as we started to push over about 20 or 30 Jap’s uh jumped us and it started a dog fight that spread all over the sky and maybe 10 miles by 10 miles or something like that and the Japs got on my tail and then I went into this cloud to get away from the Jap on my tail and came back out and here was a here was a zero right in front of me today we’ll hear from lieutenant colonel Henry Mayo ‘Hank’ Bourgeois.

 Bourgeois served in World War 2 as a Marine Corps fighter pilot and was a member of the Black Sheep Squadron The Black Sheep became famous for their numerous successes over the Solomon Islands and their leader lieutenant colonel Gregory ‘Pappy’ Boyington Hank Bourgeois joined the Marine Corps on September 1st, 1941 his 20th birthday the war hadn’t started yet and at that time the um the flight training course to become get your wings and become an officer was about 18 to 20 months when the war started they cut out all the crap and we went down

I was out of there in June in six months and I got my wings my and went to the Marine Corps as a 2nd lieutenant we went out to North Island California by San Diego for fighter training and finished that uh in about December 1st, 1942 and then they put us on a uh lure lean of transport right to the New Caledonia and from there up to Espiritu Santos New Hebrides Group and I joined VMF 122 when I arrived there in late January 1943 and that was my first combat tour and we were on Guadalcanal with flying F4F Wildcats

and they didn’t have too many airplanes and the experienced pilots got all the combat flights but the only thing I did was we had a photographic uh Wildcat and F4 F7 I believe uh and I flew two or three missions over Monda to take photographs and a couple of times the airplane was riddled and the only other mission I can remember in that it was a strafing mission when the navy uh damaged them I think it was a destroyer uh in the Straits there and we went up to strafe it the second combat tour was interesting

because we got brand new not brand new but we got 18 Corsairs and that was a great airplane and I’ll I’ll never forget first time sitting in the cockpit with the handbook reading it and then it says you know push this switch push that switch push that button and then and you know the mechanics there he didn’t see this airplane before either and then that big engine started to run god it was a thrill um had about maybe six or seven hours in that airplane um and the Japs were from their submarines were um launching uh

seaplanes at night to fly reconnaissance flight over the uh naval the harbor there in Espirito Santos so they asked for a volunteer to go up and try and shoot this thing down so being young and enthused I says I’ll go and so I took off one night at dark and they were trying to vector me around with the radar and they they’d get me under this thing and it was a dark night you couldn’t see it but I could see them against the stars but I couldn’t slow down yeah it flew so slow you know I kept passing under it and it vectored me around and came back

I never did get a chance to shoot at it but um that was a thrill in in my first mission in a Corsair uh we were escorting uh dive SPD dive bombers up to uh Bougainville if I remember there were about 18 dive bombers I think we had 16 Corsairs in the air flying uh cover for the uh dive bombers and um we got up there was a big thunderstorm they were they were really after the shipping and there was a big thunderstorm over the harbor so that the alternate was to hit the airfield and as we dive bombers to push over

about 20 or 30 japs uh jumped us and it started a dogfight that you know dogfights spread all over the sky and maybe 10 miles by 10 miles or something like that the Japs got on my tail Lundin Captain Lundin was my leader and he went after a Jap and Jap went after me and then we got separated and then I went into this cloud to get away from the Jap on my tail and came back out and here was a here was a Zero right in front of me I mean you know maybe 100 yards at the most just sitting there I blasted him and uh

he blew up and then I went back into the cloud because they were after me again and and this went on I don’t know for how long but um it was in and out of this cloud and and after I shot two Zeros down that day uh I came out and there was nobody around there wasn’t an airplane in the sky and so I returned to base uh that was my first combat the mission where air to air actually somebody was shooting at me and I’m shooting at them the first Corsairs we got were the F4U ones and that’s before they screwed them up with extra armor

and and all that but they were powerful they were lightweight they had problems with oil leaks and hydraulic leaks but you I can’t I just can’t I have I have about 350 hours on Corsairs and I could get in a Corsair right now today and fly it and and the the early models were unbelievably maneuverable you could bank and turn and and pull hard things climb fast they’d go fast and you know who I really praise is the mechanics on the ground we’d come back from missions they work all night long getting these airplanes ready to go

in the morning they might exchange wings or tails or put a new engine or carburetor magneto or whatever it was but I never had a bad airplane it it’s kind of interesting there’s a picture in in that book over there beside number cause there are 13 on Monday I seem to have flown that Corsair side No. 13 most of the times and you can see it has a bunch of holes of it and I was a running backer got shot up in that airplane that airplane always seemed to be a little faster a little smoother a little better trimmed

than all the rest of the airplanes and it’s hard to explain it’s like racing cars I guess some are great some are not so great we usually had about 18 airplanes assigned uh at one time and you had 24 pilots or 26 whatever it was and you rarely had more than 16 airplanes in commission some of them on the ground you know waiting parts or whatever it was and Frank Walton would assign the airplanes you know and I assigned the airplane No.

