ISBN 0-89141-644-7
466 pages

Acknowledgments; Preface, Introduction; maps; photos; Epilogue; Notes; Sources; Index

Appendices: VMF-214 Roster of Pilots and Essential Ground Officers; Operational and Combat Losses; Combat Sorties of Maj. Gregory Boyington; Multiple-Victory Pilots of VMF-214; Typical Marine Aviator's Survival Equipment; Text of Presidential Unit Citation

   Gregory "Pappy" Boyington and his Black Sheep squadron, VMF-214, are probably the most famous USMC flyers of World War II. Despite this fame, the real story of VMF-214—all three incarnations of the squadron during WWII—has remained obscured by Boyington's "surprisingly inaccurate" autobiography, Baa Baa Black Sheep, and the highly fictionalized NBC television series of the same name.

   [Baa Baa Black Sheep] covered barely four months of VMF-214's three-year operational history during World War II. More problematic is the realization that Boyington's book is surprisingly inaccurate when compared with Marine Corps records. His statements have been widely accepted as factual for better than fifty years. After all, as a commanding officer and the recipient of a Medal of Honor, he was assumed to be forthright. But he once told an interviewer, "I'm a psychopathic liar," probably intending to say "pathologic," in a statement that seems justified by closely examining his book.
   Boyington was perhaps less concerned with veracity than he was with drama and philosophical commentary.... ...the result might be considered an injustice to Marine pilots. He misspelled several of their names and identified only five members who participated in his second combat tour. Of eleven pilots killed during his tenure with the Black Sheep, he mentions only three. Many of his stated deeds did not happen as he described them, yet over the years they have become part of the very fabric of aviation history. Black Sheep myths abound.

   Bruce Gamble in The Black Sheep after all these years sets the record straight.
   VMF-214 was formed in Hawaii on 1 July 1942 with two officers, twenty enlisted men, and no airplanes. In mid-July Capt. George F. Britt became the first CO of the squadron. The unit gradually filled with men and machines, underwent intensive training, and shipped out of Pearl Harbor on 21 February 1943.
   On 3 March the squadron's Wildcats catapulted off the deck of Nassau and landed safely at Espiritu Santo. For the transfer to Guadalcanal, the squadron split into two echelons. Those flying in the Wildcats—as opposed to riding aboard air transport—ran into a major storm front. Two VMF-214 planes went down along with five Avengers flying in convoy with them. Both 214 pilots eventually made it back to the squadron, but it was not an auspicious debut.
   The morning after its arrival, VMF-214 put divisions into the air for CAP. On the fourth day, they flew their first strike mission escorting SBD dive bombers to Kolombangara. Life on Guadalcanal then settled into a series of endless, numbing patrols with little action. Not for a month did the squadron finally engage in an air-to-air free-for-all. When it did, four divisions of Wildcats accounted for ten Japanese aircraft over Tulagi against one Marine shot down and one crash landed; both pilots survived in one piece. (This was the same action in which James E. Swett of VMF-221 earned the Medal of Honor for shooting down seven Japanese aircraft and swimming free of his sinking Wildcat after being wounded and crashing into the Slot.) Afterwards, the pilots returned to routine patrols, without a great deal of excitement, until mid-May. At that time, after eight weeks in combat, they rotated back to Espiritu Santo and Australia for a stretch of R&R.
   The squadron returned from Australia to Espiritu Santo in mid-June 1943 with a new skipper but otherwise little turnover in pilots. Besides a new skipper, the squadron also gained an emblem and nickname—the Swashbucklers. The Marines quickly converted from Wildcats to Corsairs and before the end of the month VMF-214 had arrived at Banika for its second combat tour. Compared to its first tour—during which only a single pilot was lost—the second would be more expensive.
   During this tour, the Swashbucklers supported the island-hopping advance up the Solomons from Banika and Munda with defensive patrols over the ground battles, escort of air strikes against Japanese bases, and strafing missions. In addition to combat losses, the Corsairs continued to suffer from mechanical problems, one such leading to the loss of the squadron's skipper. The final tally in the second tour was three pilots killed in six weeks of action. While the remaining Swashbucklers celebrated the end of their second tour in Australia, their squadron number was transferred to an entirely new roster of flyers under a new commander.
   The new skipper was Pappy Boyington.
   Gamble devotes a chapter to Boyington's background, telling the pilot's story in fair but strict fashion and in the process clearly showing Boyington's propensity for hard drinking, hard living, and playing fast and loose with the truth. For example, as a veteran of the American Volunteer Group in China, Pappy (a name not in use until after the war) claimed six aerial victories (which were accepted by the Marines for his official records without substantiation) although contemporary records and post-war investigation seem to prove otherwise. Similarly, "during at least one...talk show [while he was technical adviser to the NBC series] Boyington perpetuated the idea that [his VMF-214 pilots] all faced courts-martial unless they went into combat with him" which was not in fact the case by any stretch of the imagination. Gamble also quotes one of Boyington's pilots who seems to have voiced the consensus view: "Boyington was a horror as a C.O." Fortunately, as a fighter pilot he had few rivals.
   On 11 September 1943 the new squadron, comprising mostly rookies (but not as many as Boyington writes), staged to Guadalcanal and then onward to Banika (and later Munda), re-christened the Black Sheep. Within a few days (the very next day, according to Boyington), they were in a major melee, claiming eleven victories and eight probables for one lost pilot of their own. Boyington himself claimed five kills. More free-for-alls ensued and a very successful strafing mission took out more than a dozen Japanese planes on the ground. (Boyington mistakenly describes himself as one of the shooters in this raid.) In addition to their aerial victories, the Black Sheep continued to make their name on such audacious strafing runs through enemy AA fire against Japanese airfields.
   Boyington was known to have taunted pilots of the enemy's parked fighters via radio "Come on up and fight, you yellow bastards!" According to legend, they once responded, "Why don't you come down, Major Boyington?", at which point the skipper supposedly left his squadron circling 10,000 feet above and zoomed down to personally strafe the field. Gamble debunks this myth as well.
   Boyington was also known to have flown missions when his blood alcohol level was high enough to get him arrested for DUI in many states. Gamble quotes one of his pilots: "[Boyington] was an alcoholic in the days when we didn't know what an alcoholic was. But I've always maintained that he could fly better drunk than most people could fly sober. If there was a natural born pilot, he was one; extremely aggressive, and to me, absolutely fearless."
   In any event, by the end of their first tour the Black Sheep version of VMF-214 had exceeded the combined totals of two Swashbuckler tours in almost every category: combat sorties, air-to-air melees, Japanese aircraft shot down, Marine aircraft lost, pilots killed, and pilots wounded. With some timely publicity, they and their high-scoring skipper were also well on the way to becoming one of the best-known US fighter squadrons of the war.
   By the end of November the Black Sheep were back from R&R flying missions from Vella Lavella for their second tour, the fourth for VMF-214. Flights consisted of patrols over Bougainville and Empress Augusta Bay, escort missions, and strafing runs. In the early going, resistance by Japanese fighters proved extremely light as they conserved their dwindling strength. Then VMF-214 became "the first land-based, single-engine Allied fighters to appear over Rabaul, surely an ominous sign to the enemy." The continual squeeze on Rabaul was successful, but costly to the Marines as VMF-214 bled away at an alarming rate. Finally, in the process of tying the record for aerial victories, the legendary, seemingly invincible Boyington failed to return from a mission over Rabaul and was listed as Missing in Action. Three days later the Black Sheep ended their last tour with a final mission and a final kill.

