Those pilots are rejects.
They won’t last a week in combat.
That was headquarters verdict on the squadron Major Gregory Boington was assembling in August 1943.
27 pilots nobody wanted administrative orphans forgotten replacements.
Veterans whose units had been disbanded, no planes of their own, no mechanics, no insignia, less than four weeks to train before facing the best Japanese pilots in the Pacific.
The brass laughed it off.
a bunch of castoffs led by a troublemaker.
The Marines had almost refused to take back.
This wasn’t a squadron.
It was a joke.
32 days later, those rejects had shot down more Japanese planes than any other squadron in the region.
In 84 days of combat, they would compile one of the deadliest records in American aviation history.
97 confirmed aerial victories.
Nine aces produced.
203 aircraft destroyed or damaged.
They called themselves the black sheep and this is the story of how they proved everyone wrong.
August 1943 is spiritu santo new hees.
The Pacific war was a meat grinder.
Island by island, airfield by airfield, the allies pushed north toward Japan, but the cost and pilots was staggering.
Squadrons that arrived at full strength were shattered within weeks.
Experienced men died and replacements arrived to fill their empty bunks, only to find themselves stranded when their assigned units were disbanded or reorganized.
By summer 1943, dozens of combat ready pilots sat idle across the South Pacific, caught in administrative limbo.
Some had recovered from wounds only to find their squadrons no longer existed.
Others had arrived as replacements and never been assigned.
A few had simply been forgotten by a bureaucracy overwhelmed by the scale of the war.
Among these orphans was Major Gregory Boington.
At 30 years old, he would turn 31 in December.
Boington was ancient by fighter pilot standards.
He’d flown P40s with the Flying Tigers over Burma, claiming six victories against the Japanese before that unit disbanded, but his reputation preceded him.
Brilliant in the cockpit, impossible everywhere else.
A drinker, a brawler, a man who had burned every bridge the Marine Corps offered him.
The Marines had almost refused to take him back.
Now watching experienced pilots waste away in replacement pools while the war demanded every fighter in the sky.
Boington saw an opportunity.
He proposed the impossible.
Give him the orphan pilots.
Give him four weeks and he would deliver a combat ready squadron headquarters perhaps just to silence his persistent requests.
Agreed.
The conditions were brutal.
Borrowed aircraft, no ground crew, and if they failed, every pilot would wash back into the replacement pool.
Boington didn’t care.
He had what he wanted.
27 pilots gathered that August.
Among the veterans, Lieutenant John Bolt, who had flown combat tours with other squadrons, Bill Casease, who had already down to zero with VMF-112, Captain Bob Euing, another VMF12 veteran who knew air combat intimately.
Mixed among them were younger pilots, men with hundreds of training hours but no combat experience, eager, confident, untested.
What united them was their status as outsiders.
Every man in this tent had one way or another been left behind by the system.
On the evening of September 13th, they gathered in Boington’s quarters at Turtle Bay airfield.
Someone suggested calling themselves Boington’s bastards, a nod to both their commander and their orphan status.
The public affairs officer present immediately rejected it.
Newspapers would never print such a name.
Instead, he proposed an alternative.
The black sheep, the name stuck.
Like black sheep in a flock, these pilots had been marked as different, separated from the herd.
They designed their insignia accordingly.
A shield bearing the black bar traditionally associated with illegitimacy.
Superimposed with a black sheep surrounded by 12 stars.
VMF214 was reborn.
Now they had to prove they deserve to exist.
Before we send these men into combat, we need to understand their weapon.
The VA F4U Corsair was a magnificent beast and an unforgiving one.
Powered by a Pratt and Whitney R2800 double Wasp engine producing over 2,000 horsepower, it was the first American single engine fighter to exceed 400 mph in level flight.
That massive engine demanded an equally massive propeller over 13 ft in diameter.
the largest ever fitted to a fighter.
The distinctive inverted gullwing design existed for one reason, to keep the landing gear short while providing clearance for that enormous prop.
The armament was devastating.
