Blackburn, Tom. With Eric Hammel. The Jolly Rogers: The Story of Tom Blackburn and Navy Fighting Squadron VF-17. Pacifica, CA: Pacifica Press, 1997.

ISBN 0-935553-19-3
270 pages

Introduction; Glossary; maps; photos; Epilogue; Bibliography; Acknowledgments; Index.

Appendix: Roster of Fighting-17 Officers, October 1943-March 1944

Originally published by Orion Books in 1989, The Jolly Rogers is a kick-ass account of one of the Navy's top fighter squadrons and -- even more -- its exceptional skipper.

Tom Blackburn was a peacetime Navy flyer who, much to his disgust, upon U.S. entry into war was transferred from a carrier-based combat unit to a training job at Opa-Locka in Florida. There he helped turn out the highly trained and highly motivated pilots who would later provide the critical edge in air-to-air combat against the IJN air arm.

In June of 1942 Blackburn was detached from training duties to form Escort Fighting Squadron 29 at Norfolk. After more training and preparation -- for which his stint at Opa-Locka served him well -- VGF-29, equipped with F4F-4 Wildcat fighters, sailed for North Africa aboard the escort carrier Santee. Assigned to attack the Vichy French airfield at Safi, Morocco as part of the Operation Torch landings, Blackburn and his division of five aircraft (one other aborted) managed a single mission: there was no airfield, no enemy aircraft, and no target to engage. While attempting to return to Santee, all five planes missed the carrier and ran out of fuel. His mates managed to make dead-stick landings ashore, but Blackburn ditched alone and unseen in the ocean. After three days afloat in a rubber raft, he was miraculously spotted and rescued by Santee's escort.

Despite or because of this inauspicious debut, Blackburn was ordered to form Fighting Squadron 17. This new unit eventually graduated to F4U Corsairs, the Navy's hot new gull-wing fighter. Originally assigned to the Bunker Hill, VF-17 was without warning detached at Pearl Harbor on 2 October 1943 and ten days later departed aboard the aircraft ferry Prince William. Destination: the Solomons. On 26 October Blackburn and his Corsairs reported for duty at Henderson Field on Guadalcanal.

It is in the Solomons and over Rabaul that most of the story of the Jolly Rogers takes place. VF-17 arrived at a time when the Allies were clearly seizing the initiative, but their Japanese opponents were still throwing in significant numbers of top-notch pilots and aircraft. What ensued was day after day of missions: some dull, some deadly. These sorties included CAP over beachheads, bases, and vessels, escort for a variety of bomber units, strafing runs, monotonous patrols, and major engagements such as the Battle of the Solomons Sea. Blackburn describes almost every mission and carefully explains dozens of dogfights. Eventually the combined forces of Allied aircraft -- USN, USMC, USAAF, and New Zealanders -- inflicted sufficient losses that the Japanese ceded air superiority over the northern Solomons and Rabaul.

VF-17 was a leading unit in destroying enemy aircraft and included over a dozen aces (including Blackburn himself). Blackburn, however, was most proud of the fact that the bombers he escorted never lost an aircraft to Japanese fighters. And, although they accounted for 154 enemy planes, VF-17 itself lost about 25% of its original strength in pilots. The skipper describes each loss, and after all the years his pain is still palpable that men under his command didn't make it home. Not all the losses occurred during dogfights.

Tragedy struck the squadron later in what we thought would be a triumphal day.

Six Corsairs under Chuck Pillsbury routinely relieved the mid-morning CAP over Empress Augusta Bay, and they flew yet another butt-grinding noon-hour CAP mission until relieved in turn by the early-afternoon flight. All six of Pillsbury's F4Us were directed to strafe targets of opportunity along the Monoitu-Kahili Trail, over which the Imperial Army had been resupplying their ground forces arrayed against the Torokina beachhead. Lt Wally Schub's division was unable to find Monoitu Mission itself, but the four did expend most of their bullets on bridges and huts along the trail.

Meanwhile, Chuck and his wingman, Ens Bob Hogan, flew an independent course up the jungle-obscured trail and managed to flame five trucks. At about 1300, just before the pair reached Kahili, Hogan idly cut to starboard to pass around 400-foot Kangu Hill. He saw Chuck swing left around the same prominence. Though Bob neither encountered nor saw any signs of antiaircraft fire, that was the last he saw of Chuck. Bob circled offshore and called Chuck on his radio, but there was no response. Bob was by then running low on fuel, so he called the next CAP flight leader, who sent a division up to look for Chuck. No joy.

Fully a quarter of a century later, Chuck Pillsbury's virtually intact Corsair was located, purely by chance, in the dense jungle near Kangu Hill. Our comrade's remains were still strapped into the cockpit. One .25-caliber rifle bullet had gone through him from below and lodged in his skull. No doubt, Chuck died instantly, before the crash.

Blackburn tells how he trained and commanded VF-17, proving to be simultaneously strict with his men but very a part of them. In addition to pioneering tactics like Roving High Cover and being among the first to sling 500-lb bombs under Corsair wings, Blackburn earned a reputation as a swashbuckling, carousing, hard-drinking "irregular".

The skipper expends few pages on his personal life, but does mention a few interesting points such as his rather weak justification for cheating on his wife (she wrote tepid letters) and his fondness for booze. Years after perfecting various ruses for smuggling beer and whisky to forward airfields in the Solomons, Blackburn (after rising to the rank of Captain and commanding the carrier Midway) retired from the Navy as an alcoholic.

When it counted, though, Tom Blackburn and his VF-17 pilots put themselves on the line time and again and played no small role in winning the war in the Pacific. When they were withdrawn in March 1944 after six months in action (including a tour of R&R in Australia), they were the Navy's top guns. Once again, the story of VF-17 proves how a few talented and dedicated men can make all the difference between victory and defeat on a global scale.

Liked it.

Available through mail order booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from Pacifica.

Thanks to Pacifica Press for providing this review copy.