Baa Baa Black Sheep

by Gregory Boyington

  NO ESCAPE

  George’s plane burst into flames and a moment later crashed into the water. At that point there was nothing left for me to do. I decided to get the hell away from the Japanese. I threw everything in the cockpit all the way forward and nosed my plane over to pick up extra speed until I was forced by the water to level off.

  I had gone practically a half mile at a speed of about four hundred knots, when all of a sudden my main gas tank went up in flames in front of my very eyes. The sensation was much the same as opening the door of a furnace and sticking one’s head into the thing.

  Though I was about a hundred feet off the water, I didn’t have a chance of trying to gain altitude. I was fully aware that if I tried to gain altitude for a bail-out I would be fried in a few more seconds.…

  THE BANTAM WAR BOOK SERIES

  * * *

  This series of books is about a world on fire.

  The carefully chosen volumes in the Bantam War Book Series cover the full dramatic sweep of World War II. Many are eyewitness accounts by the men who fought in a global conflict as the world’s future hung in the balance. Fighter pilots, tank commanders and infantry captains, among many others, recount exploits of individual courage. They present vivid portraits of brave men, true stories of gallantry, moving sagas of survival and stark tragedies of untimely death.

  In 1933 Nazi Germany marched to become an empire that was to last a thousand years. In only twelve years that empire was destroyed, and ever since, the country has been bisected by her conquerors. Italy relinquished her colonial lands, as did Japan. These were the losers. The winners also lost the empires they had so painfully seized over the centuries. And one, Russia, lost over twenty million dead.

  Those wartime 1940s were a simple, even a hopeful time. Hats came in only two colors, white and black, and after an initial battering the Allied nations started on a long and laborious march toward victory. It was a time when sane men believed the world would evolve into a decent place, but, as with all futures, there was no one then who could really forecast the world that we know now.

  There are many ways to think about that war. It has always been hard to understand the motivations and braveries of Axis soldiers fighting to enslave and dominate their neighbors. Yet it is impossible to know the hammer without the anvil, and to comprehend ourselves we must know the people we fought against.

  Through these books we can discover what it was like to take part in the war that was a final experience for nearly fifty million human beings. In so doing we may discover the strength to make a world as good as the one contained in those dreams and aspirations once believed by heroic men. We must understand our past as an honor to those dead who can no longer choose. They exchanged their lives in a hope for this future that we now inhabit. Though the fight took place many years ago, each of us remains as a living part of it.

  This edition contains the complete text of the original hardcover edition.

  NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED.

  BAA BAA BLACK SHEEP

  A Bantam Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Putnam edition published 1958

  Bantam edition / February 1977

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1958 by Col. Gregory Boyington.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  For information address: Bantam Books.

  eISBN: 978-0-8041-5079-8

  Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada

  * * *

  Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

  * * *

  v3.1_r1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Author’s Note to the New Edition

  Map

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  * * *

  AUTHOR’S NOTE TO THE NEW EDITION

  * * *

  The harrowing times of World War II may have dimmed in the memories of some, but my participation was such that I will never forget it. The exploits of the legendary Flying Tigers and Black Sheep Squadron were truly unforgettable, to some unbelievable, to many thrilling and crucial. I wrote Baa Baa Black Sheep many years ago when the events of World War II were much closer to many of us. Now, nearly twenty years later, it’s gratifying to see both a rekindling of interest in the drama of those times and in my personal saga. During World War II, I was known as the “bad boy hero of the marine corps.” But I’ve never regretted earning that distinction because those were times that demanded “bad boys”—men willing to assert their individuality, to take risks, bend rules. And in that regard, times have not really changed.

  Baa Baa Black Sheep is an account of a time for which many feel great nostalgia. But for me it goes beyond that. For me they will always be days of deep personal memory.

  * * *

  1

  * * *

  Two years ago I got back into flying after an absence of thirteen years. Everyone was very helpful, and many friends put aside their own work to help me get started once again as a pilot.

  The flight surgeon who gave me the necessary physical was most obliging, although he didn’t know me from a hot rock. A pilot who runs a ground school tutored me for a week, so I was able to pass a written test for an instrument rating, and another pilot who owns a flying school let me fly a few hours for practically nothing. Then I passed a blind-flying check. A local aircraft distributor even paid me a few dollars while I was busy getting some up-to-date flying hours for my ratings.

  Two months from the day I discovered I could pass a second-class airman’s physical examination, I was all set to go. Multiengine planes, commercial and instrument, were on my flight certificate.