650 caliber Browning M2 machine guns, three in each wing, 2300 rounds of ammunition, approximately 30 seconds of continuous fire.
Though pilots learned to fire in short bursts of 3 to 6 seconds, even brief applications of that concentrated firepower could tear an aircraft apart.
In skilled hands, the Corsair could outrun, outclimb, and outgun any Japanese fighter in the Pacific.
Climb rates approached 3,000 ft per minute.
Dive speed exceeded 450 mph.
Fast enough to escape any pursuer.
Fast enough to conduct slashing attacks from above.
that gave the enemy no chance to respond, but the Corsair demanded respect.
The long nose blocked forward vision during landing approaches, potentially fatal on short runways.
Stall characteristics were treacherous.
The right wing dropped suddenly at the edge of a stall, and recovery required immediate corrective action.
Early models bounced dangerously on landing.
The stiff gear transmitting every runway imperfection directly into the airframe.
These problems were so severe that the Navy initially rejected the Corsair for carrier operations, deeming it too dangerous for shipboard landings.
The Marines got what the Navy didn’t want, and it turned out to be one of the finest fighters of the war.
The Japanese called it whistling death for the sound its wing-mounted oil coolers made in a dive.
They learned to fear that whistle.
September 12th, 1943.
VMF214 staged forward to the Russell Islands.
The air strip was a rough coral surface carved out of jungle baking under tropical sun.
Conditions were primitive.
Tents for quarters, sea rations for meals, mosquitoes that attacked in clouds every evening.
But the black sheep didn’t come for comfort.
They came to fight.
Two days later, they flew their first combat mission.
An escort over Cahili airfield on Bubenville.
24 Corsaires climbed through 20,000 ft.
Pilots scanning the horizon, fingers resting near trigger buttons.
No enemy contact.
The Japanese stayed on the ground.
Boington was frustrated.
He hadn’t assembled this squadron to fly empty patrols.
He wanted kills.
September 16th would deliver them.
The target was Ballet, a small island west of Buganville where the Japanese had built a heavily fortified air strip.
VMF214 would escort Navy SBD Dauntless dive bombers and TBF Avenger torpedo planes into the heart of enemy territory.
Intelligence warned of heavy fighter opposition.
Ballet was within range of multiple Japanese bases.
Previous American raids had been costly.
The strike force assembled over the target around midm morning.
Navy bombers, F6F Hellcats, Royal New Zealand Air Force P40s, and the Corsairs of the Black Sheep.
Boington positioned his squadron high above the formation.
At 20,000 ft, seeking the altitude advantage that would be crucial if enemy fighters appeared.
For long minutes, the formation drone toward ballet.
Tension built in every cockpit.
Hands tightened on control sticks.
I scanned the horizon.
Then the bombers began their dive, and the Japanese responded.
Approximately 30 to 40 fighters came boiling up from below, pouring out of cloud cover to intercept.
In moments, the carefully organized strike dissolved into chaos.
A swirling dog fight spread across 200 square miles of sky.
Boyington led his corsaires down into the maelstrom.
In the confusion of that first dive, he made a stunning realization.
He had forgotten to turn on his guns and gun sight.
A zero flew nearly wing tip to wing tip with him.
Close enough to count the rivets on its fuselage.
For any other pilot, this delay would have been fatal.
In the micros secondsonds of air combat, fumbling with weapons could mean death.
But Boington’s hands moved automatically.
Years of experience over Burma at Pensacola in every cockpit he’d ever occupied took over.
He charged his guns even as he maneuvered.
The Zero went down in flames.
His first kill as a black sheep.
What followed was a running battle that tested every skill they had developed in their brief training.
The Japanese pilots were experienced defending their home territory.
They knew the sky over ballet intimately where the clouds offered cover.
How to use the sun.
Lieutenant Don Fiser flew as Boington’s wingman.
The most critical position in aerial combat.
Your job is to protect your leader’s tail while he focuses on killing.
Simple doctrine.
Impossible complexity when zeros are everywhere and tracers streak past your canopy.
Fiser watched a Zero slide in behind Boington, lining up for a killing shot.
