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Aircraft of the Aces: Boyington's F4U-1A Corsair

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   Gregory Boyington was born 4 December 1912 in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.  It would not be until adulthood that he learned the identity of his father, as he had been using the name Gregory Hallenbeck; he took the name Boyington on entering the US Marine Corps.  Boyington, who had grown up working odd jobs in logging camps, graduated from the University of Washington in 1934 with a degree in aeronautical engineering.  He had served in US Army ROTC at the university, but switched services on graduation to the Marines, as he felt they offered a better chance for flight training.  Boyington had been interested in being a pilot since his first flight at age six.  He finished basic training and officers’ school and joined Marine Air Group Two at NAS San Diego in 1939, eventually serving as an instructor.

   Unfortunately, Boyington had already acquired two problems that were to haunt him for the rest of his life: an addiction to drinking and gambling.  Debts acquired in the latter had piled up to the point that the Marine Corps considered court-martialling Boyington.  Instead, they “encouraged” him to resign his commission and join the forming American Volunteer Group (AVG) for service against the Japanese in China.  The AVG, which would of course go on to immortal fame as the Flying Tigers, were mercenaries and would pay well for an experienced pilot like Boyington, which would wipe out his debts.  Boyington took the advice and sailed with the AVG to China.  The group did not enter combat until after the United States entered World War II in December 1941, but soon were racking up an admirable number of kills, despite being outnumbered by their Japanese foes and flying P-40 Warhawks that were at best only equal to their adversaries.  All that aside, Boyington showed flashes of his talent as both a fighter pilot and a commander, being promoted to flight leader and scoring 4.5 kills with the Flying Tigers.  Following a clash with the AVG’s crusty commander, Claire Chennault, Boyington left the AVG under a cloud, but managed to “escape” China and make his way back to the United States.  After heavy losses fighting the Japanese throughout 1942, the Marines were happy to have Boyington back, and he was given a promotion to major on the basis of Boyington’s testimony that he had scored seven kills with the AVG—a deliberate overclaim by Boyington.

    Boyington was assigned to command VMF-214, a recently formed squadron based on Guadalcanal.  Though later accounts of the group would claim that the squadron was made up of misfits and “problem children” unloaded from other units on Boyington, the truth was that VMF-214 was made up of pilots from squadrons who had gone home or disbanded.  VMF-214 had no assigned ground crew and its Corsairs were in poor condition; the aircraft itself had a bad reputation and was considered a Navy castoff.  Boyington himself was considered old by his pilots at age 31, who gave him the nickname “Gramps” and “Pappy.”

   Boyington nonetheless forged the squadron into one of the finest in Marine history, borrowing or stealing ground crew from other squadrons as they moved up the Solomon Islands chain towards the main Japanese base at Rabaul.  The squadron continued to suffer from reliability problems with its Corsairs—Boyington himself always flew the worst aircraft, so that his less-experienced pilots would have a better chance at survival—but in 84 days of combat, it shot down 203 Japanese aircraft, including epic battles over Bougainville and the Russell Islands.  Though VMF-214 had called itself “Boyington’s Bastards,” this was changed by a public relations officer to the “Black Sheep,” a name the squadron retains to this day.  The squadron returned home in January 1944, where they were awarded a Presidential Unit Citation.

    Boyington was not among them.  During a huge dogfight on 3 January 1944 between 30 Corsairs and 70 Japanese fighters, he was shot down near Rabaul, possibly by Japanese ace Masajiro Kawato, who became friends with Boyington after the war.  Boyington was captured by a Japanese submarine and began a long journey to Japan.  Eventually imprisoned at Ofuna, Boyington survived over a year of near starvation, mistreatment, and torture before the war ended in August 1945.  Returning to the United States, Boyington was surprised to find he had been promoted to lieutenant colonel during his imprisonment and awarded the Medal of Honor—an honor that Boyington did not feel he deserved.  He retired from the Marines in 1947 with the rank of colonel, and the distinction of being the highest-scoring Marine pilot in history, with 26 confirmed kills (including the four achieved with the AVG).  

    Boyington, who had been forced to stop drinking while a prisoner of war, returned to his self-destructive lifestyle after retiring from the Marines, though he also returned to his lifelong interest in wrestling and boxing by becoming a referee.  After a near-brush with death in the late 1950s, Boyington made some effort to control his drinking with mixed results, writing a memoir, Baa Baa Black Sheep.  This made him a regular at airshows and symposiums for the rest of his life, and a TV series would later be very loosely based on the book; though Boyington was a technical adviser for the show, he admitted it was pure “hokum.”  Suffering from various physical ailments due to his drinking and smoking, Gregory Boyington died in his sleep on 11 January 1988.  He was buried at Arlington Cemetery—appropriately enough, near the grave of famous boxer Joe Louis.  

  Historians have since determined that Boyington was not the top USMC ace of World War II, as his AVG claims could not be substantiated; instead this honor would go to Joe Foss, one of the defenders of Guadalcanal.  Nonetheless, "Pappy" Boyington remains the best known and most notorious Marine ace of the war.

This Corsair is a F4U-1A variant, finished in the standard mid-war US Navy three-tone camouflage scheme of two shades of blue over white.  This particular aircraft, named Lucybelle, carried 22 kill marks and was purported to be one of the Corsairs flown by Boyington over the Southwest Pacific.  More recent research has shown that Boyington rarely if ever flew this aircraft, and never in combat, but was photographed in front of it for public relations purposes.  
Image size
3313x3251px 1.66 MB
Make
SONY
Model
DSC-W710
Shutter Speed
1/60 second
Aperture
F/4.6
Focal Length
10 mm
ISO Speed
320
Date Taken
Nov 25, 2012, 1:13:47 AM
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Comments4
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NavJAG's avatar
I'm finishing Bruce Gamble's biography of Boyington.  Pappy claimed six kills from his AVG days, but is only confirmed for 2 aerial victories.  After he was repatriated from Japan, he added two more kills to his last aerial combat, and the Black Sheep's intel officer, Major Frank Walton, added them to the official war diary for 3 Jan 44.  The Marine Corps accepted it; but there was absolutely no one who saw those two extra kills he added.  This put his record at 28 kills, which made him the highest scoring Marine Corps Ace.  Actual confirmed record is really 20 kills. 

Gamble had no qualms in stating that Boyington lied about these six extra kills.  I believe Gamble is correct.  The biography really establishes how bad his alcoholism was.  It's ashame, but also amazing that he could fly like he did when he was often suffering from a bad hangover or was actually still drunk.