of aces,” but wisely refuses to let him eclipse the rest of the air group. The result is a layered account in which Medal of Honor heroics—McCampbell’s 34 kills and legendary multiple‑victory missions—sit alongside the anxieties of barely twenty‑year‑old ensigns wrestling with fear, mechanical failure, and the grinding tempo of carrier operations. The narrative is at its most compelling in charting VF‑15’s transformation. Early chapters show a squadron so plagued by training accidents in their brutish F6F‑3 Hellcats that they are actually booted off their first carrier, their original commander fired, and their future uncertain. Moore then tracks how McCampbell shapes this rattled collection of pilots into a lethal, tightly knit outfit that will eventually claim a staggering 660 enemy aircraft destroyed in just six months of combat. What elevates “Fighting Fifteen” above typical “there I was” aviation fare is Moore’s feel for both context and cockpit‑level immediacy. He threads the squadron’s strikes through the larger campaign—battles against Zeroes, the hammer blows against the Japanese fleet, and the closing months of the Pacific War—without ever losing sight of the individual aviators and the families waiting at home. The dogfights are crisp and intelligible; readers can almost feel the G‑forces as Hellcats roll into yet another high‑deflection shot. The book is dense and occasionally overwhelming in its profusion of names and missions, but that same density makes it a treasure trove for serious students of naval air war. For anyone interested in how an elite combat unit is forged—through failure, relentless training, and brutal baptism in battle—“Fighting Fifteen” is as gripping as it is illuminating.

[Nic]

While this book contains a lot of information and is obviously very-well researched, the author's writing style is not my cup of tea.

Getting to the meat of this book was a real struggle for me. I found the first 50 pages to be all over the place. It had a promising start with one of the Fighting Fifteen ending up in the drink as a Japanese fishing boat approaches. But the next chapter we're on the deck of the USS Wasp as it takes a hit from enemy bombers. The next three chapters are a whirlwind of names being thrown at the reader as Moore introduces the pilots and officers who will eventually make up the Fighting Fifteen Squadron. There are two separate mentions of an incident in which depth charges explode. One mention states that 400 people were injured. The second mentions only 200 injured. I doubt there were two such incidents, and mentioning it first with one pilot and then giving another account of it was just odd and confusing.

Another similarly confusing recap is that of the Seagull float planes under attack. We get this fight first from Campbell's perspective, whose return to his ship is discussed, which makes one think the action has concluded. Then the incident is recorded from the perspective of the Seagull pilots. Next, we have Duz Twelves's account, followed by the Japanese pilot's account, and each one is presented as a separate piece. Why not explain the action in sequence so it makes sense?

It takes a very long time for the Fifteen to actually get into the war, and the book’s forward momentum is choked by information that is not essential for the reader to understand the situation nor does it add to the story. We don’t need to know that McCampbell skipped breakfast in favor of coffee and cigarettes, but occasionally had a glass of orange juice. This kind of extraneous and unnecessary information results in text that is stilted and frustrating, especially when a reader is 67 pages into a book about naval aviation combat, and so far, there’s been zero combat mentioned since the brief introductory pages.

When it finally does get to some action, the author will be describing an incident of combat, and in the middle, he’ll go into a lengthy explanation of a plane’s code-name, thus quashing the action and losing the momentum of that action. The code name information would better serve as a footnote.

I am sure fans of Stephen L. Moore will enjoy his latest book. Unfortunately, I just couldn't get over the writing style that became a major obstacle in my reading and enjoyment of this one.

[William Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Fighting Fifteen: The Navy's Top Ace and the Deadliest Hellcat Squadron of the Pacific War,' written by Stephen L. Moore and to be published under the imprint of Dutton Caliber, is something of a tour de force in its genre. I am grateful to the publisher for the ARC provided to me for review purposes. The text focuses on events in the Pacific from 1943, after the tide of war had turned against the Imperial Japanese Empire and its largely fanciful Greater East Asian CoProsperity Sphere. Using a gripping examination of what the war was like on the deck of the fleet carrier Essex and her escorts and the task forces she served in, the author manages to highlight a lot of material often not connected in earlier works. The Mariana's Turkey Shoot, for example, comes alive as we jump from cockpit to cockpit in the participating fighters, highlighting their technological sophistication by showing what happens when heavily armed and armored fighter aircraft with self-sealing fuel tanks meet the war's first generation fighters, like the superb Japanese Zeke/Zero, maneuverable to a fault but crewed by the survivors of an archaic training regimen inadequate to allow them to meet their enemies on anything like a level playing field. By this time of the war, Japan's chickens had really and truly come home to roost as increasingly unprepared and inadequate Imperial forces were committed to defend the rapidly shrinking perimeter of the so called Greater East Asian CoProsperity Sphere against the growing might of Allied forces with no apparent plan beyond the notion of a war of attrition which the Allies would presumably quit first. Rampaging Naval Task Forces and a growing Allied submarine fleet moved about almost at will with the Japanese increasingly constrained by resource shortages and a growing fear of the existential threat that the Allies clearly were prepared to be. The riveting air combat descriptions alone are worth the price of admission by themselves. This book belongs in every serious collection.

[Indra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fighting Fifteen is a dogfight of a book: fast, fierce, and grounded in deep respect for the real men behind the myths. 💥🛩️

This isn’t a sanitized war story. It's built from cockpit transcripts, mission debriefs, and gritty firsthand accounts. At the center is David McCampbell, the Navy’s "Ace of Aces" with thirty-four confirmed kills and a Medal of Honor. But this isn't just about one man. It's about VF-15, a ragtag group of young pilots who went from chaotic training mishaps to becoming the most deadly fighter squadron in the Pacific.

They weren’t born legends. They crashed. They fought bureaucracy. They got kicked off their first carrier. But under McCampbell’s steady hand, they became what history now calls the "Fabled Fifteen", twenty-six of them finishing as full-blown aces.

The narrative takes a minute to settle. The early chapters are heavy on names and jump between scenes, which may throw readers looking for a tight linear story. Some factual hiccups pop up too, like conflicting details about the USS Princeton. But once VF-15 hits combat, the momentum is impossible to resist.

💣 The battles are vivid.
💡 The leadership moments are electric.
🩸 The stakes are life and death.

Moore writes with clarity and admiration, giving voice to pilots who had no guarantee they'd make it back. This is history with heart. The kind that reminds you how much courage it took to strap into a Hellcat and dive into a sky full of Zeros.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ A high-caliber tribute to Navy grit, Pacific valor, and the men who refused to back down. For fans of aviation history, this is essential reading.

Thank you to Dutton for the gifted copy.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

David McCampbell was the ultimate “Ace of Aces”; thirty-four confirmed shootdowns and a Medal of Honor.. He led VF-15, the squadron that became known as the “Fabled Fifteen,” and an incredible twenty-six of his men went on to become aces themselves (an ace = a pilot who racks up a certain number of aerial victories, though the exact number varies).
Fighting Fifteen is fantastic. Stephen L. Moore pulls from the aviators’ own accounts, which makes the story feel raw, real, and impossible to put down. You know I love WWII aviation, and these pilots were absolute pioneers. Plus, bonus points: this one focuses on the Pacific theater!
Thank you Dutton Caliber & NetGalley for the ARC!
#FightingFifteen #NetGalley

[Julie Pint · Rating 4 out of 5]

A look at what became known as the Fighting Fifteen - a group of rag tag fighter pilots that help to bring the war in the Pacific to a conclusion. It’s not a light book and at times reads like a textbook. We are treated to a look at what it takes to make a flying ace, and how that evolves into some of the fiercest fighting throughout the entire war. Thanks to NetGalley for the read.