He didn’t hesitate.
His 650 caliber guns hammered out a concentrated burst.
The Zero disintegrated in midair.
Fiser recalled seeing the wings separate, spinning in different directions as the aircraft exploded.
Now Fiser had a problem.
He was flying directly into a debris field.
Boington faced the same hazard.
One of his kills ended with him flying so close that when the Zero exploded, he passed through the fireball.
He threaded between the spinning engine, the separated wings, and the body of the pilot, emerging with nothing worse than dents from flying debris.
Lieutenant Bob McClur scored his first victory in a terrifying head-on pass.
Two aircraft closing at combined speeds of nearly 800 mph, seconds to engage.
The pilot who flinches first dies.
McClur held course.
He watched his tracers converge with the Japanese fighter.
The enemy aircraft staggered, smoked, went down.
He admitted afterward to being scared to death, but his hands had been steady.
Lieutenant Chris McGee, who had earned the nickname wild man, dove into a formation of Japanese aircraft with what witnesses called reckless abandon.
He emerged with multiple claims and Boington was everywhere.
Diving, climbing, turning, his guns chattering almost continuously where younger pilots became disoriented in the chaos of a mass dog fight.
Boington maintained situational awareness throughout.
He always knew where the enemy was, always positioned himself for the next kill.
His second kill came within minutes of the first.
a zero that tried to dive away and escape.
The Corsair’s superior diving speed meant no Zero could outrun it.
Going down, Boington closed the distance in seconds, held his burst until flames erupted from the enemy’s wing route, then pulled up hard to avoid the debris.
His third and fourth kills came in quick succession over the harbor.
A Japanese pilot made the fatal mistake of trying to turn with him.
The one maneuver no zero pilot should have attempted against a Corsair at low altitude.
The heavier American fighter could sustain higher G forces in a diving turn.
Boington used that advantage ruthlessly.
His fifth kill was the most dramatic.
Chasing a zero at treetop level over Bal.
Boington fired a long burst that walked tracers across the enemy aircraft from tail to cockpit.
The Zero didn’t explode.
It simply stopped flying, cartwheeling into the jungle in a cascade of debris and flame.
Five victories in a single mission.
Ace in a day.
The Black Sheep as a whole claimed 11 confirmed kills and eight probables in that first major engagement.
But victory came at a cost.
Captain Bob Euing, one of the squadron’s experienced pilots, failed to return.
His Corsair had last been seen diving into a swarm of zeros.
He was never found.
For every black sheep lost, the Japanese had paid with at least 11 of their own.
The skeptics at headquarters fell silent.
Following Balal, the black sheep moved to even more dangerous forward bases.
Munda on New Georgia where Navy CBS had reconstructed a bomb cratered airirstrip while Japanese forces still held portions of the island.
The sound of gunfire could be heard from the perimeter at night.
Pilots slept with sidearms under their pillows.
Vela Lavella came next.
Deeper into contested territory.
Japanese barges still ran supplies along the coast.
After dark, enemy bombers struck the field at irregular intervals, forcing pilots to scramble for foxholes in the middle of the night.
From these positions, the black sheep carried the air war directly to the Japanese.
The routine became familiar.
Pre-dawn briefings in muggy operations tense.
Takeoff as the sun crested the horizon.
The long climb to altitude.
The constant scanning for enemy aircraft.
Then the sudden explosion of combat.
Seconds of violent maneuvering that decided who lived and who died.
Followed by the long flight home, counting aircraft, hoping everyone had made it.
Their primary targets were the enemy bases around Buganeville and the massive Japanese complex at Rebal on New Britain.
Rebal, the name alone, carried weight.
Four airfields surrounding Simpson Harbor, hundreds of aircraft, experienced pilots, formidable anti-aircraft defenses.
Allied planners estimated the Japanese could put 300 fighters into the air over rebol if pressed.
They called it impregnable.
For months, it had seemed beyond the reach of American single engine fighters.
The distance from Allied bases in the southern Solomons was simply too great.