 22 13 7 or whatever happened to be that’s the airplane you flew that day um and but you didn’t nobody had an airplane assigned to him uh specifically I’ve I’ve read some articles where people like Walsh I believe uh claims that he had his cause air all the time whether he did or not hard to believe uh but we didn’t we flew whatever was available the Zero um you know we were um briefed early uh that it was a you know fast maneuverable airplane and that you just didn’t get involved in a dog fight where you’re trying to out turn him

because there’s no way you could do it any you’d always try and keep speed and dive away if he was on your tail but it had a one vulnerability it had no self sealing gas tanks or armor plate and if you could get a burst of fire into that airplane it was gonna go down John Bull he he got interested in in armament how how you load the uh rounds in a machine gun and he came up with I can’t remember like a incendiary uh armor piercing a tracer and something rather it was brand new concept and he spent a lot of time with the ordnance people

making sure the guns were all zeroed in at about 200 yards or whatever it was and I tell you it when you hit a Japanese Zero or any airplane with six 50 caliber machine guns that is a lot of firepower because many fire so fast you just the airplane explode you’d knock a wing off or tail off or I’ll kill the pilot I guess my attitude and and and and the people in my flight was um you know kill the bastards um you know and we talked about do you shoot them in a parachute I couldn’t do that but you know we talked about and

but you know long as you hit the airplane knocked them down got the pilot out everybody was happy but I know there were some people that um uh you know shot at them and uh in a parachute in the water things like that but um and there was some tragedies um you know like uh Bill Case uh in one one mission in VMF 122 uh we were escorting B24’s.

uh and some unexpected Corsairs came in to join the escort and he he didn’t know there were Corsairs and he just pulled over and fired at one fortunately uh it uh it didn’t do any real damage other than some holes in the airplane but then then we lost Alexander and VMF 214 when he mistakenly shot at a one of our PT boats and they shot back and and knocked him down and there was another mission where I was my division was assigned to to strafe some Japanese island bases that were really deserted but lousy weather coming back

and the last man in the division saw a what looked like a barge going through the water and he just pulled off and started strafing it but it was ours and you know you make mistakes I joined VMF-122 when I arrived there in late January 1943 and that was my first combat tour and I flew two combat tours with VMF-122 and then that squadron was rotated home you had to have in those days three uh combat tours and then you were eligible to go home and I was I was in a pool of pilots and at that time Boington was designated to be the commanding officer of

newly designated 214 and he went through the pool and he picked out pilots who had combat experience and since I had had two combat tours and had shot down some Jap’s I was one of the people that he picked and that’s how I became a member of VMF-214 the Black Sheep when you were assigned to 214 what were your initial impressions of Major Boyington had you heard about him before well when when I went over to the islands he was he was a senior officer on the transport I first met him um just before Christmas 1943

and there was always parties and Boyington was there I didn’t know who he was at the time he was just introduced as Greg and that was the first time I met him and then when we were uh transferred to go overseas it turned out that he was the senior officer in the pilot replacement pool aboard the ship and that’s when I I first got to to know him because he liked to play bridge and I like to pay bridge and so we you know it was 17 or 18 days getting over to New Caledonia so we played a lot of bridge on the way

uh he had bought along a case of Scotch whiskey for some friend general friend out there but I think he drank it all up on the way so and that’s when I I liked him you know but um when he we got on the islands out there he seemed to do a lot of drinking and he really was not an administrator on the ground and and whatever squadron it was in it was really run by either executive officer or some administrative officer and in the Black Sheep squadron it was Frank Walton who was intelligence officer and he really ran the the ground part of the squadron

and um and Boyington it just seemed to you know be kind of plastered and drunk most of the time sometimes when he took off in the morning he just staggered out an airplane but uh in the air god I’ll tell you it was something I can remember flying dawn patrols and with him and you would go up there and there’s really nothing to do but just circle around for two hours and hoping if the Japanese came down to to you know bomb under you might get something and it was nothing to do so you’d get bored with making circles

and we’d start doing loops and rolls and over wing overs and anything else just to and if god by the time he ended up he was sweating like mad trying to keep up with him but he was a brilliant pilot very aggressive in anything he did on the ground hand to hand fight or anything like that on the lower link going over uh there was a Marine Raider battalion being transferred out to the Pacific and every day up on the recreation deck they would practice hand to hand fighting and boxing everything and he was right in the middle of it all the time

uh he whether his opponent was a corporal or sergeant or another major it didn’t make any difference he’d do his best to beat him to the ground he just seem to have a a will to win in everything on the ground you know fighting or arguing or in the air with an airplane and he certainly in the airplane uh field was uh extremely capable pilot uh you know he he was really something it is kind of interesting that combat tour we never even though we supposedly had a division um you know I had a I was a division leader

being an experienced combat pilot and I had a wingman Bill Higher and then um a two other wing a second section and they weren’t that’s the way we went up and but when we get up there you never had enough airplanes and you’d get a mission in the morning or a mission we usually flew two missions a day uh and you go on Frank Walton would say hey look you’re gonna fly this you’re gonna fly that and and boeington I had a reputation for having extremely good eyesight which I did in those days and uh Boyington was anxious to um

to you know find japs to shoot down because sometimes we go up on fighter missions and sweeps and there wouldn’t be a Japanese in the air so one day he says Bourgeois you are leading the mission today and he was flying on my wing and we went up and that’s the way he was you know he was aggressive and he wanted to get into some sort of action and that day we went up there and and we’re right over Bougainville area and I’m looking up and there are two Japs way up high and two Japs way down low and um I I told the leader of the other division

