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Gregory Boyington

Baa Baa Black Sheep: The True Story of the "Bad Boy" Hero of the Pacific Theatre and His Famous Black Sheep Squadron Mass Market Paperback – January 1, 1977

by Gregory Pappy Boyington (Author)

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Here, in his own words, is the true story of America's wildest flying hero, of his extraordinary heroism, and of his greatest battle of all—the fight to survive.

The World War II air war in the Pacific needed tough men like Colonel Pappy Boyington and his Black Sheep Squadron. The legendary Marine Corps officer and his bunch of misfits, outcasts, and daredevils gave new definition to “hell-raising”—on the ground and in the skies.

Pappy himself was a living legend—he personally shot down twenty-eight Japanese planes, and won the Congressional Medal of Honor and the Navy Cross. He broke every rule in the book doing so, but when he fell into the hands of the vengeful Japanese his real ordeal began.

Print length

368 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Bantam
Publication date

January 1, 1977
Dimensions

4.13 x 0.94 x 6.86 inches
ISBN-10

0553263501
ISBN-13

978-0553263503
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About the Author

Gregory "Pappy" Boyington (1912–1988) was an American World War II fighter pilot. As the "bad boy" of the Pacific theatre, he commanded the famous Black Sheep squadron.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

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.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bantam (January 1, 1977)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Mass Market Paperback ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0553263501
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0553263503
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 6.8 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4.13 x 0.94 x 6.86 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #136,629 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #192 in Military Aviation History (Books)
- #363 in WWII Biographies
- #1,209 in World War II History (Books)

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834 ratings

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5 star		72%
4 star		17%
3 star		7%
2 star		1%
1 star		2%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Christy S. Schultz

a must for aviation buffs... the original Top Gun

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 15, 2022

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For those who missed the television show with Robert Conrad, you'll enjoy the book just as much if not more. Boyington is not a top notch writer, but WOW what a storyteller! Also incredibly detailed information on the Pacific WWII theatre and warfare in the Solomon islands from an aviator's point of view. Flying Tigers too. I have been absolutely riveted by reading this in the evenings... very very enjoyable.

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Mark C.

He was definitely a Black sheep

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 2, 2021

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Obviously Col. Boyington wrote this book about 13 years after he was released from a Japanese prison camp, so It's been 62 yrs. until I read it. His writing style may have been a common practice at the time, but it was somewhat unorthodox compared to what I'm used too. How he managed to survive World War II as an aviator and with his addiction to alcohol is quite interesting. By his own admission he was fairly reckless and a risk taker. I believe his heart was in the right place as he contributed greatly to the war effort, serving honorably, a POW and highly decorated. It's just a tradgedy that his personal life was so dysfunctional when he finally settled back into civilian life.The story was difficult to follow sometimes because he deviated so much from the time period or event he was talking about and interjected information from another event or period of time. All in all I gained a lot of admiration for him and learned a lot about the theatre he fought in and his compassion for the Japanese people and soldiers he interacted with. I recommend you read this story.

3 people found this helpful

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walter constantini

Reat story

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 24, 2022

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Would recommend this book to anyone who likes stories about WWII avaition. Tells of the troubles that the military aviators faced

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The Rabbit

Too Much Personal Macho

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 26, 2018

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I actually would award this two and a half stars.

If your interest is history, I don't think you are going to like this book, unless you have a strong chauvinistic, partying spirit that I can't seem to say I am blessed with.

It has been said, and I think rightly, that the movie PATTON colored our historical perception of Patton, Bradley, and Eisenhower. Rick Atkinson thinks that the result was a too-high ranking of Bradley, since he outlived the other two and he was consulted by the makers of the movie.

My question is, did the TV series BLACK SHEEP SQUADRON starring Robert Conrad turn this guy Boyington into a hero beyond his actual heroics? This book peters out for me about the time Boyington brags about his five kills on one mission. Until that presentation, I was buying his modesty-routine, but once this scene was added to his other build-up escapades, such as the climbing up into the broad's room with two bottles of Scotch and breaking a guy's leg in a fight, I realized, I think, that here is a guy on a literary ego-trip. It is one thing to brag like this in a bar, and quite another to do it a book of almost 400 pages.

One thing the book does do is to explain why General Chennault didn't mention Boyington in WAY OF A FIGHTER. Boyington returns the "favor in this his book, and has little good to say about Chennault. He breaks away from Chennault when the AVG "Flying Tigers" are about to be inducted into the Army Air Corps in 1943, and heads for the Marines, from whence he came in the first place. Does this mean that Boyington is merely showing his Semper Fi arrogance where the Army is concerned?

