After 1943 the quality of Axis pilots in both the ETO and PTO degraded severely. Guenther Rall stated that the replacements he received at that time had a life expectancy of 10 hours of mission time.
What you stated is true of not just the Hellcat but also the F4U, P-38, Thunderbolt, Mustang and every other Allied fighter that engaged the enemy after 1943.
Except that Rall was referring to pilots coming into service from middle 1944 and beyond. Until the Allied bombing priority shifted to the German synthetic fuel industry, Luftwaffe pilots were receiving adequate training time. Once fuel became a serious issue, after May of 1944, training time gradually became cut back.
This becomes difficult to quantify for many reasons. Thus, it is often written about in general terms.
Japan's situation was different altogether. Many of the IJN pilots who lost their ships at Midway survived, being transported home on Cruisers and Destroyers once rescued. The next major depletion occurred in June of 1944 (the Great Turkey Shoot). Japanese Army pilots were slowly ground down. By the fall of 1944, many of the better pilots had been killed. Like Germany, fuel was becoming an issue (submarine warfare had shut down oil imports to a fraction of that needed).
Those American and Commonwealth aces who attained their status in either theater towards the end of the respective war, did have a much easier time of it than those who preceded them. In February thru April of 1945, F6F and F4U pilots feasted on trainees and suicide pilots who could not or would not defend themselves. Yet, those flying combat missions over Japan in the summer of '45 ran into a higher quality of pilots, as Japan hoarded their few remaining higher end pilots on the home islands for what they thought would be a final stand.