Even if fighters could reach the target, they wouldn’t have enough fuel to fight when they got there.
That was about to change.
October 4th, 1943 began like any other mission.
The Black Sheep escorted SBD dive bombers on a strike over Buganeville.
Routine escort duty.
Stay with the bombers.
Engage only if attacked.
Bring everyone home.
The Japanese had other plans.
They rose to intercept in force.
Over 30 zeros climbing to meet the American formation.
The bombers pushed over into their dives.
The fighter escort prepared to meet the threat.
What happened next became one of the signature stories of Boington’s career.
In the space of roughly 60 seconds, he shot down three zeros.
Three kills in 60 seconds.
The first zero made the mistake of climbing headon against him.
Boington held course, watching the range close, holding fire until the enemy aircraft filled his gun sight.
At 200 yd, he squeezed the trigger.
The concentrated fire from 650 caliber guns tore the Zero apart before its pilot could react.
The second came moments later.
A zero that tried to pull in behind one of his wingmen.
Boington cut inside the Japanese aircraft’s turn, leading it perfectly and fired a short burst that exploded the enemy’s fuel tank.
The third was trying to escape, diving for cloud cover.
Boington rolled inverted and pulled through using the Corsair’s superior dive speed to close the distance.
His burst caught the zero just as it reached the clouds.
It never emerged.
Three aircraft destroyed in the time it takes to pour a cup of coffee.
It wasn’t luck.
It was the convergence of thousands of hours of flying, honed instincts, and the absolute focus that separates great fighter pilots from merely good ones.
In the chaos of a dog fight, most pilots struggle to engage one aircraft effectively.
Boington had just demonstrated what a master could do, but he wanted more than individual victories.
He wanted to send a message.
October 17th, 1943.
Cahili airfield, southern Buganeville.
Intelligence reported approximately 60 Japanese fighters based there.
A hornet’s nest waiting to be stirred.
Boington’s plan was audacious.
Fly directly over the enemy airfield and challenged them to come up and fight.
Staff officers had nightmares about such proposals.
Flying over an enemy airfield invited ground fire from concentrated anti-aircraft positions.
Circling at altitude gave away surprise.
Challenging the Japanese to engage on their home territory meant fighting pilots who knew every landmark, every escape route.
They told me I was crazy, Boington later recalled.
I told them crazy was working.
He brought 24 Corsaires to Cahili that morning.
The flight took them over open water, past the green bulk of the Treasury Islands into airspace the Japanese considered their own.
The Black Sheep arrived over Cahili at 18,000 ft, orbiting in a wide circle that kept every pilot in clear view of the airfield below.
They could see the hangers, the Revitments, the aircraft parked along the taxi strips, and the Japanese could see them.
Boington keyed his radio to the frequency intelligence believed the Japanese monitored.
Come up and fight.
It wasn’t subtle.
It wasn’t tactical.
It was the aerial equivalent of walking into an enemy camp and slapping their commander across the face.
The Japanese obliged.
Within minutes, Zeros began lifting off from Cahili.
They climbed in groups, forming up as they gained altitude.
Intelligence had said 60 fighters were based here.
It looked like all of them were coming up.
Boington smiled.
This was what he wanted.
The Black Sheep had altitude advantage, the most crucial factor in aerial combat.
They had the sun behind them.
They had 24 Corsaires crewed by pilots who had been training for exactly this moment.
The Japanese had numbers and home field advantage, but they were climbing into a fight against an enemy who had chosen the terms.
Boington waited until the first Japanese fighters reached 18,000 ft.
Then he rolled over and dove.
24 Corsaires screamed down on the climbing zeros.
The Japanese formation scattered.
The carefully coordinated climb dissolved into individual aircraft trying to either engage or escape.
In aerial combat, surprise and position matter more than numbers.
The Black Sheep had both.
Boington got his first kill in the initial dive, a zero that never saw him coming.
His burst caught the enemy aircraft at the wing route, and it folded like a broken bird.
The battle spread across miles of sky.
Corsairs and zeros twisted around each other.
Each pilot trying to gain position.
