Brigadier General Robert Edward Galer was a naval aviator in the United States Marine Corps who received the Medal of Honor for heroism in aerial combat during the Battle of Guadalcanal in World War II. He went on to command Marine Aircraft Group 12 during the Korean War and retired a few years after in 1957.
Grumman F3F-2, BuNo 0976, restored and displayed at the National Museum of Naval Aviation, NAS Pensacola, Florida, after 50 years in the Pacific Ocean off the California coast. It is marked as it was when ditched by 1st Lt. Galer.
The Grumman F3F is a biplane fighter aircraft produced by the Grumman aircraft for the United States Navy during the mid-1930s. Designed as an improvement on the F2F, it entered service in 1936 as the last biplane to be delivered to any American military air arm. It was retired from front line squadrons at the end of 1941 before it could serve in World War II, and replaced by the Brewster F2A Buffalo. The F3F, which inherited the Leroy Grumman-designed retractable main landing gear configuration first used on the Grumman FF, served as the basis for a biplane design ultimately developed into the much more successful F4F Wildcat that succeeded the subpar Buffalo.
F3F-3 assigned to Naval Air Station Anacostia
The better known F4F Wildcat of World War II was a monoplane development of an improved F3F biplane design. This XF4F-3 prototype clearly shows the family lines.
G-22 Gulfhawk II at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center of the National Air and Space Museum