In the island-hopping campaigns across the Pacific, the Hellcats proved invaluable. Invasions were spearheaded by waves of F6Fs conducting fighter sweeps over enemy airfields, destroying planes that could threaten transports and landing craft. As troops went ashore, combat air patrols scanned the skies for aerial attackers while other Hellcats supported Marines and soldiers by hitting ground targets. Indeed, while it was in aerial combat that the F6F achieved lasting fame, it was a capable air-to-ground platform, with Hellcat pilots unleashing 60,000 rockets on land targets and enemy shipping during the war.

All told, Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation produced 12,275 Hellcats during World War II, at peak production rolling one off the assembly line every hour, around the clock. Reaching the fleet, these aircraft logged a total of 110,162 combat sorties, their final flights in the war they helped so much to win fittingly coming as part of a wave of carrier planes that flew over the battleship Missouri (BB 63) in Tokyo Bay as Japanese government and military official signed the instrument of surrender on her deck.

In the postwar years Hellcats flew primarily in the training command and squadrons of the Naval Air Reserve, with some converted to radio-controlled drones to support the atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll. Loaded with explosives, some of these drones also were launched against targets during the Korean War.