The chatter on the radio was constant.
Warnings, calls for help, shouts of triumph as aircraft went down.
Lieutenant Chris Maggie, the wild man, dove through a formation of three zeros.
Guns blazing emerging below with two of them trailing smoke.
Lieutenant John Bolt caught a zero trying to climb back to altitude.
His burst shattered the canopy and killed the pilot instantly.
Boington himself claimed four more kills, weaving through the fight with the fluid instincts of a natural predator.
When it was over, the Black Sheep had claimed 20 enemy aircraft destroyed.
They had not lost a single pilot.
20 to nothing.
It was the kind of lopsided victory that military historians would study for decades.
President Franklin Roosevelt would later describe Boington’s command that day as brilliant.
The October 17th mission became a defining moment in Black Sheep history, proof that aggressive tactics properly executed could produce results that cautious flying never could.
It confirmed Boington’s status as the squadron’s unquestioned leader, and it made clear that Rabal’s turn was coming.
November 1st, 1943.
Allied forces landed on Bugganville, establishing a beach head at Empress Augusta Bay.
The Japanese threw everything at the perimeter.
Ground attacks in the jungle.
Naval bombardments from the sea.
Endless air raids that forced defenders into foxholes day and night.
But the Navy CBS kept building.
Working under fire, they carved air strips out of the Buganville jungle.
By late November, the strips at Torokina were operational.
The mathematics of air warfare had changed.
For the first time, single engine American fighters could reach Rabal and still have enough fuel to fight when they got there.
Boington led the first Marine fighter sweep over the fortress on December 17th, 1943.
The approach alone was harrowing, 200 m over open water, much of it within range of Japanese search planes.
Then the climb to altitude as the mountains of New Britain appeared on the horizon.
Finally, the fortress itself.
Four airfields, hundreds of parked aircraft, anti-aircraft guns that filled the sky with steel.
The Japanese scrambled everything they had.
Intelligence estimated over 70 enemy fighters airborne that day.
A concentration of aircraft that would have seemed impossible just months earlier.
The sky over Simpson Harbor became a swirling mastrom of aircraft, tracers, and smoke.
The fighting over Rabal was different from anything the Black Sheep had experienced.
These weren’t green pilots defending an outpost.
These were Japan’s best veterans who had survived years of combat in China, the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies.
They knew the sky over their fortress intimately.
They had drilled their tactics against American aircraft.
They were fighting for their homes.
But the Black Sheep had advantages of their own.
The Corsair’s superior altitude performance let them fight above 18,000 ft where Japanese aircraft struggled.
The American pilots had learned to use their diving speed ruthlessly.
Slash through a formation, take your shot, and keep diving before anyone could respond.
Don’t turn.
Don’t climb, use the vertical always.
Boington led by example.
In the December 17th engagement, he claimed multiple kills.
His Corsair weaving through the Japanese formation with predatory grace.
When a Zero tried to follow him into a dive, he simply pushed the nose down harder.
The Japanese pilot couldn’t keep up.
Boington pulled out at low altitude and climbed back for another pass.
But the margins were razor thin.
Lieutenant Henry Miller took hits during the engagement.
20 mm cannon rounds that punched through his wing and fuselage.
Oil pressure dropping.
Engine temperature climbing.
He nursed the wounded Corsair south toward Torokina.
200 m of ocean between him and safety.
He made it.
Others were not so fortunate.
Throughout November and December, the black sheep lost pilots over Rabal and its approaches.
Some went down in the harbor itself.
Parachutes seen opening, but no rescue possible with Japanese boats racing to the spot.
Each empty bunk was a reminder.
This was not a game.
The Japanese were not paper targets.
They were skilled, determined enemies defending their most important base.
But the squadron’s kill ratio remained overwhelming.
For every black sheep lost, the Japanese paid with 10 or 15 of their own aircraft.
The fortress was bleeding slowly, painfully, but unmistakably.
The road to Tokyo ran through a ballal and the black sheep were kicking down the door.
By late 1943, Boington was chasing history.
