20th Century U.S. Military: Gregory "Pappy" Boyington and the "Black Sheep" Squadron, World War II Medal of Honor Winner and American Hero

This electronic book on CD-ROM presents the story of an American fighting hero, Marine Colonel "Pappy" Boyington and his “Black Sheep” squadron. Boyington is the greatest living ace in the Vought F4U Corsair and winner of the Medal of Honor. Born in Idaho in 1914, he was an ROTC cadet while in college and entered the Coastal Artillery as a second lieutenant soon after graduation. He transferred to the Marine Corps Reserve in 1935 and was released to inactive duty until 1936 when he accepted an appointment as an aviation cadet. Boyington completed flight training the following year and flew with the Marine Corps until August 1941 when he resigned his commission to join the American Volunteer Group (AVG) in China. While with the famed "Flying Tigers," he became a squadron commander, flew over 300 combat hours, and shot down six Japanese aircraft. The AVG disbanded in July 1942, and Boyington was soon reinstated as a major in the Marine Corps. In August 1943, he formed Fighter Squadron VMF-214 to fly Corsairs in the Pacific Theater. He manned his unit with misfits, leftouts, replacements, and "green" pilots, all of which contributed to the now famous name "Black Sheep Squadron." Called "Pappy" by his younger subordinates, Boyington quickly proved his skills as a commander and whipped his Black Sheep into a tough combat unit that destroyed 18 enemy aircraft on their first combat mission, which was over the Japanese-held island of Bougainville. On that mission, "Pappy" scored five aerial victories and, within just 32 days, shot down a total of 14 enemy planes. In January 1944, he was reported missing in action after leading his unit on a fighter sweep over heavily defended Rabaul. Although it was not known until the end of the war, Boyington had been shot down and taken prisoner. He remained a POW for 20 months until his release on 29 August 1945. After Boyington s return home, President Truman awarded him the Medal of Honor for heroic actions as commander of the Black Sheep Squadron. Colonel Boyington retired from the Marine Corps in 1947. This CD-ROM is packed with over 15,000 pages reproduced using Adobe Acrobat PDF software - allowing direct viewing on Windows and Macintosh systems. The Acrobat cataloging technology adds enormous value and uncommon functionality to this impressive collection of government documents and material. Our news and educational discs are privately compiled collections of official public domain U.S. government files and documents - they are not produced by the federal government. They are designed to provide a convenient user-friendly reference work, utilizing the benefits of the Adobe Acrobat format to uniformly present thousands of pages that can be rapidly reviewed, searched by finding specific words, or printed without untold hours of tedious research and downloading.