Does he deserve a field named after him? Yes. As if you look at his history of not only his accomplishments, you will see some great object lessons in what not to do in the area of flying safety. So if you stop and think about that for a second,it is part of your flying safety brief.

He fought hard, endured being a POW of the Japanese no less and that should be enough. And with all that, you can find some excellent examples of his combat leadership.

Alcoholic? He himself admitted as much. For war, he was definitely the “break glass in case of emergency” kind of guy.

He has the Medal of Honor to his name, lets honor him.

Semper Fi

I noticed that the originial post reported Boyinton’s aerial victories total as 28 which he has been officially credited with by the Marine Corps. However, Gamble writes that Boyington may have shot down only two planes in China as part of the AVG instead of the six he is credited with. Boyington was paid for two aerial victories and 3.75 planes destroyed on the ground which he rounded up to four. If this is correct, it means Boyington actually places third behind Robert Hansen (25) and Joe Foss (26) among Marine Corps aces.

Boyington’s Marine combat record is still very impressive, and I don’t understand the problem of naming an airport after him.

I would really recommend Bruce Gamble’s “The Black Sheep” to anyone interested in Boyington’s story, or that of VMF-214. It’s not very complimentary to Boyington, but highly worthwhile whether you’ve read Boyington’s autobiography or not.

So was Teddy Kennedy. And most of Hollywood. And none among them were awarded The Congressional Medal of Honor, or suffered through captivity as a POW at the hands of the Japanese.

Boyington isn’t the only loose cannon the Marine Corps produced out of that war and others. But nothing he did or failed at after the war diminishes his accomplishments or the courage it took to do what he did.