The Marine Corps record for aerial victories was held by Joe Fos.
26 confirmed kills.
Before that, the American all-time record had belonged to Eddie Rickenbacher since World War I.
Boon wanted to break it.
He flew mission after mission, pushing himself and his aircraft to the limits.
The aggressive tactics that had made him successful now seemed driven as much by personal ambition as military necessity.
“The hunting was fine,” he would later write of those final weeks of 1943.
“But I’m doing some dumb things up there.
The stress was showing.
Combat exhaustion accumulated over months of flying.
The pressure of approaching the record added weight to every decision.
Boon admitted to making errors that an experienced pilot should have avoided.
But the kills kept coming.
By December 23rd, 1943, Boon’s tally had risen to 24.
December 27th, 25.
He was one victory away from tying FS’s record.
On New Year’s Eve, the Black Sheep celebrated in characteristic fashion.
Accounts described pistol flares being fired in such quantities that the transport fleet offshore initially feared an air raid was underway.
It was a final party before what everyone knew would be their most dangerous mission yet.
The squadron’s tour was nearly complete.
In just a few more days, they would stand down, their pilots reassigned to spread hard one experience throughout the Marine Corps.
January 3rd, 1944 might be Boington’s last chance to make history.
January 3rd, 1944.
The briefing began before dawn in a canvas roofed operations hut at Torokina.
The mission, a major fighter sweep over Rabal, 48 aircraft from multiple squadrons, the largest American fighter force yet sent against the fortress.
The Black Sheep would be in the vanguard.
Boington was determined to fly.
Some of his pilots worried they had seen the signs of combat exhaustion.
The thousand-y stare, the twitchy responses, the tendency to take risks that no longer made tactical sense.
Boington was pushing himself beyond reasonable limits.
But who was going to tell Papy Boington to stand down? He was one kill from tying the Marine Corps record.
His tour was nearly over.
This might be his last chance.
He strapped into his corsair as the first gray light touched the eastern horizon.
The flight to Rabal was long and tense.
Weather conditions were challenging.
Scattered clouds that could hide enemy aircraft.
Low visibility over the target area.
Some aircraft were forced to abort due to mechanical problems.
By the time the American fighters reached their target, the formation had thinned significantly.
It didn’t matter to Boington.
He pressed on.
The Japanese were waiting.
They had learned from previous American sweeps.
This time they held their fighters back, waiting for the Americans to descend into the flack zone before scrambling.
Intelligence estimated approximately 70 enemy fighters airborne that morning, but they came up coordinated in formations that maintained mutual support.
The sky over Rabal erupted into the largest aerial battle Boington had experienced since joining the Black Sheep.
Aircraft swirled around each other at altitudes from sea level to 20,000 ft.
The radio was a chaos of calls, warnings, and screams.
Tracers crisscross the sky.
Aircraft went down smoking.
Some American, some Japanese.
Impossible to keep count.
Boington found himself in the thick of it.
His Corsair twisting through the chaos.
He spotted a zero climbing to altitude and rolled in behind it.
His burst was perfect.
The enemy aircraft staggered and fell away burning.
26 kills.
He had tied Joe Fos’s record.
But there was no time to celebrate.
More zeros were coming.
Boington looked for his wingman and couldn’t find him.
Somewhere in the chaos, they had become separated.
A cardinal sin of air combat.
Never lose your wingman.
Never.
He was alone over Rabal, surrounded by enemy fighters who had seen him score that last kill.
They knew who he was.
They wanted him.
Multiple zeros descended on his position.
Boington twisted and turned, using every trick he knew, but there were too many of them.
Hits started registering.
The distinctive sound of bullets punching through aluminum.
His left ear exploded in pain as a round tore through.
Blood poured down his neck.
More hits.
His aircraft was dying around him.
Boington rolled toward the harbor, looking for any escape.
The engine was failing.
Fire was licking at the cowling.
He had seconds to decide.
He pulled the canopy release and bailed out.
The parachute opened barely 100 ft above the water.
So low that he had almost no time to prepare for landing.
