Warbird Information Exchange

Hey and by the way Jack I don't mean any dissrespect by this.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

This sounds like every US fighter squadron I've ever seen. Getting in trouble for fighting? Yep, every fighter squadron I've seen. Chasing skirts at the bar? Check. Singing raunchy songs? Check. Getting blotto? Check. Flying your ass off and being a ferocious killer when the canopy closes and the engine starts. Absolutely.

Really, nothing about the hyperbole that the "black sheep" pilots are popularly accused of is really unique to those people and that war. It's unique to people who are in the business of flying airplanes and killing people in them.

My good friend CY Gladen , who flew P-40s on Guadalcanal, always said "Everyday was Halloween and every night was happy hour".

Shark Flight 44th FS June 16, 1943 toasting the memory of friend John Tedder KIA a few hours earlier.
(L-R) Dale Tarbet, Mack Bunderson, Cy Gladen & Bob Byrnes

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Don't touch my junk!!

Jack,

Bruce Gamble did use the term "cast off" in his book, and like was said above, they were pilots in the pool with experience and no home. So in that vein they were "cast offs". They were not kicked out of other squadrons, they were just looking for the home Boyington gave them. Boyington in no way belonged in a peace time Corps;however, I'd take a whole lot of squadron CO's like him.

As to the drinking and such, put yourself in their postition, you're young risking your life and far from home. I think I'd act the same way. Try to be the CO and send young men off to die, then write their family about it, it tends to leave some scars. I know it is part of my job to tell people they have cancer or a loved on has died. I told one family their 17 year old daughter was killed in a car accident on prom night. The last they saw of her in the ED she was lying there broken in her torn prom dress. The looks on the faces of mom and dad kept me awake for many nights. Boyinton was not the only one to have problems after the war. Many other COs did too. Not their fault. I'm not perfect, and neither was Boyington, but I feel he was good at his core.

That's my $0.02

There was also lots & lots of serious Gambling to fight off the stress:



One Pilot won enough money to pay off His mortgage.... Digger