The Wildcat would be the US Navy’s best front-line fighter from the start of the War until early 1943.

Let’s take a quick look at an example from the first Allied offensive in the Pacific.

Operation Watchtower was the campaign for the retaking of Guadalcanal (and nearby Tulagi) from the Japanese. When the operation launched on August 7, 1942 it included three aircraft carriers. Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher flew his flag on Saratoga, joined by Enterprise and Wasp.
Saratoga was the largest of the American carriers, and was just returned to service after torpedo damage suffered in January of 1942.
Enterprise was the most experienced ship and crew, having seen almost continuous action since the start of the War.
Wasp had just arrived in the Pacific to make up for lost Lexington and Yorktown. It was a little smaller than the other American carriers.

On the morning of August 7 all three carriers launched air strikes at Japanese shipping and air power around the islands. This launched a fierce air, land and sea campaign that would run (officially) until February 9, 1943.
On those first few days three American aircraft carriers were total of tactical air power available. This led to a lot of tough decisions about how to handle those ships (the conflicting needs to protect the Marines ashore, supply shipping getting in to them, and the carriers themselves). Casualties in the air would be heavy (and I will have several more aircraft from this period yet to come), and the carrier Wasp would not survive the campaign.
[As an aside, Hornet would also participate and was also lost in the Guadalcanal Campaign, but on August 7 it was at Pearl Harbor.]

I chose this subject as a typical representative of Enterprise‘ contribution to the opening days of battle. In almost every way it is typical of the standard Blue-Grey over Grey camo worn by every other Wildcat in the campaign.
One small curiousity. It carries a marking on the tail. A tombstone adorned with meatballs representing all the kills scored by Enterprise’ Fighting Squadron VF-6 in the War so far. I believe several aircraft in the squadron had this marking but I am not sure how many and which ones. Except White 11 was photographed with it.
This is the Tamiya kit, a reliably simple build. It has a couple well documented flaws, that are fixed in the more recent Eduard kit. But I think they are not too visible, as in I won’t say. So unless the reader researches the kit you’ll likely never know! And the Tamiya kit is a much easier build. (And I have a bunch of them I don’t feel like getting rid of!).
The special decals (The tombstones!) are from Ministry of Small Aircraft Production, a Canadian brand.