   For awhile..., six feathery chains of gun smoke—little puffs from each detonation of a machine-gun shell—drifted in the air, blending, fading, until the last wisp finally dissipated. It took even longer for the few hundred brass cartridges to flutter quietly down to the dark water and disappear into the waves. They were the last reminder of the Black Sheep in battle over the South Pacific.

   As with the Swashbucklers, the Black Sheep were dispersed. Those with three combat tours rotated back to the States for thirty days of leave before moving on to new assignments. The remainder transferred to various other squadrons for more tours and more missions.
   Meanwhile, in February 1944, the third incarnation of VMF-214 began forming in Santa Barbara, CA. Their training was extended in part by two additions to the syllabus not completed by their predecessors: rocket-firing and bombing training and carrier landings. A year later they boarded USS Franklin along with Major Pat Weiland's VMF-452. (See also The Franklin Comes Home and Above & Beyond.) But Franklin was sailing to a rendezvous with death and destruction, and the Marines with her. The Black Sheep few exactly one strike mission against the Japanese home islands before Franklin suffered two bomb hits from a lone raider. Of those VMF-214 pilots not in the air, five were dead or missing and the other seven injured; more than 25 of the groundcrew were killed or wounded. The eleven Black Sheep in the air returned from their abortive second strike to discover Franklin in flames and found refuge aboard other carriers in the task force. The survivors made their way back to the States under orders not to talk about the gutting of Franklin. For them, and VMF-214, the war was over.
   And Boyington? He was found to have survived his last mission and POW camps at Rabaul and then Japan. He offered more than one version of his final mission and imprisonment and by his claims was officially credited with two additional kills. Gamble finds the usual inconsistencies in Boyington's stories and goes on to relate the sudden fall from Marine hero to forgotten veteran working at menial jobs and charged with drunk driving.
   But there can be no doubt he deserved his Medal of Honor, VMF-214 deserved its Presidential Unit Citation, and the squadron—pilots and groundcrew—deserved a full and factual account of its wartime service. Thanks to Bruce Gamble, that account is now available.
   Rather than another rehashing of the Boyington myth, Gamble delivers a first-rate effort. This is not a simplistic "photo scrapbook" of VMF-214, but a serious historical and biographical investigation using primary sources and interviews with almost 50 of the squadron's pilots. Each chapter of the detailed unit history is framed within the wider context of the war effort. Although Boyington proves to be the focal point of the book during his tours, there are also biographical sketches of almost every pilot who served in the squadron. Tallies of Marine claims are compared to actual records of Japanese losses. Data is provided concerning aircraft, their weapons, capabilities, and shortcomings, along with vivid descriptions of aerial combat. The Marines' anecdotes of combat and life at the frontline airstrips are witty, humorous, and chilling.
   Recommended, especially to everyone who has read Boyington's Baa Baa Black Sheep or watched the TV series.
   Available from online booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from Presidio Press.
   Thanks to Presidio for providing this review copy.