{"id":8158772,"date":"2026-07-31T12:50:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T10:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/?p=8158772"},"modified":"2026-08-24T16:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T14:56:08","slug":"pappy-boyington-black-sheep-squadron-vmf-214-medal-of-honor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/it\/pappy-boyington-black-sheep-squadron-vmf-214-medal-of-honor\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hard-Drinking Ace Who Led the Black Sheep"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style><p>He was 31 years old \u2014 ancient by fighter-pilot standards \u2014 which is how a hard-drinking, twice-divorced Marine named Gregory Boyington got the nickname \"Pappy.\" He was also, by 1943, something close to washed up: a former Flying Tiger with a reputation for brawling and debt. The Marines handed him a squadron of castoffs, replacements and green pilots that nobody else wanted.<\/p><p>In 84 days, Pappy Boyington turned those \"Black Sheep\" into the most famous fighter squadron of the Pacific war, ran his personal tally toward the top of the Marine Corps, won the Medal of Honor \u2014 and then vanished so completely that his own country presumed him dead.<\/p>\r\n<div style=\"background:#f5f5f5;padding:20px 24px;margin:24px 0;border-radius:8px\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 10px;font-weight:700;font-size:17px;color:#222\">Informazioni rapide<\/p><table style=\"width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;font-size:15px\"><tr><td style=\"padding:5px 10px 5px 0;color:#666;vertical-align:top;white-space:nowrap\"><strong>Nome<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:5px 0\">Maj. Gregory \"Pappy\" Boyington (1912-1988)<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:5px 10px 5px 0;color:#666;vertical-align:top;white-space:nowrap\"><strong>Unit\u00e0<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:5px 0\">Formed and led VMF-214 \"Black Sheep\"<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:5px 10px 5px 0;color:#666;vertical-align:top;white-space:nowrap\"><strong>Aeromobili<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:5px 0\">Vought F4U Corsair (earlier, P-40 with the Flying Tigers)<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:5px 10px 5px 0;color:#666;vertical-align:top;white-space:nowrap\"><strong>Vittorie<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:5px 0\">Credited with 28 (22 with the Marines; his Flying Tigers total is debated)<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:5px 10px 5px 0;color:#666;vertical-align:top;white-space:nowrap\"><strong>lode<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:5px 0\">Medal of Honor, Navy Cross<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:5px 10px 5px 0;color:#666;vertical-align:top;white-space:nowrap\"><strong>Abbattuto<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:5px 0\">3 January 1944, over Rabaul<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:5px 10px 5px 0;color:#666;vertical-align:top;white-space:nowrap\"><strong>Captivity<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:5px 0\">~20 months as a Japanese POW<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:5px 10px 5px 0;color:#666;vertical-align:top;white-space:nowrap\"><strong>Book<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:5px 0\">Baa Baa Black Sheep (1958)<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/div>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">From the Flying Tigers to the Marines<\/h2><p>Before America entered the war, Boyington had left the Marines to fly P-40s with the American Volunteer Group \u2014 the legendary Flying Tigers \u2014 over Burma and China. Exactly how many aircraft he shot down there has been argued over ever since; the number on his own account is higher than the one some historians accept. Either way, he rejoined the Marines in 1942 with combat behind him and a chip on his shoulder.<\/p>\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3Ao7qlr1nug\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;border-radius:8px\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The Black Sheep<\/h2><p>In August 1943, in the Solomons, Boyington was given command of a scratch unit of spare pilots \u2014 men between assignments, replacements, and rookies. He built them into Marine Fighting Squadron 214, and the name \"Black Sheep\" fit both the pilots and their commander. Flying the big, powerful F4U Corsair, they went to work over some of the most heavily defended airspace in the Pacific. In 84 days of combat the squadron was credited with 100 enemy aircraft shot down.<\/p>\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img data-opt-id=659140444  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:0e0_.b970\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/07\/f4u-corsair-in-flight-wwii.jpg\" alt=\"F4U Corsair in the Solomons, 1943\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">A Vought F4U Corsair at Barakoma Airfield, Vella Lavella, late 1943 \u2014 the kind of forward strip the Black Sheep flew from. Photo: U.S. Navy.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7\"><em>&ldquo;Show me a hero and I'll show you a bum.