Adventures In Re-Imagination
Aug. 8th, 2011 12:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
frustratedpilotThis MAY be the start of a series...
BLACK SHEEP SQUADRON (Reimagined)
Anybody else think that Charlie Sheen, now that he's no longer on that sitcom with Jon Cryer and the 1/2 Man, would be perfect to portray Gregory "Pappy" Boyington? He even looks closer to the real man than Robert Conrad did in the 1970s series! Of course, we aren't going for a HOT SHOTS! prequel comedy...more like BAND OF BROTHERS. Closer to the actual history than the original TV series was.
The story, for those who never saw the original: Boyington was a fighter pilot who started when warplanes were still covered in canvas and open to the elements. (His original callsign was "Rats".) He left the Marine Corps months before Pearl Harbor to join the Flying Tigers in China, and had enough success with them to be given a squadron command. But then he blew the job just as the Regular Army was in the process of taking over the Tigers once America officially entered the war with Japan. Sent back Stateside, he suffered the dual shame of being dismissed from command for good cause, and for being in a unit the Regular soldiers called "chicken".
He re-entered the Marines, and with help from old buddies still in the Corps, he went back into action with the Cactus Air Force (the scratch multi-service task unit on Guadalcanal), mainly as a wingmate for other aces. After that tour ended, he arranged, with more abetting from his old friends, to steal command of a new squadron that was being formed and crew it with men in similar situations to his own--those the Regular Forces would have rather kept "safely out of trouble". With the latest fighter available--the F4U Corsair--the Black Sheep went into action and began re-writing the rules of air combat against the Japanese.
It was a meteoric tour of duty, only a few months in the fall and winter of 1943. The press loved the Black Sheep much more than the other American combat men in the area did, who loved them much more than the American commanders did, who loved them only slightly more than the enemy did. Pappy earned his redemption, becoming the top ace of the Marines--but paid for it. He was shot down while trying to save one of his own from getting killed, and was captured. He spent the rest of the War in a prison camp, while his men didn't know if he was alive.
The combination of his loss and the air action moving closer to Japan meant the Marines could rotate the Black Sheep out of theater. The squadron was disbanded, and then reformed with one of the original Black Sheep as the commander. They would be based on the carrier USS Franklin for the assault on Okinawa--their ship was hit by enemy bombers and half the men killed while they were being briefed for a mission. There has been a Black Sheep Squadron in the Marines ever since, and it has gone into action again and again, notably in the Korean War and Desert Storm.
BLACK SHEEP SQUADRON (Reimagined)
Anybody else think that Charlie Sheen, now that he's no longer on that sitcom with Jon Cryer and the 1/2 Man, would be perfect to portray Gregory "Pappy" Boyington? He even looks closer to the real man than Robert Conrad did in the 1970s series! Of course, we aren't going for a HOT SHOTS! prequel comedy...more like BAND OF BROTHERS. Closer to the actual history than the original TV series was.
The story, for those who never saw the original: Boyington was a fighter pilot who started when warplanes were still covered in canvas and open to the elements. (His original callsign was "Rats".) He left the Marine Corps months before Pearl Harbor to join the Flying Tigers in China, and had enough success with them to be given a squadron command. But then he blew the job just as the Regular Army was in the process of taking over the Tigers once America officially entered the war with Japan. Sent back Stateside, he suffered the dual shame of being dismissed from command for good cause, and for being in a unit the Regular soldiers called "chicken".
He re-entered the Marines, and with help from old buddies still in the Corps, he went back into action with the Cactus Air Force (the scratch multi-service task unit on Guadalcanal), mainly as a wingmate for other aces. After that tour ended, he arranged, with more abetting from his old friends, to steal command of a new squadron that was being formed and crew it with men in similar situations to his own--those the Regular Forces would have rather kept "safely out of trouble". With the latest fighter available--the F4U Corsair--the Black Sheep went into action and began re-writing the rules of air combat against the Japanese.
It was a meteoric tour of duty, only a few months in the fall and winter of 1943. The press loved the Black Sheep much more than the other American combat men in the area did, who loved them much more than the American commanders did, who loved them only slightly more than the enemy did. Pappy earned his redemption, becoming the top ace of the Marines--but paid for it. He was shot down while trying to save one of his own from getting killed, and was captured. He spent the rest of the War in a prison camp, while his men didn't know if he was alive.
The combination of his loss and the air action moving closer to Japan meant the Marines could rotate the Black Sheep out of theater. The squadron was disbanded, and then reformed with one of the original Black Sheep as the commander. They would be based on the carrier USS Franklin for the assault on Okinawa--their ship was hit by enemy bombers and half the men killed while they were being briefed for a mission. There has been a Black Sheep Squadron in the Marines ever since, and it has gone into action again and again, notably in the Korean War and Desert Storm.