He hit the surface hard, tangled in his shroud lines, and fought desperately to free himself before the silk dragged him under.
Wounded, bleeding, exhausted, he finally managed to inflate his life raft and pull himself aboard.
Simpson harbor stretched around him.
Japanese warships rode at anchor.
Enemy aircraft circled overhead.
He was in the middle of the most heavily defended Japanese position in the South Pacific.
For hours, he drifted, hoping against hope for rescue.
Allied submarines operated in these waters.
Coast watchers on nearby islands might have seen his parachute.
There was still a chance.
Then a submarine surfaced nearby.
For a moment, Boington’s heart lifted until he saw the rising sun painted on the Conning Tower.
It was Japanese submarine I81.
His war as a fighter pilot was over.
For 20 months, Gregory Boington endured hell.
The Japanese initially took him to Rabal for interrogation.
In February 1944, he was flown to Japan aboard a Mitsubishi G4 embetti bomber.
A terrifying journey through truck at all just as American aircraft were conducting a massive raid on the Japanese base there.
His primary place of captivity was Avuna interrogation camp approximately 30 mi south of Tokyo.
Avuna was not officially recognized as a prisoner of war camp by the Japanese government.
The Red Cross had no access.
Prisoners received none of the minimal protections that international law theoretically provided.
Beatings were routine.
Guards used fists, boots, and wooden clubs to extract information and maintain discipline.
Medical care was essentially non-existent.
Boington’s combat wounds were packed with dirty rags and left to fester.
The food was barely adequate to sustain life.
thin rice grl, occasional vegetables, rarely any protein.
Lington contracted malaria, suffering repeated bouts that left him weakened and delirious.
At his lowest point, he weighed approximately 100 lb, 90 lb below his normal weight.
The robust athlete, who had wrestled his way to a Pacific Northwest championship, became a skeletal shadow.
Among his fellow prisoners, Boington encountered other remarkable figures.
Louis Zampirini, the Olympic runner whose story would later be told in Unbroken.
Richard Ocaine, the submarine commander who would receive the Medal of Honor for his extraordinary patrols aboard USS Tang.
Throughout captivity, Boington never surrendered.
When guards beat him, he endured.
When hunger nawed, he scavenged.
When despair threatened, he focused on the simple goal of living one more day.
The Japanese never publicly acknowledged holding him.
Throughout his captivity, Boington was officially listed as missing in action.
Presumed killed.
Presumed killed.
Back in the United States, his family mourned.
In March 1944, President Franklin Roosevelt approved the Medal of Honor for Major Gregory Boington.
because he was listed as missing and presumed dead.
The medal was held.
Everyone assumed Gregory Boington was dead.
5 days after Boington went down, VMF214 flew its final combat mission.
In 84 days, they had compiled one of the most remarkable records in Marine Corps history.
97 confirmed aerial victories.
Nine aces, 203 aircraft destroyed or damaged.
The black sheep as a fighting unit ceased to exist, but their leader had not.
August 1945, a B29 flew low over Omorei prison camp near Tokyo.
A crew member with a camera captured something extraordinary.
Painted on the roof of a barracks and letters large enough to read from the air.
Papy Boington here.
On August 29th, American forces arrived to liberate the prisoners.
Among the first to greet them was Gregory Boington, gaunt, scarred by 20 months of brutal captivity, but alive.
On October 5th, 1945, President Harry Truman personally presented Boington with the Medal of Honor at the White House.
It was no longer aostumous award.
The man they said wouldn’t last a week had survived it all.
The combat, the captivity, the odds that should have killed him a hundred times over.
28 victories.
The highest scoring Marine Corps ace of the war, Gregory Boon came home and the Black Sheep became legend.
If this story moved you, hit subscribe and turn on notifications.
We’re bringing you the untold stories of the warriors history almost forgot.
Drop a comment below.
Which Black Sheep pilot deserves his own documentary? What other forgotten squadrons should we cover next? Share this with someone who needs to hear what real courage looks like.
The legends aren’t gone.
They’re just waiting to be told.
