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3.8 AVERAGE
3.8 AVERAGE
informative
medium-paced
adventurous
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
I listened to this audiobook to fulfill a reading challenge. It was recommended by my brother who is a lover of all things WW2 and airplanes. As is typical with this type of book, you kind of need to plow through 10-15 chapters of slightly boring background details to get to the good stuff.
adventurous
reflective
medium-paced
Personalized account of several historic events. flying tigers, Black sheep squadron, Japanese prisoner of war. My uncle was also a guest of the Japanese during the war, I couldn't help wondering if he had read this.
adventurous
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Incredibly racist and dated, Boyington gives straight dope on the 'Flying Tigers,' the Marine air war, and the reality of Japanese POW camps.
I've been told the TV show Baa, Baa Black Sheep was not very good. I don't know. When it was on, I was too busy enjoying it to notice.
I think that may be the case here - one thing I can say for sure is that the book was not ghost written. God bless him, but the man was not a gifted writer. He was a gifted flyer and fighter. The book is probably not "good," but I enjoyed it too much to notice.
And if you want to round out your vision of the myth with some facts, this book will help you. Flyers were in combat zones for short periods - 6 or 12 weeks or something. He did most of his flying in one half (the second half) of 1943, was shot down in the first days of 1944, and spent the rest of the war in a secret Japanese prison camp where they kept 'special prisoners' that they didn't tell the Red Cross about. Boyington was missing in action, presumed killed, until two weeks after the war ended.
He also struggled with booze, and it's clear Alcoholics Anonymous philosophies directed his approach to life at the time he wrote the book.
If you love Corsairs, and enjoyed the TV show, and thought it was so cool that the show had actual combat from the wing cameras, this book is pretty much a must-read. If you have an autographed picture of "Pappy" with his squadron because your uncle was in the Marines and served in the Pacific in WW II and knew him, then you already enjoyed this book. I have to bug my wife to let me hang up that picture.
I think that may be the case here - one thing I can say for sure is that the book was not ghost written. God bless him, but the man was not a gifted writer. He was a gifted flyer and fighter. The book is probably not "good," but I enjoyed it too much to notice.
And if you want to round out your vision of the myth with some facts, this book will help you. Flyers were in combat zones for short periods - 6 or 12 weeks or something. He did most of his flying in one half (the second half) of 1943, was shot down in the first days of 1944, and spent the rest of the war in a secret Japanese prison camp where they kept 'special prisoners' that they didn't tell the Red Cross about. Boyington was missing in action, presumed killed, until two weeks after the war ended.
He also struggled with booze, and it's clear Alcoholics Anonymous philosophies directed his approach to life at the time he wrote the book.
If you love Corsairs, and enjoyed the TV show, and thought it was so cool that the show had actual combat from the wing cameras, this book is pretty much a must-read. If you have an autographed picture of "Pappy" with his squadron because your uncle was in the Marines and served in the Pacific in WW II and knew him, then you already enjoyed this book. I have to bug my wife to let me hang up that picture.
I'm not normally a major reader of war memoirs, but Greg "Pappy" Boyington's story of his experiences as a fighter pilot during WWII (including commanding the famous Black Sheep Squadron) and his time spent in a Japanese POW camp was a fascinating read. Blunt, honest, and witty, with self-deprecating humor and understated heroics aplenty, this autobio left me with stars in my eyes, muttering "What a guy" in amazement at both his nerve (the man was a self-confessed troublemaker) and his bravery.