I don't see where he denies this, but I stopped reading once I tried to get beyond the Five Kills scene and then skimmed over the Japanese prison scene where he is carrying feces-buckets. Somehow the literary quality seems to have petered out even before that.

I kept waiting for his approval of the AVG exploits and they never came. Is this book an effort to show his superiority over Chennault? While I am impressed with Boyington's use of the English language -- he does come across as someone who profited from a college education (Engineering, not History, he says) -- this book lends some historical perspective but not enough, since the personal macho seems finally to smother the historical perspective.

I will say this -- Robert Conrad used to do a commercial where he dared you to knock something off his shoulder. That would seem to catch what this book is about -- and what "Pappy" Boyington was about.

2 people found this helpful

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BJ Star

Great book, true hero

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 3, 2022

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This was a great find and an original copy of the book from the year it was written. Love the story and the way it is written. In my humble opinion he was the example of a true hero. Not like in today’s world where that term is thrown around and used for everyone that breathes. I would recommend this to anyone that studies military history and what it’s like to face true danger.

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jdmcox

One of the best books I've ever read

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 1, 2022

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Boyington has written an excellent book! Excellent writing. Exciting story. What else is there?

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 24, 2021

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I purchased this book after watching the TV series of the same name. The main characters in the book loosely follow the TV series but little to none of the TV antics apply to the book. Overall it is a good book I can relate to in so many ways with my military experience so many years later in a different theater.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 8, 2020

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Autobiography of the 1st U.S. WWII ace, Greg Boyington, from flying for China in the Flying Tigers against the Japanese invasion, to downtime in the US, to his short time flying Corsairs from an island (on which the TV series was based), to his capture, time in a Japanese prison, and to his homecoming to the U.S.
Many WWII aviators lived on boats around City Island in the 1970s, and what they told me was consistent with this book.
Bob Davidson flew Corsairs for the Marines from an island near Boyington's island. Bob said only he and one other original pilot survived their tour on the island that Bob flew from. Bob was also a mechanic (scarcer than pilots), so he spent time fixing the planes, time that he might have otherwise spent getting shot down.
The Marines were short-changed on supplies, as Boyington wrote.

6 people found this helpful

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irishpropheticart

Okay,but an author was writing his story but a lot of the warts of his life were avoided.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 24, 2019

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I met the author and have great respect for the Medal of Honor winner,but he did somewhat sugar coat his warts in his life.Good book but I think there are other books that would be more open to tell all of Pappy's life.

pat

Great story, poorly written

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 12, 2014

Verified Purchase

A real pity this book wasn't better edited or the author better guided as he wrote it. That said i would recommend it highly. Surprisingly the last third of the book, as a POW is the most interesting and funny.

One person found this helpful

claes hugo

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 19, 2014

Verified Purchase

Just what I exspected.

Empe

Memorie di guerra

Reviewed in Italy 🇮🇹 on November 16, 2018

Verified Purchase

Questo volume venne tradotto decenni fa da Longanesi, pubblicandolo poi in una collana tascabile (i Pocket) che raccoglieva interessanti volumi dedicati alla Seconda Guerra Mondiale (all'epoca "recente" come lo e' per noi la guerra della Falkland). Il titolo originale era "L'asso della bottiglia" facendo riferimento all'amore per gli alcolici del protagonista, decorato "postumo" di Medaglia d'Onore. A fine anni '70 vennero realizzate due serie di telefilm con Robert Conrad protagonista tratti liberamente dal libro, tradotti in Italia con La squadriglia delle pecore nere (con alcune comparsate del colonnello Boyington in persona, scomparso poi nel 1988) e il volume venne ripubblicato come L'asso delle Tigri Volanti (in maniera piu' politicamente corretta). Volumi ormai introvabili. Adesso c'e' l'occasione di leggere l'originale per meno di 2 euro. Se siete appassionati d'aviazione non perdetevelo.

One person found this helpful

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Alec Taylor

Pappy Boyington's autobiography, flawed but still good.

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on January 28, 2019

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As people mentioned in other reviews as a literary work it is rather mediocre. But it is honest to the point of self-deprecating.

First part about Flying Tigers is rather dull and reads like a wild boozing adventure in SE Asia.
Next part about fighting japanese and life in captivity is rather good. I guess because he drank less.
And the last part about life after the war is almost unreadable. It was clearly painful for him to write, as he descended into alcoholism again.

IMO, If he had a ghost writer or at least a good editor it would've been a much better book. his story deserves to be told.

2 people found this helpful

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Baa Baa Black Sheep: The True Story of the "Bad Boy" Hero of the Pacific Theatre and His Famous Black Sheep Squadron Mass Market Paperback – January 1, 1977

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Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

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About the author

Gregory Boyington

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