Les têtes brûlées

Black Sheep Squadron is a series that is fascinating to watch, over and over. I first started watching it on the History Channel and have numerous tapes that are wearing out from use. These are quite interesting since they contain the comments of the original Black Sheep members, as well as some by Conrad.

The stories, for the most part, are quite interesting and the acting is top-notch. Conrad is a seasoned actor going back many years and does very well in all sorts of roles, including this one. Clyde Kusatsu in his role as a captured Zero pilot was believable and has been in many other movies since. The regulars...Dana Elcar, Robert Ginty, W. K. Stratton, Simon Oakland, James Whitmore, Jr. were well-placed in their roles.

I remember i was just a kid when i came home from some where and the first episode came on and i watched it with my grand dad i was hooked from then on. my grand dad remembered the black sheep from his days on Guadalcanal and told me about the real Boyington and the black sheep. we knew the TV show was pretty much hokam but we enjoyed the spirit of the show and how good it made us feel. i later was given a copy of the book pappy wrote by my grand mother and i would build corsairs from kits and hang them in my room. i never got to meet pappy before he died but if i ever get back to Arlington national cemetery i will go to his grave as i do grand dads and say a word of thanks. i was also lucky to grow up not far from the little town where Audie Murphy was born in Kingston Texas. and my other favorite military person was general George s Patton Ole blood and guts himself. it is too bad we do not have those type of men around any more but to them all a heartfelt thanks. they were in deed the greatest generation.

While the Movie and T.V. show did have some inaccuracies it did provide a thrilling show that I love to this day. When I was small I would sneak up to my room just so I could See "Pappy" and the "Black Sheep" Squadron every week and since as an adult have become intensely interested in history and the role that these true American heroes played in making this a free country. I wish that everyone could see this show.

I watch this every day on the History Channel. Great show, maybe not the most historically accurate, but you get a sense of what life was like for these young pilots in the Pacific. Gutterman and Pappy are my favorite characters. Most everyone with a speaking role in the series carved out a nitche for himself and made his character fairly memorable. This is a show the whole family can watch together and learn a little about WW2. One thing I like about the History Channel is that each commercial break has a blurb from a real member of the Black Sheep Squadron giving insights into areas where the show is not accurate.

Why did they cancel this show?? The show went WAY down hill with the addition of the T&A factor (aka Pappy's Lambs). What was a pathetic attempt to boost ratings further detracted from the historical accurateness of the show by depicting woman with no acting talent, often scantily dressed, with 70s hairstyles positioned on the front lines in WW2. Pappy Boyington was a technical advisor to the show and should have put a stop to this!!!

Attention Hollywood: Pappy Boyington and his brave men would make an excellent feature film. The TV series just scratches the surface of the adventures of the Black Sheep.

With the passing of Robert Conrad and H&I showing the show again I wanted to comment on it. This is one of the first shows I remember watching because my Grandfather served with the actual Boyington during WW2 and we watched several eps shortly before he died.

I read Boyington's autobiography when I was a young teen. Needless to say the show isn't accurate, and was said by former members of the unit in the 80s at a reunion and the former members expressed great displeasure at Boyington. My Grandfather's overlap of service was limited as he was in the Army Air Corps and knew him from base overlap and because he was a mechanic which was as important as pilots because of limited replacement parts.

So while the show was inaccurate, it was generally inspiring (I believe one of the reasons I enlisted when I was 17) and entertaining. Today if I want history, I've got the History and Military Channels, so all one needs to do is expect it to entertain which it does. I'd make it akin to MASH which certainly wasn't real either, but was entertaining.

What a lot of people won't remember is the time period when this was on being post-Vietnam and there was a negative attitude towards the service that post 9/11 isn't remembered by many (I served in the late 80s and Desert Storm and the military was viewed positively in my opinion by most then, but not as high as after 9/11).

so watch it for what it's meant to be, entertainment.