I said you take the two up there and I’ll take the two down there and we rolled over we never could catch these two guys they they went into a cloud and disappeared and when we got back point and shoot my fanny out he says why didn’t you just stay there and let them come at us so we could get them and but that’s the way he was he was really aggressive when when you get in combat with people uh you’re depending upon each other uh and your friends I mean I don’t think there was anybody that did anything you know like robbed a bank or um

chased girls’cause there’s no girls out there but um you you become a it’s hard to explain I guess it’s like a football team that works together uh and they develop a comradeship where they wanna win they wanna do well and uh and in VMF 122 and 214 it was the same way but it seemed to be more so in 214 uh and and I attribute that to um we had about three or four singers that every night you know after the flying was over the doctor would give us a couple of brandies and you’d sit around and and and sing and and some of these guys are pretty good and

you know you sit around close and and working together it’s kind of impressive the when the squadron was organized and and we all knew we were going to be assigned to VMF-214 we got together and talked and and you know we ought to have a a squadron name and Frank Walton encouraged that and the guy says why don’t we call ourselves Boyington’s bastards and Walton says no no he says the papers will not put that in their papers back home you gotta think about something else so they argued about it for a while and

and they saw that it was Boyington’s Black Sheep and which you know the bastard stripe with that type thing and they had finally asked an artist he was a Marine correspondent I believe to draw up a shield with uh with the bastard stripe and you know the rest of the thing and so that’s how you know it was accepted and and it’s been that way ever since I was only there in the first combat tour okay that was from September about 6 to October whenever we finished first combat tour and I don’t remember any correspondence or any

you know big deal uh at that time Frank Walton and I didn’t know this was sending all kinds of press releases back to the United States to everybody’s hometown in fact he sent them to The Times Picayune in New Orleans and uh God I when I came home I was a hero and I didn’t didn’t even know what was going on and you know um so he did that to everybody and I think that stirred up interest in Boyington because he began you know his first mission he shot down five Zeros and then got a few more and and began to build uh

you know his uh his lead uh his quantity is that is and and Walton um you know always enter that in in every press release so and I think that stirred the interest of correspondents and when the squadron went back for its second combat tour then that’s when they hounded him up there the day Bolton got his 5 I was I was in that mess I shot at things but I really didn’t do anything it was another big melee but one thing that came out of that I’d like to was um when the fight broke up and you scatter all over you know

you don’t know where they are and I’m heading back to Monday and all of a sudden traces came by my airplane I’m looking in the rearview mirror and there’s a Zero back there so and you know I was wasn’t going too fast but I throttled it everything forward you know full throttle and everything and and this Zero was closing up on me and uh he’s shooting me didn’t hit the airplane and so one of the things you do in a in a Corsair to get away from a Zero’s you dive because you out speed him so I dove down on the deck

and this guy stayed right with me and um and you know I got every make this airplane go fast you close the the all the flaps the cooling flaps and the oil flaps and everything else and he’s still sneaking up on me and every once in a while he’d lob in some cannon shells or whatever it was and I realized I wasn’t headed back towards my base I was going at an angle away for it and I’m getting on getting kind of low on gas and I decided I’m gonna have to fight this guy so I’ve you know I’m ready to turn around and do whatever I can

and all of a sudden the Zero pulls off and flies away in 1973 after I retired from the Marine Corps I was working for the Singer Company in one of the aerospace divisions and they sent me to Japan to uh help uh one of the Mitsubishi divisions that was producing our gyros and things to plan for the future their vice president of marketing was a retired uh Japanese Air Force General Sugawara and we got to talking about the war and he and I became friendly because he likes to hunt and I like to hunt and in fact he

he got me a custom made shotgun while I was there which was impossible for somebody to do and so you know we talked about the war and he’d been invited back to the United States to New Jersey to view our factory and how we did things and I said bring me a logbook and I’ll check my logbook and we went back we looked at a logbook and that was a guy that day that was trying to shoot me down and it was interesting we became lifelong friends I took him duck and goose hunting in Maryland on the Eastern Shore and that night we went to dinner

and I’ve been picking up the tabs all the time so he picked up the tab we had a few snorts and then it was over he turned to me and he says thanks son he says you know I’m sure glad I didn’t shoot you down in 1976 a popular television series was produced loosely based on Pappy Boyington’s book and members of the squadron continued to gather at reunions for decades after World War 2 out of the 54 in the first into the two combat tours we’re getting down to a few in fact I wonder who’s gonna fly the last mission