  The amazing thing about it all is that the rust wore off in no time at all, as though I had never been away from flying. Getting accustomed to instruments I had never used before didn’t give me the slightest bit of trouble. But this is understandable, because, after all, for ten years or more flying was one of the few things to hold my interest for any length of time.

  In the beginning I was uneasy about the conversation with the control towers and CAA Communications. But this ironed itself out soon, and they gave all the cooperation I needed when I
called and told them that I was a “new boy.”

  At my age it was difficult to get a flying job with an airline, even if you had a good record, but fortunately, I soon found a flying job. An air-freight company in Burbank permitted me to use their executive five-passenger plane for charter. The airline didn’t pay my salary; I was given a commission of part of the charter business I sold. In return for this privilege I piloted for the company officials and their guests at times free of charge. This was okay with me, because it was wonderful to fly again. I was chartered by business people, motion-picture actors, or just about anyone who wanted to go anywhere and was willing to pay sixty dollars per hour.

  The airline hangar at the Lockheed Air Terminal is only a matter of five minutes or so from our three-bedroom house, almost in the center of the San Fernando Valley. The direction of the prevailing take-off pattern from Lockheed takes planes directly over us day and night. When friends drop in from other parts of the city, they can’t seem to understand how we put up with the racket. They probably don’t stop to think that this particular noise is music to me. The take-offs are no bother to anyone in our house, not even our basset hound, Alvin, who has very sensitive ears. But far more important than not being bothered is that I feel close to all those flight crews as they go over.

  My flying job led to a sales engineering position with Coast Pro-Seal, a manufacturer of aircraft sealants that supplies the aviation industry all over the country. My flying is limited to weekends and business trips. But whether I fly or do other things, I seem to run across many people I have flown with in the past. Many of the things we joke about today were at one time very serious matters indeed. We do not forget they made the difference between life or death, nor do we forget the hardships and the mental anguish we went through.

  At least once each year, sometimes more often, a group of around twenty of us meet here in the valley for dinner. Some are pilots. Others are ex-pilots. And some are men who had a knack for keeping aircraft flying. Most of these people are in their early forties now.

  There has always been a great deal of talk about these men since they first became acquainted, but there are very few people who know how they got together in the first place. Few know them by anything but a legendary name—the Flying Tigers.

  * * *

  2

  * * *

  The name Flying Tigers was unknown to us when we were quartered in an obscure hotel in downtown San Francisco, waiting for a Dutch motorboat that would transport us to the Orient to join the AVG, the American Volunteer Group. The word “volunteer” reminded me of the Marine Corps sergeant who said: “Never volunteer and you will stay out of trouble.”

  I had answered: “Don’t worry, Sarge. I understand, and I’ll never forget your advice.” Yet, here I was, not only a volunteer, but a member of a volunteer group.

  Europe was already embroiled in war, but apparently the United States was in no immediate danger. We knew very little about Franklin Roosevelt’s dealings with the rest of the world—and we were not supposed to know, because it was only September 1941. We did know we were to be paid in good old United States dollars, the money to be deposited in a New York bank for us at the end of each month while we were in China. Of course China would owe the American taxpayers for this money, but meanwhile the National Government could play big shot.

  The pilots and ground crews were recruited secretly from the Army Air Corps, Navy, and Marine Corps. Two detachments of pilots and crews were already over in China doing business, I was told. I understood that I was to be in the third detachment to go overseas, but I had no idea that the third was also going to be the last.

  A World War I flyer, a retired Army Air Corps captain, breezed around different flying bases here in the United States, recruiting people he counted on having the necessary qualifications. If a pilot or ground crewman signified his intention to go, from there on everything was handled through Washington, D.C.

  When I first learned about this deal, I was an instructor at the Naval Air Station at Pensacola, Florida. I was a regular first lieutenant in the Marine Corps with six years of flying experience, most of it in fighters.

  The captain never approached me. I got in touch with him. He tried to tell me that any number of pilots had twenty years of combat experience under their belts. After thumbing back over aviation history in my mind I wondered where in hell these jokers were supposed to have gotten all this experience.

  He added: “The Japs are flying antiquated junk over China. Many of your kills will be unarmed transports. I suppose you know that the Japanese are renowned for their inability to fly. And they all wear corrective glasses.”

  “Captain, it’s quite a setup, but how do you know the pilots wear glasses?”

