of course, I was also an enormous fan of the show. which? led me to research the REAL squadron. (to the annoyance of most of me English teachers who had to withstand a bombardment of research papers about the subject)
Let’s say? real life? WAY more interesting than hollywood
his book, awesome - highly recommend
just a quick web roundup will show more -
Somewhere I have a picture of me and Masajiro “Mike” Kawato, the fellow who shot down Pappy Boyington. I met him at some airshow or another.
I was about to make this recommendation. I loved this show as a kid, and just happened upon this very paperback in a thrift shop last year.
It is a thrilling warts-and-all read and Boyington offers some real frank talk about his drinking problem after the war.
3 of my favorite shows from my childhood: MAS*H, The Rat Patrol, and Black Sheep Squadron. I ended up joining the Army…perhaps I was influenced 
Seriously a fantastic show.
I remember sitting around with my Dad watching this on the weekend. Usually on the rare occasion when my delaying tactics worked and we missed going to church 
That show did not age well. After viewing it as an adult, I can now say that my favorite TV show of childhood is a million times dumber than I remembered. Too fictionalized for it’s own good. If you enjoy hokey plots and gratuitous brawls with military police with no consequences, maybe you can stomach it. The planes are beautiful but we have youtube now, thanks. The book on the other hand is a fun read. Another title, Once They Were Eagles is an even truer account of The Black Sheep Squadron.
My mom went drinking with Greg Boyington a few times after the war. She also dated Frank Sinatra once or twice when she was 19 and he was 32 or so. You’d never know it if you met her, but she’d been around the block a time or two.
Agree the book was great, read it in HS. Other great similar reads are “God is my Co-pilot” by another Flying Tiger, and The Ragged Rugged Warriors by Martin Caiden, about the early air war in the Pacific when our planes were far inferior to the Zero, and too few. I was a plane geek, built models, and read Aviation Week. Favorite model ever was a balsa and tissue P-40, rubber band powered.
Also one of my favorite shows as a kid. Loved the Corsair. Anxious about watching it again for the reasons Built2Spill says. Several years ago I put it in my Netflix queue, it was listed as very long wait for about a year and then it was simply removed to the saved for later section. I’d understand not having it on streaming, but considering the long tail in their DVD selection it’s a little puzzling that they don’t have it at all.
Speaking of Pappy Boyington, in some educational materials I got from my elementary school teaching grandfather, I had a little thin plastic 45 with stories about his exploits. I guess a teacher would have played it in class back then? (I got it in the early 70s, so it was from some unknown number of years before that) I guess education was a little different back then. Hard to imagine listening to recordings of an old war hero’s stories happening these days. After all, it’s probably not on the Standardized Test.
That really was the single greatest TV show opening ever, you ask me.
(Yeah, I know it’s not all there. Just the “we are poor little lambs who have lost our way, baa baa baa” is enough.)
I was considering posting that video but decided the extra animations hurt, but the music is great. Tony the Tiger great.
I couldn’t find the relatively clean version I saw a few months ago. I should have downloaded it. I hadn’t heard that theme since I was a kid, and I remembered every note of it.
Theme songs used to be so wonderful. I haven’t seen a tv show or movie with a theme or soundtrack I much cared for in ages.
Last week I got this stuck in my head. I was driving the dogs crazy walking around singing it over and over for hours.
@jlw Ugh! Stop reminding me of my favorite TV shows from when I was a kid, I don’t have the money to buy em all or the space to store the boxes.
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