Flying Tigers vs. Baa Baa Black Sheep

Browsing through Barnes & Nobles one day, I came across this book: Flying Tigers, by Daniel Ford.  It’s an in-depth analysis of the American Volunteer Group (AVG), better known by their famous nickname, the Flying Tigers. 

            They were recruited in the US by Claire Chennault, in the months leading up to Pearl Harbor.  These were mainly flight instructors and other pilots who were otherwise unoccupied though in the military, who jumped at the option of some real combat, for $600 a month ($12,000 a month in today’s dollars), plus a $500 bonus for each Japanese plane shot down ($10,000 in today’s money).  They had to resign from the military to serve in the unit, which was technically a civilian outfit (some of the AVG members later started the CIA’s Air America outfit) working for CAMCO, a private firm – making them essentially mercenary pilots.  Due to the time necessary to get all the planes and infrastructure set up at their bases, they didn’t really see much combat until after the US went into the war.  Originally they were expected to fight Japanese forces in China, but most of their combat took place in Burma, Thailand, and north Vietnam.  Their rearward base was at Kunming, in Yunnan Province.  They had three squadrons: Adam & Eves (First Pursuit), Panda Bears, and the Hell’s Angels.

            Most of the planes were Curtiss P40 Warhawks, with 1100 HP V12 liquid cooled engines.  The P40 had a reputation that it was uncatchable in a dive, which proved true in the Pacific theater.  However, as Boyington described below, a South African pilot in North Africa learned that the Messerschmidt Me109E could match it – which he discovered when the German pilot matching his dive opened his canopy and flashed the “V” sign at him with a smile.

            They were up against the Japanese Army Air Force (JAAF) meaning that none of the Jap planes they faced were Zeros, which were Navy planes.  The book identifies the specific Japanese squadrons (Sentais) and pilots in each encounter, so you see both sides.  In many cases, “kills” on both sides were overstated: often two pilots claimed credit for shooting down the same plane, which somehow actually managed to make it back home anyway.  For their part, the Japs claimed to have shot down a force several times larger than the AVG at its peak.

            Originally volunteers, and definitely chafing at having any military authority imposed on them (despite the fact that most of the pilots were ex-military anyway) the group resisted the US Army’s efforts to absorb them into the military, but not for long.  Most of the combat operations took place after Pearl Harbor and the US entered the war, so this was not like the Lafayette Escadrille (US pilots flying for France in WWI prior to US entry) or the US pilots who flew for the RAF in the Battle of Britain.  The major accomplishment of the AVG was to strike back at Japan at a time when the Japanese were mostly successful, overrunning Burma, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and almost reaching Australia.  Here was one theater where the Allies were fighting back – successfully – against Japanese aggression. 

 Madame Chiang Kia-Shek, aka Soong May-Ling.  As an aside, and without feeling compelled to devote an entire blog to this otherwise remarkable woman, I thought it useful to talk about her.  She was born in Shanghai in 1898, and died in New York City in 2003 at the age of 105.  Whether it be Claire Chennault or General Joe Stilwell, anyone who came into contact with Chiang Kai-Shek and his wife generally agreed that Madame Chiang, as she was often referred to, was very much the brains of the couple.  She spoke fluent English, even with a Georgia accent, having been educated at Wesleyan College. 

 The Flying Tigers.  This is the 1942 WWII vintage movie with John Wayne as Jim Gordon – unclear whether he’s supposed to be Chennault or Pappy Boyington.  They’ve pretty much made it yet another garden variety war movie set in China in WWII shortly before the US entered the war.  The Flying Tigers, of course, fly P-40s with the tigers painted on the planes, and are usually outnumbered in their battles against Japanese planes.  We have to have a story, and that involves yet ANOTHER arrogant, selfish asshole who only cares about money (bonus) and glory, UNTIL he wants to impress the cute white nurse and get into her panties, so THEN he decides to impress the Chinese children at the orphanage.  Of course he screws up, somehow, and of course he redeems himself, at the cost of his own life.

 Baa Baa Black Sheep.  Reading through Flying Tigers, I was intrigued to find that among the pilots of the AVG was Greg “Pappy” Boyington, who I knew was associated with the Black Sheep Squadron, and popularized in the 70s TV show “Baa Baa Black Sheep”, played by Robert Conrad.  I only bothered to watch Season 1, Disc 1, which includes the lengthy pilot.  The pilot gives us the backstory of Boyington (Conrad) washing out of the Flying Tigers, which portrays Chennault as an arrogant bastard stiffing all the AVG pilots.  Boyington manages to weasel his way to be Major, and steals the 214 squadron from Major Buell (Charles Napier), while being crucified for myriad rule book violations by his immediate superior, Colonel Lard, who hates his guts – and the feeling is mutual. The next one up, General Moore, though, is looking out for him.  The Corsairs look authentic and cool, as do the Japanese planes.  For their part, the Japanese aren’t so much “bad guys” (morally challenged or evil) so much as merely “opposing forces”. 

