Pappy Boyington - Later Life

Later Life

Boyington was a tough, hard-living character who was known for being unorthodox. He was also a heavy drinker, which plagued him in the years after the war, and possibly contributed to his multiple divorces. He freely admitted that during the two years he spent as a P.O.W. his health improved, due to the enforced sobriety. He worked various civilian jobs, including refereeing and participating in professional wrestling matches.

Many people know of him from the mid-1970s television show Baa Baa Black Sheep, a drama about the Black Sheep squadron based very loosely on Boyington's memoir of the same name, with Boyington portrayed by Robert Conrad. Like Chuck Yeager in the movie The Right Stuff, Pappy had a short walk-on role, as a visiting general during the second season of the show. Many of Boyington's men were irate over this show, charging it was mostly fiction and presented a glamorized portrayal of Boyington. At least on the television show, Boyington was depicted as owning a bull terrier dog, named "Meatball." However, he was heard commenting at a 1970s Experimental Aircraft Association air show book signing that if he did have a dog at the time, it wouldn't have been such "an ugly" dog. Boyington frequently informed interviewers and audiences that the television series was fiction, and only loosely related to actual history, calling it "hogwash and Hollywood hokum".

In addition to his autobiography, Boyington wrote a novel about the AVG. Tonya is a spy story with characters who evoked actual individuals, sometimes by transposing the syllables of their names ("Ross Dicky" for Dick Rossi, for example).

While artist depictions and publicity photos often show Boyington with aircraft number 86 "LuluBelle" covered in victory flags, this was not his combat aircraft. In fact, he rarely flew the same aircraft more than a few times. It has been said that he would choose the F4U in the worst shape, so none of his pilots would be afraid of flying their own aircraft.

The publicity photo taken of Boyington in F4U-1A Corsair number 86 was taken at Espiritu Santo (code named BUTTON), in the New Hebrides on 26 November 1943. The photo was taken while VMF-214 was on R&R, between VMF-214s first and second combat tours with Boyington as the Commanding Officer. Although Boyington claimed after the war that the name of the plane in the publicity photo was "LuluBelle," in light of Bruce Gamble's analysis, it was most likely named "LucyBelle". VMF-214 had previously served two combat tours in the Solomon Islands before Boyington assumed command of the squadron.

He visited the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration, and Storage Facility, coincidentally just as the Museum's F4U Corsair left the restoration shop. According to docents who witnessed the incident, Boyington climbed into the cockpit "for old time's sake" and attempted to start the engine. He autographed the Corsair with a magic marker in one of the landing gear wells; saying, in effect, that it was a Corsair in the best condition he'd ever seen. Years later that same Corsair hangs from the ceiling at the NASM Dulles Annex, and Boyington's autograph is visible from floor level to the sharp-eyed.

In 1957, he appeared as a guest challenger on the television panel show "To Tell The Truth".

Boyington was an absentee father to three children by his first wife. One daughter (Janet Boyington) committed suicide; one son (Gregory Boyington, Jr.) graduated from the United States Air Force Academy in 1960, and later retired from the Air Force holding the rank of Lieutenant colonel.