I remember him more on BahBah Black Sheep, Pappy Boyington.
I met his son, Greg Boyinton Jr. at my church about 12-14 years back. One of our parishioners and Greg Boyington Jr. were class mates and graduated with the first class of the Air Force Academy. Boyington used to come visit him every year. My friend died a few years back and I haven't seen Greg Jr. since.
Interesting -I wasn't aware of his son being in the USAF - He certainly had a varied and noteworthy career -
http://veterantributes.org/TributeDetail.php?recordID=1613Well I'm not sure how long they stayed in the Air Force. But they both, my friend and Boyington Jr. were graduates of the first class of the Academy back in the 50s.
Now to make my story more interesting, my first college room mate was a guy named Bruce Chennault and his great uncle was none other than Claire Lee Chennault, the head of the Flying Tigers. But before that, I grew up around 3 neighbor boys named Bates whose great uncle was non other than David Lee "Tex" Hill of flying tiger fame. So I had contact with 3 families of Flying Tiger fame.
I met both Pappy Boyington and Tex Hill. Tex I met several times as he was always down visiting his neice, Patsy Bates here in Port Lavaca back in the 60s. He, like his three great nephews, was about 6'7" or 6'8" tall, a tower of a man. I bet he had hell getting in that fighter's cockpit.
I also met Pappy Boyington himself, at the Confederate Air Show down the road in Harlingen several times back in the 70s and early 80s.
I say i met him, he was working his booth there and I used to talk to him, or try to, he was a cranky old fart. That was after he sobered up. Of course, I never met Claire Chennault. He died in 1958 and I was only 10 at the time, 12 years before I met his great nephew.
When I was going to the Confederate Air Show every year I would also see the German Ace, Adolf Galland and there was a Japanese ace there as well but his name slips my mind. But the one I used to like to talk to was Ensign George Gay of Midway fame, the sole survivor of Torpedo 8 Squadron. He was interesting and friendly. I asked him once "Was it the antiquated Torpedo Bomber or just too many Jap Zeroes that got you shot down?" He said "Oh hell boy, too many damn zeroes, they were everywhere."
I always had a great interest in Fighter AND Bomber pilots and their stories because my dad was a Mustang Pilot. He used to tell me there was no glory in it. He said they strapped you in that little seat in that little cockpit and you were cold the whole way and all you smelled was gasoline, sometimes on long missions for as long as 8 hours.
Due to a hunting accident in early '44 my dad was late in getting over to Europe and didn't get their until December '44. But he still made 13 missions before it all ended, one of which was flying over and guarding the famous Bridge at Remagen. The Germans tried several times to destroy it after the Americans captured it, but the US Army got a lot of men and equipment across it before it finally collapsed on its own on March 17 1945. But before it collapsed the Germans tried to destroy it with everything they had including the Luftwaffe. My dad's squadron was flying guard over it to prevent that. Anyway I'm rambling on about war stories which would be better in another post. Say Good Night Gracie, LOL!