Designed by Grumman as a biplane, the XF4F-1 was replanned on the drawing board in 1936 as a mid-wing monoplane. The XF4F-3 development was accepted by the US Navy as the production F4F-3 Wildcat. The French ordered it as the G-36 but France fell before any deliveries and the order was taken over by Britain calling it Martlet I. A Martlet recorded the first kill for this type on Christmas Day 1940 when it shot down a Ju-88.
The F4F was ideally suited for the smaller escort carriers and thus were involved in the whole of World War II, from the North Atlantic convoys supplying the Russians to Iwo Jima.
