Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1019713 in Books
• Published on: 2003-04-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 512 pages

Synopsis
The myth of Pappy Boyington and his Black Sheep has long overshadowed their courageous World War II service. This first full biography of the popular historic figure finally sets the record straight without losing site of how colourful Boyington and his men truly were. - The complete and true story of Pappy Boyington and his famous Black Sheep. - Excellent World War II memoir

Customer Reviews

A Blackening Too Far
Having read this book I am left puzzled as to why it was written at all. Greg Boyington was a remarkable man: human dynamo, survivor, serial womaniser and heavy drinker. Add to this a difficult childhood and the pressures of media stardom as a war hero, and you have the makings of a great subject for a biography.

But it’s impossible to write a good biography if you cannot empathize with, or at least understand, your subject. If you positively loathe them and find them uncomfortable to deal with, write about something else instead. Our bookshelves contain enough pious disapproval and jealousy of great men as it is.

Bruce Gamble has an axe to grind. This is not a warts-and-all biography: it’s an assassination.

Greg Boyington was far from perfect, but he was a charismatic leader who set himself the highest standards. There is little doubt that he failed continually to achieve them, but he rose above his alcoholism and his personal demons to fight and win someone else’s war. He deserves much better than this.

Boyington dared to be controversial and original, to try to make something of himself despite his handicaps. Gamble gives him no credit and seems determined to diminish the man.

What did Greg Boyington do or say to provoke this and other books written by Gamble?

Why Black the Black Sheep?
Greg Boyington was many things: war hero; ladies' man; alcoholic; painter; writer; manipulative liar. But he was charismatic and possessed of a winning combination of energy and brute force that made him irrestible, irrepressible and often unbearable. As with most driven leaders of men, the devils that provide the motive force are complex and rooted in a very unhappy past.

The author of this book surely did not know Boyington. If they met at all, it led to little insight. This is a two-dimensional and bland study, peppered with truisms and tainted with prudish disapproval of the subject and his alcoholism. There is no admiration and not a speck of affection in this book. Perhaps Boyington did not deserve any, but nor did he deserve this. A great deal of research and a lot of effort have been poured into this negative appraisal that piffles the reader with detail and pseudo-analysis but fails utterly to bring the character of Boyington to life.

This is a bleak book written for reasons that I cannot fathom.

Boyington was enough of a human dynamo to inspire several books, including some rather colourful output of his own. If it's information you want, read this book; but if you are looking for a sympathetic portrait of a difficult man in a difficult war, I recommend that you start elsewhere.