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Gregory &quot;Pappy&quot; Boyington<\/strong> &mdash; from his memoir, Baa Baa Black Sheep<\/div><\/div>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Medal of Honor over Kahili<\/h2><p>On 17 October 1943, Boyington led 24 Corsairs over the Japanese airfield at Kahili, where some 60 enemy fighters sat on the ground. Rather than strike and run, he circled the field and taunted the Japanese to come up and fight. They did. In the swirling battle that followed, the Black Sheep shot down 20 of them and lost not one of their own. It was the kind of audacity that wins medals \u2014 and it did.<\/p>\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #1565c0;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7\"><em>&ldquo;Maj. Boyington led a formation of 24 fighters over Kahili on 17 October and, persistently circling the airdrome where 60 hostile aircraft were grounded, boldly challenged the Japanese to send up planes.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>U.S. Medal of Honor citation<\/strong> &mdash; Maj. Gregory Boyington<\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/puLcps169hk\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;border-radius:8px\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Shot down and given up for dead<\/h2><p>On 3 January 1944, over the great Japanese base at Rabaul, Boyington shot down what was recorded as his final kill \u2014 and was then shot down himself, into the sea. His squadron saw no parachute. As far as America knew, Pappy Boyington was dead, and the Medal of Honor was awarded in the belief that it would be posthumous.<\/p><p>He was not dead. A Japanese submarine had pulled him from the water, and he spent the last 20 months of the war in captivity, beaten and half-starved, his survival unknown to the outside world. He learned he had been awarded the Medal of Honor only after his liberation at war's end \u2014 a dead man collecting his own decoration.<\/p>\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img data-opt-id=194528040  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:0e0_.b970\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/07\/pappy-boyington-portrait.jpg\" alt=\"Major Gregory \"pappy\" boyington\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">Major Gregory \"Pappy\" Boyington, top Marine Corps ace of the Second World War. Photo: U.S. Marine Corps.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The legend and the man<\/h2><p>Boyington came home a hero and struggled with the role for the rest of his life. In 1958 he told his own story in <em>Baa Baa Pecora Nera<\/em>, an unvarnished memoir that later inspired a hit 1970s television series. He was, by every account including his own, a difficult, flawed man \u2014 which is precisely why the \"hero and a bum\" line stuck to him. He died in 1988 and is buried at Arlington.<\/p><p>What is not in dispute is the flying. For 84 days, an over-the-hill Marine and a squadron of misfits owned a piece of the Pacific sky \u2014 and then their commander walked out of a prison camp two years later, alive, to find out he was a legend.<\/p>\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/et_V5pvJkoE\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;border-radius:8px\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n<p style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;font-style:italic;margin-top:24px\">Sources: U.S. Medal of Honor citation (Congressional Medal of Honor Society); Pacific Wrecks; HistoryNet; Baa Baa Black Sheep (Boyington, 1958).<\/p>\r\n<div style=\"background:#f0f4ff;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:16px 20px;margin:32px 0 8px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:600;color:#333\">Post correlati<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/it\/george-welch-pilota-del-p40-di-pearl-harbor\/\">Il pilota che si oppose a Pearl Harbor<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/it\/f6f-hellcat-ace-maker\/\">La Hellcat: la creatrice di assi che ha infranto lo zero<\/a><\/p><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>He was 31 years old \u2014 ancient by fighter-pilot standards \u2014 which is how a hard-drinking, twice-divorced Marine named Gregory Boyington got the nickname &#8220;Pappy.&#8221; He was also, by 1943, something close to washed up: a former Flying Tiger with a reputation for brawling and debt. The Marines handed him a squadron of castoffs, replacements [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":8158306,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[666,664],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8158772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history-and-legends","category-military-aviation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Pappy Boyington and the Black Sheep Squadron<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The story of Pappy Boyington, the hard-drinking Marine who led the Black Sheep Squadron, won the Medal of Honor, and survived 20 months as a Japanese POW.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link 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