  “Our technical staff determines this from the remains after a shoot-down. I haven’t mentioned this before because I thought you would be more interested in the flying end, but we have some of the most skilled technicians in the world in the Group. Furthermore, our aircraft will be the latest off the drawing boards. We already have aircraft factories going night and day right there in China. Best of all, there’s good money in it—six hundred seventy-five dollars per month. But the sky’s the limit, because they pay a bonus of five hundred for each Japanese aircraft you knock down.”

  And there I sat, taking it all in, mentally calculating how wealthy I would be.

  The captain could squeeze me in tentatively as a flight leader—because of all my experience, he said. And with all the ability I told him about he said I would soon be a squadron leader. Somehow, I had the feeling I had to lie in self-defense in order to get along with this Group he was talking about.

  The captain tried to impress me with the high character of the men who were to be over me and under me. They were people who drank like gentlemen and paid their gambling debts. Bravery above and beyond the call of duty was dripping all over his suite in the San Carlos Hotel there in Pensacola.

  Maybe the dear captain did have all these high ideals, God rest his soul. Maybe he wanted them all for this dream group but had to settle for less. I don’t know.

  But one thing for certain, I didn’t tell him that he was hiring an officer who had a fatal gap between his income and accounts payable. And because of this situation I had to account by mail to Marine Corps Headquarters each month how much money was being paid on each debt. Nor did I tell him that I was a whiz at a cocktail party.

  All this spelled but one thing, I would be passed over for the rank of captain in the USMC, as surely as I was sitting there in the San Carlos. I had to convince the captain—and I did.

  An unannounced resignation went through the Marine Corps four days later. This resignation was clipped to a lengthy agreement of reinstatement without loss of precedence, if I survived, or if the United States declared war. These papers were to be kept in Admiral Nimitz’s secret safe. In short order I was handed a passport with a horrible picture in it, labeled, “member of the clergy.”

  All this was wrapped up one week after I first met our recruiting captain. The night I started to pack, I thought I’d better go into the bar, which happened to be adjacent to my quarters in B.O.Q. It seemed necessary to make a hero’s farewell to some of the student officers I had been guiding through flight school, helping them to get their coveted wings of gold.

  Naturally I didn’t keep my big mouth shut. The captain’s Utopian air force was topped as each round of bourbon was being shaken for by a dice cup. I excused myself from this wonderful company only twice during the entire evening. The first time I had to go to my quarters and feed my dog, Fella, a rather large mixture of collie and shepherd. It was against regulations to have dogs or women in your quarters, but that was where I kept Fella when I slept. In the daytime the dog was out at Squadron II, where I instructed and checked students eight flights a day for one hour each, five days a week. He knew what airplane I took off in with each student, because he followed us out to the flight line. These airplanes were all the same co
lor, yellow, and the only difference was the numbers on their sides. So I don’t know how the dog could recognize mine, but he did.

  I was told that the dog always lay under my desk until our “Yellow Peril,” as these trainers were called, came back from a flight and was pulling up to the flight line. Then he would be all wags, standing below our cockpits, while the student and I climbed out. He never had to be cautioned about the propellers. After a few pats on the head the dog would follow us into the ready-room and to my desk. I would explain a number of things to the student and make entries of progress in his flight log.

  Many people wondered why the dog and I were so inseparable. As I look back on this, I realize that I was down to my last friend.

  During this last week my boss, who was one swell fellow, spoke to me as he walked by my desk, leaning down at the same time to pet Fella. The dog growled, which was unusual, and the hair stood up on the back of his neck.

  Commander “Chink” Lee laughed and said: “Why don’t you teach your dog the proper respect for your commanding officer? That’s no way to get a good fitness report.”

  “My dog’s a hell of a lot smarter than I’ll ever be. He probably already knows what you put in my fitness report.”

  Chink flushed, then added: “You’d better not take that mutt to China, because if you do they’ll eat him.”

  “No, I’m not going to, but I can tell you one thing for sure, he’s going to be the only one around here that I’m going to miss.”

  When I excused myself from my drinking buddies the second time that farewell evening, I took care of my packing. All of my earthly possessions consisted of my uniforms and civilian clothes. There were about three thousand dollars’ worth of khaki, blues, whites, mess dress, full dress, and sword. This was not an excess of uniforms prior to World War II. They were required by regulation, but what little I had paid on them in the last five years hadn’t made a dent in their original cost. All of the uniforms went on the floor and the back seat of my sedan. Civilian clothes, except those I was wearing, went on top of the heap. This way I knew the dog and I wouldn’t be crowded in the front seat.