            Eventually, though, it gets fairly cartoonish: Boyington’s only 3 ways of solving a problem are (A) getting wasted on whiskey, (B) getting in a fight (there’s a fight every 10 minutes in this damn show), or (C) bullshitting his way somehow.  The pilots have 70s hairstyles, like “M*A*S*H” and the production and theme song give it an “A-Team” appearance – even down to Boyington’s constant scrapes with Lard, similar to that Colonel Decker who has it out for the A-Team. John Larroquette has a minor role as one of the pilots (he rarely has any lines); Rene Auburjonois, the shapeshifting senior partner from “Boston Legal/Deep Space Nine” has a one-episode role as Hooper, an Aussie who wants to stay alive on an island infested with Japs. 

            Far better than the TV show were Boyington’s memoirs, Baa Baa Black Sheep.  Much of the early part thereof indeed describes his adventures in the AVG, which backs up and complements the Flying Tigers book.  He also has some very unflattering remarks concerning Madame Chiang. 

            His Black Sheep squadron was an ad hoc squadron of various pilots pulled together to operate in the Solomon Islands slot, a line of islands in the South Pacific running from Guadalcanal in the southeast up to Bougainville in the northwest.  His pilots wanted to call it “Boyington’s Bastards”, but he knew the press would never print that name, and didn’t want his name to be part of it anyway.  He simply recalled the children’s nursery rhyme, and used that for the squadron.

            They often attacked the Japanese airstrip at Kahili, doing strafing runs.  The Japanese air controller on the island spoke fluent English without even any accent, trying to trick them into revealing their altitude and strength, but Boyington could tell he was a Jap because the English was TOO good, without any of the jargon, slang and banter the American pilots used amongst themselves.  Finally Boyington taunted the Jap, “come on you yellow bastards, come up here and fight!” to which the Jap responded, “if you are so brave, Major Boyington, come down here and fight us!”

            The Black Sheep Squadron used F4U Corsairs, with their distinctive gull wings, equipped with 6 .50 cal machine guns and a 2000 HP Pratt & Whitney radial engine, up against the Japanese Navy pilots, who were often flying Mitsubishi Zeros.  Boyington referred to the Japanese markings as the “angry red meatball.”

            Boyington describes something which harks back to my Religion blog.  He says he got along well with the chaplains, and the Catholic chaplain explained something very extraordinary.  According to him, the Vatican realized the war was on its way, long before it actually happened.  So the Vatican managed to get the German priests off these Pacific Islands, in a way which avoided tipping them off: they were all promoted and brought back to Rome.

            He liked to drink, of course, but also play cards: but he made it a point not to play with pilots in his own squadron, “for I didn’t like the idea of people firing guns behind me when they owed me money.  I gambled with people I didn’t have to fly with.”

            Boyington was shot down and captured by the Japanese, and went through the whole “Bridge on the River Kwai”/”Papillion” prisoner-of-war deal.  A heavy drinker by his own admission, the ordeal acted as a de facto type of rehab; in some ways his health improved after he recovered from the wounds he received when he was shot down.  He started at Rabaul, went to Saipan, then to Iwo Jima, and finally to mainland Japan, in a special camp outside Yokohama, in Ofuna, which is the Japanese equivalent of Hollywood.  There he met some Japanese guards who were Christian, spoke excellent English, and refused to beat the Allied prisoners – and were beaten instead as a result.  Ironically, he was worried the Japanese would learn of his service in the Flying Tigers and shoot him out of hand.  During his time in captivity the Japanese classified him as a “special captive” and not a prisoner of war, so the Red Cross were never alerted to his captivity and to US forces he remained “missing in action” – and assumed dead - until finally liberated.

            He eventually learned to speak Japanese through this whole ordeal.  Hell, even I learned some Japanese!  “Domai” = “no dice, that’s bad”; “Nunda?” = “what’s going on here?”; “Ah so ka” = “I understand”; “ohio” = “good morning”; “obason” = “Auntie”; “Baykoko” = “United States”; “Yamai” = “stop”; “haitison” = “guards”; “toxon” = “a lot, much”; “baka” or “kanero” = fool.  Perhaps it was the Stockholm Syndrome, but eventually he learned to like the Japanese and get along with most of his captors.  He observed that many of the Japanese officers treated him well, and Japanese civilians, even those in bombed Yokohama, bore him no malice or discrimination.  Boyington even struck up an unlikely friendship with an old woman working in the kitchen at the camp, and she helped him steal food from the guards.  Of course, he also learned much about Japanese, and many of the Jap officers candidly admitted to him that the war had gone in the toilet.

            When Boyington returned to the US, he was treated as a hero, given the Congressional Medal of Honor by Truman himself, and sent on a confusing whirlwind bond raising tour (similar to “Flags of Our Fathers”).  He took up drinking again, and got a fair amount of bad publicity as a result.  Oddly, he found it difficult to find jobs, and finally ended up working selling beer for a brewery and as a referee for professional wrestling.

            Looking back on this, it seems that his tenure with the Black Sheep Squadron is one of the least interesting parts of the whole story, so I wasn’t surprised to learn that the actual veterans of the group were NOT big fans of the 70s TV show.   He was a remarkable man, flawed as he was – but it seems that anyone who met him personally held him in high regard.